Internet Marketing for CPAs: Blogging to Attract Leads

Today, even a beautiful, informative website is not enough to attract new leads. Right now your potential clients are searching the internet for quality content in the form of timely, authoritative accounting advice and industry news.

So how do CPAs establish their firm as a local voice of authority? Inbound marketing—a content-driven internet marketing strategy—gives you several platforms to showcase your expertise and improves your search engine ranking (SEO).

One crucial element of effective inbound marketing is blogging. However, your blog should not be a place where you post a few articles and then hope the content ranks in search engines. Blogging is an on-going marketing tool to help meet your firm’s objectives.

Internet marketing for CPAs means meeting company objectives that include

·         delighting your current customers with ongoing, quality accounting advice, which will cause them to endorse your services to friends and family;

·         becoming an invaluable resource for taxpayers in your town;

·         establishing your reputation as an expert; and

·         attracting new customers.

To help accomplish these goals, CPAs must include weekly blogging in their marketing strategy. In this article, you will learn why you must publish high-quality posts every week and how to optimize each post for search engines.

Why CPAs Must Blog

It’s simple: Regular blogging means you are creating new content for search engines to “crawl”. And if you optimize your articles with keywords, you will see not only an increase in traffic but also in qualified visitors.

Content marketing is the solution for today’s marketers, and if your competition isn’t already blogging, they soon will be. So, let’s get started.

Create a List of Keywords

Keywords are words and phrases that people will type into a search engine to find accounting advice in your area. The most effective keywords are long-tailed ones that are two to four words long. Create a hierarchical list of long-tailed keywords that best represent your services or those that will be popular blog topics. Be sure to include your town name, state, or county in some of them.

Here is a sample list to help you get started:

1.       2015 tax preparation

2.       North Carolina tax tips

3.       Dare County accountants

4.       2015 income tax tips

5.       small business accounting advice

6.       Nags Head tax consulting

7.       NC income tax tips

8.       federal income tax preparation

Over time, you will likely revise your list after you study which keywords generate the most web traffic. Install a tracking analytics service, such as Google’s. Google offers a basic analytics service that is free, plus an option for more in-depth features for a fee.

Use your long-tailed keywords in the following ways:

·         Article URLs: For example, instead of publishing a blog post URL such as “www.cpacompany.com/tax-tips,” use specific titles like “www.cpacompany.com/2015-nc-tax-tips.” Separate keyword terms with hyphens, not spaces or underscores.

·         Article Titles: Title your posts with specific terms. For example, use “2015 NC Tax Tips for Small Businesses” instead of “Tax Tips.” Never use obscure, vague, or “clever” titles for the sake of creativity—it is important to be clear, not only for your users but also for search engines.

·         Article Text: Place your keywords in the first or second sentence of each article. Then use the same phrase a couple more times within the page. Be sure that you do not stuff a post with key terms as your content might be identified as “spammy” by search engines.

·         Image Titles:  Title image file names with keywords. For example, instead of using the default image title automatically created by your camera, such as “IMG12345.jpg,” name it “income-tax-tips.jpg.” Also, never leave spaces in your image titles, always separate words with hyphens.

·         Image Tags: If you have a content management website such as WordPress™, make sure that you fill in the “alt” tag option with keywords (up to four words). Alternate tags not only help improve your site’s SEO, these tags describe images to blind users.

·         Meta Data: WordPress makes it easy to insert keywords into your posts’ “meta titles” and “meta descriptions.” The meta description is the descriptive paragraph that appears under individual blog article meta titles in a search query results listing. However, never populate the “meta keywords” field as this meta data is now considered obsolete by Google.

Craft SEO-Friendly Titles

Professionals who blog regularly know that dreaming up new titles can be a challenge. But you not only need a catchy title, you need a search-engine-friendly one. You must ask yourself what your potential clients are looking for on the internet. They are often searching for advice, so title your article accordingly. Here are a few examples:

·         “How to…”

·         “2015 Tax Laws on…”

·         “10 Accounting Tips for…”

Format Articles for the Readers

·         Avoid lengthy paragraphs.

·         Always include relevant images that are neatly aligned with the text.

·         Avoid using industry-specific jargon. Some people will leave your site if your articles are too technical. Plus, most potential clients will not be typing jargon into a search engine.

·         Break up long pages of text with subtitles, horizontal rules, bulleted and numbered lists, images, and/or subtle graphics.

·         Studies show that web users struggle while reading long lines of text. So, instead of stretching text across the full length of a blog page where there is no built-in sidebar, use columns of text like those in a newspaper.

·         Use text bolding for emphasis only. If you bold large sections of an article, you will lose the power to highlight a particular idea.

·         Unless you are formatting poetry or short quotes, never center-align large sections of text.

·         Limit text colors and font sizes. Stick with your site's predefined formatting theme.

More Blogging Tips

1.       Promote one keyword phrase in each article. Don’t attempt to stuff an article with three different long-tailed keywords.

2.       Make sure that your blog articles contain 500 to 600 words.

3.       Use unique, relevant images and graphics.

4.       Include a call-to-action link in each article that takes visitors to a page on your website where they supply their contact information in exchange for a valuable content download such as a free whitepaper, eBook, or training video.

5.       Share your articles through your social media accounts.

6.       Encourage comments and always post timely replies.

With time, CPA firms will witness an increase in web traffic and lead conversions when they combine blogging with other inbound marketing efforts, such as social media interaction, email newsletters, and content offers.

Need help getting started with inbound marketing for CPAs? Contact the experts at 855-372-8392 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 855-372-8392 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Real Estate Marketing: Blogging on the Rise

• Blogs are now highly regarded as credible sources of news, insight, and information.
• Blogs do exceedingly well in internet search engines, thereby increasing traffic to your website.
• Blogs can be used to develop relationships with prospective homebuyers and sellers as well as nurture existing relationships with current customers.
• Blogs are more apt to be shared socially. As aforementioned, 87% of content marketers are using social media to gain recognition. Blog sharing through these channels will, not surprisingly, increase the amount of influence you have in your market.
• Real estate agents are creating leads and gaining customers as a result of blogging.

• Be consistent.  People tend to follow blogs similarly to the way they watch the news or read their favorite newspaper or magazine. They want information that they can rely on and in a timely fashion. If your posting becomes erratic, people may forget to follow you. To prevent this from happening, schedule your blogs to post on a specific timeline.  Consistency proves your sincerity towards your blogging and your business.
• Format your blog in a professional manner. Providing a clear format—one that includes headlines, short paragraphs, bullet points, and images—will give your readers a chance to skim the content. Poor formatting will likely turn readers away.
• Be precise. Write on specific topics and avoid ambiguity and general references. Your customers want explicit answers to their questions.
• Develop unique content. If you find information that you want to share, be sure to site your sources. However, your goal should be to establish a voice of expertise in your subject matter, so original content is best.

For additional blogging and real estate marketing tips, contact Paveya at 855-372-8392 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 855-372-8392 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Internet Marketing for CPAs: SEO Tips

Gone are the days when passing out brochures or promotional items, sending holiday greeting cards through the post office, or throwing a customer appreciation party will bring new customers into your office. Even a website is not enough. Today, potential clients are searching the internet for quality content and connecting with social media friends to find the best CPA in their town. So, to attract qualified customers, CPAs must embrace inbound marketing, a content-driven internet marketing strategy, or risk being trumped by the competition.

Effective inbound marketing starts with a website that is optimized for search engines (SEO). In this article, you will learn the basics of SEO that will benefit any CPA firm.

CPA Marketers

As a CPA, part of your job is marketing, and your ultimate marketing goals are:

·         to delight your current customers with ongoing, quality accounting advice, which will cause them to endorse your services to friends;

·         to become an invaluable resource for taxpayers in your town;

·         to establish your reputation as an expert; and

·         to attract new customers.

To accomplish this, CPAs must begin by examining the performance of their website. If your website is not listed in the top pages of search queries related to your niche industry, many potential clients will not recognize you as a voice of authority or they might not even know that you exist.

Keywords

Keywords are words and phrases that people will type into a search engines to find your services. For example, use long-tailed keywords in:

·         Page URLs: Instead of publishing a page URL such as “cpacompany.com/services”, use titles like “cpacompany.com/tax-consulting” or “cpacompany.com/accounting-services”. Publish separate pages for each of your CPA services and populate it lightly with keyword phrases. Keep in mind that must people will not use CPA-specific jargon to search for your services, so, unless you are targeting industry professional, remove it.

·         Page Titles: Title your pages with brief, specific words. For example, use “Small Business Accounting” instead of “Accounting”.

·         Page Text

·         Images:  file names and “alt” tags

Quality Content

Social Media

Social media for CPAs? Absolutely. If you post insightful and useful tips for your followers, you can expect to pick up new clients with time. Interact with your followers. Use this potentially wide-reaching platform to answer accounting questions and offer tax tips. Headlines such as “10 Common Tax Mistakes to Avoid”, “5 Changes to Tax Laws Every Business Owner Must Know”, or “Tax Exemptions for Homeowners” will keep your users tuned in.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing begins with a website that is optimized for search engines (SEO), a social media campaign that engages followers, and a blog populated with high-quality content.

Blogging

Some CPAs dismiss marketing as a waste and believe that you just need to do a great job for clients or have lunch with a few possible referral sources and awesome new clients will consistently appear over time.  Their fear of the unknown world of marketing and potentially wasting money prevents them from being open-minded and even trying to understand its value.

The “Definers:”Other accountants choose to define marketing as whatever feels most comfortable for them.

“Marketing is a brochure.”

“Marketing is a website.”

“Promotional items are marketing.”

“Marketing is advertising.”

Accountants with this mindset will “check the box” that they have done “marketing” and made the proper investment.  What the “Definers” haven’t done is check out what their marketing-savvy competitors are doing to grow and even win over their clients!  The fear factor prevents these professionals from taking a hard look at what’s going on around them and embracing current marketing strategies to compete.

FEAR OF FAILURE

You didn’t enter in the CPA profession to write creative blogs, build engaged audiences on social media, speak to the media as an authority or shoot videos for your firm’s website.  Another reality check –> whether you like it or not, marketing is part of your job!  The fear of not being good at particular forms of marketing is often accepted as an excuse, and these professionals – including Partners – are granted passes to not participate.

But what if your competitors push their CPAs out of their comfort zones?  What if they mandate participation in marketing and provide training to their professionals from day one on the job?  You may not see the impact of “no marketing” immediately, but over a period of time your firm will find it very challenging to win substantial new clients.  You and your firm will be left behind.

If your firm has been paralyzed in some way by a fear of marketing, don’t try to make up for lost time in an ad-hoc, random and frenzied fashion.  Hire or consult with an experienced marketing specialist who will be able to relate and understand the dynamics at play and develop strategies and programs to get your accounting firm on the right track.  It’s never too late to conquer your marketing fears! 

Real Estate Marketing: Best Strategies for 2014

According to Forbes, the real estate market continues to make strides this year. There has been a 38% surge on new home sales since last year, and as of June, sales hit a five-year high. While the market continues to recover this year, real estate agents are seeking out new ways to market their homes and attract new business. Below are some tips for agents to consider as they coordinate their marketing strategies heading into 2014.

Get mobile friendly

Recent studies have concluded that SEO is going to take on big changes in the coming months, the biggest of which will include mobile searching. If your website is not already optimized for mobile searches, this should be your first priority. In this day and age, nearly everyone has a smartphone, and it is estimated that over 50% of web users are searching with that device. Moreover, 61% of those mobile searchers who land on non-optimized sites will immediately leave the page and return to Google.  In turn, this means that Google will begin prioritizing mobile-optimized sites in search results. It also means that sites that may have otherwise ranked highly for keywords or inbound links will actually get demoted for not having mobile-friendly compatibility.

Utilize Social Media

Most businesses have jumped on board with social media because they acknowledge these outlets as effective and efficient tools. Having both the ability to reach a wide audience and be cost-effective, social media serves as a platform to increase your audience and market your business. With so many social media sites available, it’s important that you focus on the ones that will gain you the most ground.  If you’re looking to connect with other agents or business professionals, LinkedIn would be a good option for you. There are over one billion monthly active users on Facebook and Twitter alone, so you will likely find it easy to reach your clientele there.  And if you’re looking to show off your listings using social media, perhaps your best option would be Pinterest. The primary purpose for Pinterest is the sharing of images, so its unique appeal may be best suited for real estate agents.

Whatever stage you take to in the social media world, it is imperative that you increase your presence there. Social media is expected to take on more of a role in SEO. According to studies, Facebook and Twitter, among other social media sites, are already influencing SEO results.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Perhaps the greatest benefit of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements is that you can get your site in front of home buyers at the exact moment they’re searching for listings. Unlike organic search results, these PPC ads give you more control over when and how your ads show up. Because you tell the search engine what keywords to use, which geographic areas to target, and what your ads will say, you are essentially paying for the specific type of traffic that you want.

Videos

Statistics show that 90% of home buyers begin their search for a new home on the Internet, and as a result of these Internet home searches, 62% of these people walk through a home that they viewed online. With such a heavy emphasis on Internet real estate searches, real estate agents who want to convert those interested parties into real home buyers need to improve their online presence. Videos are a great way to do that. It has become increasingly popular to provide virtual tours of your homes as it allows potential buyers to search for their dream home without having to physically be there. This, of course, benefits you as the agent as well for that very same reason.

Most Effective Marketing Strategies

Over the years, real estate agents have used a multitude of tactics to build their business and market their listings. With the rapid changes in SEO and the increasing usage of Internet searches, agents will have to continue to adapt. Heading into 2014, real estate agents should focus on making their website mobile-friendly, increasing their presence on social media, utilizing pay-per-click advertisements when necessary, and providing videos/virtual tours of their market listings.

If you have any questions about how you can improve your marketing strategies in this growing real estate market, Paveya can help. We have a team of experts in web design and development, SEO, social media, and mobile marketing who understand the real estate industry and have been helping real estate businesses large and small take their business to the next level. Call us at 855-372-8392 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 855-372-8392 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Real Estate Internet Marketing: 5 Video Topics to Attract Buyers

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says that 90% of home buyers use the internet to research properties. Before 2013, customers considered photos helpful but now video dominates real estate marketing. The NAR also states only 3% of agents put their listings on YouTube™. With the help of video editing software and video sharing websites such as YouTube or Vimeo™, real estate agents must leverage this highly effective marketing tool or risk being trumped by their competition.

This article will help you generate ideas for producing real estate marketing videos. Quality video content will help establish you as an authority in your niche market and present your listings in a more comprehensive and convenient way for web viewers.

Topic 1: Property Listings

Gone are the days when website text and photos held the attention of a potential buyer. The most effective marketing for property listings are the one to three minute videos that guide a perspective buyer around the exterior and grounds and through each room. This approach allows visitors to experience the flow and charm of the property. Typically, your videos will feature you talking about the appeal of the home, special features, and the neighborhood, which can be added during the video editing stage.

Topic 2: Open House Exclusives

Open house events provide an ideal platform to focus on a home’s appeal to potential buyers. In your videos, include a tour of the home’s interior and add clips of people seeing a particular room for the first time or gazing out a window to take in the view. Capture people enjoying the property. For example, use shots of someone walking through the lawn; a family gathered on a porch; or a child jumping onto a tree swing. Experiment with interesting angles such as ground-level and bird’s eye perspectives, both inside the house and outside.

This is also a perfect opportunity to store up clips of real people admiring your properties and interacting with you, all of which you can use in future promotional videos.

Topic 3: Agent Profiles

Agent profile videos can be produced in different ways but these usually feature an agent talking about their education, certifications, passion for the real estate industry, and their personal connection to the community in which they work. Whatever you decide to discuss, keep agent videos short—no longer then one minute. Avoid producing a video of just your face—include clips of you interacting with clients at one of your listings. It is best to use real situations with voiceovers that explain, for example, your real estate experience; staged clips of a scripted conversion will look fake and come across somewhat disingenuous.

Topic 4: Client Interviews

Interview a customer who has experienced a particularly successful transaction through your agency. Ask the customer to describe the experience from beginning to end. Here are some questions that you can ask to get the conversion moving.

1.       What initially brought you to my website?

2.       What convinced you to do business with me?

3.       What attracted you to this community?

4.       What do you love most about your new home?

5.       Explain why you will recommend my real estate services to your family and friends?

If you are interviewing a buyer, be sure to add clips of the home, grounds, neighborhood, and the client enjoying their new home.

Interview videos require a bit of creative editing but it will be well worth your time.

Topic 5: Community Highlights

Videos are vital for developers and realtors who want to promote a community lifestyle. Compile video clips of amenities such as community walking paths, ponds, swimming pools, and playgrounds, plus nearby schools and shopping centers. Add shots of real people enjoying the community as this will send a powerful message to potential buyers.

Want to read more about marketing with video? Get our realtor’s video marketing eBook by clicking here.

Need help optimizing your videos for search engines, Paveya is ready to help. Call us at 855-372-8392 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 855-372-8392 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Inbound Marketing: How to Develop Your Buyer Personas

So what exactly is a buyer persona?

• Common behavior patterns
• Shared pain points (both professional and personal)
• Universal goals, wishes, and dreams
• General demographic and biographic information

• A target market
• A professional role
• A specific real person or people group
• Affected by changes in technology
• Just fluff

What goes into a buyer persona?

• Name
• Job title or role—What is their position and seniority?
• Company/Organization
• Goals—What are they trying to achieve?
• Challenges—What stands in the way of their goals?
• Watering holes/hang-out spots
• Personal background
• Shopping preferences
• Demographic information

How do you create a buyer persona?

• Interviews with current customers
• Research and surveys
• Form fields on your landing page
• Talking with your sales team

Integrating your Personas

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Tips for Content Creators

5 Tips for Successful Inbound Marketing Strategies

In the current advertising climate, online marketing is at the forefront of any marketing strategy.  For business owners, the process of laying out their online marketing plans gets confusing and sometimes ends up in a big mess of too much information. Inbound marketing is the essence of any and all online marketing plan. Defined, inbound marketing is essentially about attracting prospective customers to your website and, ultimately, your business. To better accomplish this goal, the following are five tips for successful inbound marketing strategies:

1. Understand the inbound marketing cycle. Business owners and internet marketers must understand the inbound marketing cycle. Internet users realize that they have a need or an issue at which point they begin a search to find a solution. From there, they look at their prospects then make decisions as to which websites they choose to visit.
2. Content is key. Inbound marketing is all about creating content that is directed to potential buyers and viewers. Not only should content be interesting and entertaining, it has to be engaging. Whether through blogs, landing pages, whitepapers, social media posts, or other online marketing tactics, content is key. It has to be purpose-driven and grab the users within the first 10-15 seconds of landing at your site. One important piece of advice from Seth Godin, best-selling author and founder of Squidoo, is that “it is more important to do something worth tweeting about rather than getting your next tweet out.”  The same applies to any form of content marketing.
3. Be customer focused. At HubSpot’s Inbound Conference 2013 in August, inbound marketing experts stressed the importance of being customer focused. With that in mind, they suggest that it is important to be authentic and, in addition to knowing your customers, let them know you. Content gives you the ability to help them solve their problems and provide the information they seek. If you truly know your customers, you know what they want and why they want it. That is half the battle!
4. Pass the blink test. In the inbound marketing world, this test basically suggests that within the first 3-5 seconds of seeing a website, users decide whether they will stay or go. If you are old enough, you remember The Clash’s 1981 hit “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now.” When you think about the “blink test,” that song starts to play in the back of your mind. To pass the blink test, your site must engage viewers of your site by grabbing their attention and getting them to stay there and seek out more information from your site—all within a few seconds. In an article earlier this year, HubSpot suggests that frequently visited sites load quickly, be easy to read and entertaining all while being easy to navigate so that you lead them where they want to go (and you want them to go).
5. All inbound marketing plans have the same goal. Whether you are going the route of SEO (organic searches) or PPC (paid ads on search results), the goal is the same—direct users to your site. Inbound marketing is defined by where the information flows—how you get the information to flow there is up to you. Ideally, using both is the best way to increase the probability of your site being visited. But if you choose to use only SEO, it goes back to content.

Inbound Marketing is Almost a Science

In the past when all marketers and business owners had to do was place ads in the newspapers and commercials on radio and television, it was basically the equivalent of throwing a ton of sand on sticky paper and hoping that most of the sand stuck to the paper. Today, with the accountability of the Internet, inbound marketing is almost a science. It takes a lot of careful thought and preparation along with execution and follow-through to deliver a successful plan which means more viewers and ultimately buyers.

Need help getting started with inbound marketing? Contact the experts at Paveya.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Real Estate Marketing: Increase Your Audience with Facebook

Though realtors have the unique ability to get to know their clients and connect on a very personal level (and they do this brilliantly), online socializing is probably not your thing. But don’t question its necessity.

If you’re a real estate agent, and you don’t have a Facebook account, stop what you’re doing right now and make one. No, don’t use your personal account for your real estate services.  Facebook accounts for businesses offer features not provided otherwise. It’s so easy to make a Facebook account, and it’s worth the effort.

Before you dismiss this suggestion, here are 7 reasons why it’s an absolute must to join the social media frenzy.

1. Reach new customers. There are 1.06 billion monthly active users on Facebook today, according to CNET, which opens up a world of possibilities when you market your business on that site. You may find yourself new customers simply by connecting with friends and family of current customers. Consider it networking at its best.  Better yet, it’s free.
2. Promote your listings and local community. Have an incredible house you’re just dying to show off? You can use Facebook to promote your listings with little to no extra costs to you. Just remember to keep your social media site social. This isn’t a print ad, so maintain your personality and be consistent with your overall messaging and language. Don’t be afraid to encourage dialogue about the listing as well.
3. Show your interest in the local community. Give information about the community in which you work—it not only displays your knowledge and passion for your neighborhood but markets to prospective residents and out-of-town guests. You can even post about upcoming events in the area.  Inspire an interest for living in that same community. You may even consider inviting potential clients to join you on such an outing.
4. Engage with your clients. Just like you connect with your clients in person, you can show them you care by engaging with them personally on social media. Give them a vision for what they could experience living in one of your homes. Post a recipe for their first dinner in their new home. Greet them with engaging questions and interactive posts.
5. Always upload images! Photo sharing on Facebook is all the hype, especially since Facebook acquired Instagram (a photo and video sharing social networking site) in the spring of 2012.  The more likes, comments, and shares that your posts get, the better the publicity. In other words, a post (text or image) with a lot of followers (likes, comments, and shares) will be viewed by more people in their News Feed.
6. Be an interactive realtor. Contests can be a fun, creative way to further engage with your market. Increase the number of likes and followers on your page through contests and giveaways. Want to get to 500 likes? Allure the 500^th person to like your page through an enticing giveaway.
7. Create longer lasting relationships. Online networking is the perfect way to better get to know your client. You can gain a better understanding of who your clients are through this interaction. And once you’ve sealed the deal, the relationship doesn’t have to be over.  Give your customers an opportunity to show their appreciation. They may express gratitude through posts and images on your page.  Consider this free advertising from those who have previously worked with you. And if nothing else, the encouragement will always brighten your day.

Ultimately, social media platforms are your key to better connect with your clients, interact with your market in fun and creative ways, generate more leads, and create sales. If you’re not on Facebook, the guy down the street certainly is, and he’s snagging all the business.

Need help getting started with Facebook? The social media experts at Paveya can help you connect with potential customers, call us at  855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Real Estate Marketing: How to Use Pinterest to Grow Your Business

Facebook and Twitter greatly outweigh Pinterest in users, but Pinterest’s unique appeal may be best suited for those of you in real estate. Pinterest’s greatest charm is in its visuals. On this site, people connect through the sharing of images. Sounds pretty perfect for a real estate agent, right?

First of all, what is Pinterest? Pinterest is essentially a tool for collecting and organizing things you like via an online pinboard. These pinboards allow you to create and manage collections of your favorite things—a visual take on the modern social bookmarking site. And just like other social media sites, Pinterest also has its own lingo: a pin (something you share on Pinterest) and a board or pinboard (a group of pins that you’ve categorized together—you can separate pins by their varying topics).

Every day users “pin” ideas for DIY projects, decorating tips, recipes, wedding and event ideas, fashion, bucket list plans, places to visit, items to purchase, etc.—you name it, it’s there. So what business do real estate agents have with Pinterest? Here are some ideas:

1. Set up a board for your listings. Always use images as it lends an opportunity to showcase the homes. If you end up with multiple boards on your page, be sure that this one is placed at the top so that visitors can easily locate it.
2. Set up a board for your community. You’re not just selling a home; you’re selling the entire neighborhood. What is the town like? What kind of restaurants, shops, and businesses are there? What is there to do? This board can be used to display your knowledge and love for the area—something you’ll want your clients to fall in love with too.
3. Set up a board for home décor. Pinterest users are DIY fanatics, and this board will appeal to the average user. You can link to sites explaining how-to’s and coordinate with images.
4. Set up a board for tips and suggestions. Use this board to provide suggestions for home-buyers, like tips on stress-free moving, for example.
5. Set up a board to display your own interests. Yes, it’s okay to get personal. Viewers will appreciate the sincerity, and this will allow you to better connect with your audience.
6. Set up a board for everyday use. Pin some recipes, cleaning, tips, or home project ideas. This keeps your audience interested in you beyond the point of sale.
7. Use hashtags. Hashtags are everywhere—Facebook, Twitter, and even Pinterest. By using hashtags, you will connect with a broader market. Use appropriate hashtags that are relevant to your geographical location and consistent with your messaging.
8. Promote through contests and giveaways. Just like other social media sites, contests are a great way to stay engaged with your followers. Remember, engagement leads to more followers and, ultimately, more clients. Photo and video contests are a creative way to get others involved.

You could ask your followers to submit photos of their favorite kitchen and #hashtag their reasons for their choice, then provide the winner with a prize of your choosing, like a day at the spa or a dinner at the local tavern;

Have followers vote on their favorite listing on your page—this will give you insight into the minds of your audience and provide you with good customer feedback;

OR

Ask your followers to engage in a video contest where you ask participants to make a short video explaining what they most like about working with you or which home you helped them find. This will require more effort on both your part and theirs, and the prize should reflect that, but it may provide you with some unique and authentic marketing material.

Pinterest’s greatest appeal is its visuals, and as a real estate agent, your business thrives on the use of images. Through this promotion, Pinterest will help your clients get excited about what you’re selling.

If you would like suggestions on how to increase your audience using Pinterest, or you need assistance getting started, the social media experts at Paveya are here to help. Call us at  855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Real Estate: Social Media Marketing With Twitter

9 TWITTER TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

If you would like suggestions on how to increase your audience using Twitter, or you need help getting started, the social media experts at Paveya are here to help. Call us at 855-372-8392 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 855-372-8392 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Social Media Marketing: Be Wise, Hashtag Responsibly

As the popularity of the microblogging social networking site, Twitter, grew, so did that pesky pound symbol.  Big thanks to Twitter for this new practice of “writing style.”  Now we see hashtags used on just about every social networking service or microblogging site, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Tumblr, Flickr, and many others.

What started as a way for people to find and join a particular conversation, group, or topic is now a cliché.  #People #literally #hashtag #every #single #word #in #a #sentence.  There’s almost a notion of it being a cultural phenomenon and, quite frankly, one that needs to end immediately.  Not everything needs to be hashtagged.  There are, however, useful ways to use the pound sign.

1.       If the hashtag adds no value to your post, simply avoid it.

2.       Understand that your readers use hashtags to categorize the content of their posts, and they expect you to do the same.  Be specific—to your name, your brand, or your topic.  Yes, you want your post to be placed in front of the masses, but to truly connect, you need to fine-tune your tags.

3.       Practice self-control.  As previously stated, some people like to hashtag every word in a sentence.  It’s completely unnecessary and, in most cases, downright annoying.  Two or three tags are plenty in a single post.

4.       Think about what you’re tagging before you tag it.  What kind of message are you trying to send?  Keep in mind that your posts will come up alongside whatever other posts that have similar tags.  Be wise with your choice of language and messaging.

5.       Keep your posts legible.  No one should have to succumb to some mind-numbing, eyeball-assaulting gobbledygook.  It shouldn’t take minutes, or even a few moments, to decipher your hashtags.  Be easy on the eye.  Use capital letters, if necessary.  For example, it’s okay to tag #BurgerKing because it’s short and simple to read, despite the tag exceeding a single word.

6.       Join topics that matter.  When notable events occur in your community or around the country or globe, it’s okay to hashtag and join the conversation.  Again, be smart and limit yourself.

It’s high time for the masses to become a bit more self-conscious about the pound sign.  Use them wisely and sparingly, and you may find more of the attention you were looking for in the first place.

SEO: Get Mobile Friendly or Get Demoted by Google

• Sending mobile phone users to an error page: Instead, redirect smartphone users to smartphone-optimized pages instead of a “Not Found” page (404 error page).
• Directing mobile phone users to an irrelevant page instead of the content a user is looking for: If a page on your site content is not available in a smartphone-friendly format, direct the mobile phone user to the desktop page instead.
• Embedding unplayable videos: Many websites contain videos that work well on desktops but don’t work on smartphone devices. For example, if the video requires Adobe Flash, it won’t be visible on an iPhone or Android versions 4.1 and higher.

Are you wondering how to get started? Paveya can help get your site ready for every variety of smartphone out there with development and extensive testing. Call us at 855-372-8392

Social Media: Facebook Announces Big Updates for Small Business

On August 22, Facebook made some announcements related to the features offered for small businesses on Facebook. Facebook announced that in the coming days that three product updates will be released. The updates are geared towards managing brand pages on the go, creating ad images, and more freedom to create and test Facebook ads to ensure that they are visually compelling prior to launch.

Facebook has announced an alliance with Shutterstock images, a technology company that focuses on providing high quality images for purchase for creative use. In the coming weeks, marketers will be given access to millions of images from the Shutterstock library. The best part? There is no additional cost. Shutterstock's images are commercially licenses and available for use in all Facebook ad formats. Facebook will be leveraging Shutterstock's API and search capabilities to integrate and make the image library accessible and searchable directly through Facebook's ad creation tool.

Here is a preview of how the new search will look:

Right inline with the integration of the Shutterstock image library, Facebook has also tweaked their image uploading features by allowing users to select a range of photos, images from previous ads, or Shutterstock images. The change will enable page managers to create a group of Facebook ads at one time with multiple images for a single campaign, and test the images to gauge the performance.

Here is a preview of how the new tool allowing multiple image upload will appear:

Updates to Pages Manager App

Facebook also announced a number of updates to resolve bugs related to their Android and iOS Pages Manager app. There are a number of bug fixes, performance updates, and Facebook has also rolled out some of the most-requested features into the Pages Manager app. Some of these features include:

• allowing admins to upload multiple photos for a single post
• edit existing admins of any page that a user manages
• add new admins to any page that a user manages
• tag people in comments
• stay up to date on other pages through the Pages Feed
• within the iOS app, users can create new Facebook Pages and events as well

On August 23, Facebook announced revisions to it's algorithm resulting in significant changes to the content being displayed in Facebook user's news feeds. The overall goal of Facebook's recent modifications are to ensure that organic content displayed in a user's news feed is the most interesting to that particular user.

In developing the new algorithm, Facebook performed surveys with thousands of people to assist Facebook in determining what defines a high quality post. The survey included questions such as:

• Is this timely and relevant content?
• Is this content from a source you would trust?
• Would you share it with friends or recommend it to others?
• Is the content genuinely interesting to you or is it trying to game News Feed distribution? (e.g., asking for people to like the content)
• Would you call this a low quality post or meme?
• Would you complain about seeing this content in your News Feed?

For the results of the survey, a new learning system was built to detect content that met the definition of high quality. More than one thousand factors are used in the system such as:

• how frequently content from a page is reported as low quality (determined by a user clicking "hide this page's post from my feed)
• how complete the page profile is
• are there any overlaps within the fan base and other known high quality pages

Facebook has acknowledged the complexity of the algorithm and the continued need for refinement, and will be seeking feedback to further modify the algorithm.

Once the algorithm was developed, Facebook added it to their News Feed ranking algorithm as another factor to calculate the score of a News Feed story. The new version of the algorithm was tested with a small segment of Facebook users. The results were encouraging for anyone managing a brand page:

• By showing the high quality posts higher up in News Feed, Facebook saw a significant increase in interactions (likes, comments, shares) with this content
• People in the test group also hid fewer stories overall

The algorithm update will be launched to all users in the coming weeks. As a result, page managers should be prepared and understand what the impact could be. If your current page has good engagement, the result should be very positive and your page will likely see increased reach. The change will be relatively small if you are following the basic guidelines for social media strategy on Facebook which include producing high quality content and optimization for engagement and reach.

Here are a few guidelines on creating Facebook Page posts to get the most out of Facebook's new algorithm updates:

• Make your posts timely and relevant
• Build credibility and trust with your audience
• Ask yourself, “Would people share this with their friends or recommend it to others?”
• Think about, “Would my audience want to see this in their News Feeds?”

Congratulations on a Decade of Conversations, Skype!

A decade of conversation and over 1.4 trillion minutes of voice and video calls have been made using Skype technology. Today, with the evolution of technology, social media, Google Hangouts, and Apple's FaceTime, the theory of video calls and being in two places at once is no longer just something futuristic movies include. It is now a part of every day life for many, and Skype estimates that the amount of time that has been spent using their technology would stretch 2.6 million years into the future.

Skype users have made history along the way with Skype calls made atop Mount Everest, providing essential needs and support to refugee camps all the while using Skype to keep in contact with those around the world, and one of the more miraculous stories include the ability to see oranguatans using Skype technology to enjoy video calls. Technology has enabled users around the world to stay connected, and witness once-in-a-lifetime events such as soldiers witnessing the birth of their children and allowing children to go on virtual field trips to other countries. Skype is definitely a tool that it's users never cease to find countless ways to integrate into their lives.

Skype shared the infographic below to provide a visual timeline of the evolution and adoption of their product over the past decade:

Skype is allowing its users to join the celebration and is offering 30 minutes of free Skype WiFi simply for signing into a Skype account between August 29th and September 1st. Additionally, Skype is asking for a favorite Skype memory from it's users and are asking it to be shared through their Moment Makers’ Story Bank, Facebook or Twitter using #10YearsofSkype. 

Congratulations, Skype and Happy 10th Birthday from the team at Paveya. We leverage Skype  on a daily basis with client and internal communications.

Mid-Week Marketing Mashup

Check out the Paveya Mid-Week Marketing Mashup for this week covering marketing topics focused on LinkedIn, TweetDeck, WordPress Version Updates, and Creating an SEO Strategy.

LinkedIn Announces LinkedIn Groups Redesign LinkedIn Groups, a popular feature of the professional networking site and social media platform, LinkedIn, has recently gone through a makeover. LinkedIn officially shared the news yesterday on their blog. Though the new features are currently only available to the English speaking members of LinkedIn, the exciting new changes are part of an overall goal at LinkedIn to continue to be an online destination for business professionals to gain important insights, ask questions, share ideas and engage with others each day.

What WordPress Users Should Know About Version Updates WordPress™, one of the world’s most popular Content Management Systems (CMS), allows users to instantly launch a new website or begin blogging without the knowledge of web coding languages.

Twitter’s Shiny New TweetDeck On Monday, Twitter announced that there will be many new features added to their TweetDeck. The features will not be released all at once—they are starting with the website and Chrome app, and then Windows and Mac apps.

Website Optimization Strategies for Redesigns If you are currently using search engine optimization techniques for your company’s website, you probably understand the importance of showing you are a reliable source and the significance of a high ranking in search engines. Website optimization includes using keywords and keyword phrases within your web page content, blogging with keywords, generating internal and external links, optimizing images, and creating the appropriate redesign for your website.

Social Media: Using LinkedIn Groups To Extend Your Brand Message

LinkedIn Groups provide an online destination for to pose questions, seek expertise and recommendations within their industry or resources to use for different aspects of their business as well as make business contacts and become known amongst their peers as industry experts.

Within LinkedIn, you can find groups to join through the suggestions that LinkedIn provides as well as using the Groups Directory to seek out specific areas of interest.

The LinkedIn Group manager controls membership, discussions, settings, subgroups, rules, and more. When you submit a request to join a group, the request goes to the LinkedIn Group manager, and they have the control over whether to allow you membership in the group or not.

As a LinkedIn Group owner or manager, you are the one who controls the appearance of the group as well. With LinkedIn’s recent changes, here are two ways to take advantage of the new changes immediately:

• Upload a hero image for brand and community messaging

• Prominently feature manager’s choice discussions you want members to see

Not sure how to upload the hero image or what the size recommendations are? Here are step by step instructions:

To update the overall look of your LinkedIn Group for consistency with your branding and marketing initiatives:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.

2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.

3. Click the group you want to edit.

4. Click Manage and then select Group Information on the left.

5. You can now browse and upload logos from your files.

6. Click Save Changes.

Image requirements:

• Group Logo - up to 100 x 50 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB

• Small Logo - up to 60 x 30 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB

• Hero Image - minimum 646 x 200 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 2 MB

Please ensure that your image fits these sizes. There are several online tools that you can use to modify your images including Shrink Pictures and Web Resizer. 

To upload and save an image, you must check the box that says. "I acknowledge and agree that the logo/image I am uploading does not infringe upon any third party copyrights, trademarks, or other proprietary rights or otherwise violate the User Agreement.”

If you don't update your hero image, it will be readily apparent to most regular users on LinkedIn. The standard image for LinkedIn Groups that haven't been updated is very recognizable, and you don't want to seem as though you aren't paying attention to your group and its members. Here is an example of what your LinkedIn Group will look like without your branding:

Note: LinkedIn doesn't allow excessive changes to a group's identity because it affects member confidence in your group and in the LinkedIn Groups product. You can only make a total of 5 group identity changes, including any group name and logo updates. Changes to the group Hero image are not counted in this limit.  

To modify your manager’s choice discussions that you want prominently displayed:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.

2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.

3. Click the group you want to edit.

4. Click Search and then select Set Manager’s Choice Order on the left.

5. You will see the lists of any discussions that have been selected and you can modify the order by clicking the arrow buttons to move them or by changing the number to the left of the post.

6. Click Save Changes.

LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networking sites, having launched on May 5, 2003. It is geared towards business professionals and boasts the largest professional network with over 238 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Businesses, marketers and users leverage the professional community as part of an overall social media marketing strategy.

Social Media Marketing: Linked In Announces LinkedIn Groups Redesign

LinkedIn Groups, a popular feature of the professional networking site and social media platform, LinkedIn, has recently gone through a makeover. LinkedIn officially shared the news yesterday on their blog. Though the new features are currently only available to the English speaking members of LinkedIn, the exciting new changes are part of an overall goal at LinkedIn to continue to be an online destination for business professionals to gain important insights, ask questions, share ideas and engage with others each day.

Some interesting stats surrounding LinkedIn Groups:

• More than 2 million LinkedIn Groups currently exist

• More than 200 conversations happening each minute across LinkedIn Groups

• More than 800 groups are created each week

• Professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn members at a rate of more than two new members per second.

• There are more than 30 million students and graduates on LinkedIn, and are LinkedIn’s fastest growing demographic

• There are more than 3 million companies with LinkedIn Company Pages

• LinkedIn members performed more than 5.7 billion professionally-oriented searches in 2012.

LinkedIn Groups have been a key feature of LinkedIn for many years and LinkedIn supports the formation of interest groups, and extremely large groups have as many as 744,662 members. The vast majority of LinkedIn Groups are employment related, but academic and alumni groups make up more than 130,000 groups.

Groups have been created for nearly any topic imaginable including social media, technology, real estate and small business, as well as community centric groups focusing on specific metropolitan areas like the Hampton Roads Technology group, alumni groups, formal associations such as the Board of Realtors, and online networking opportunities for Chambers of Commerce. LinkedIn Groups can vary in size, depending on participation, content, and number of active members. Certain groups require approval to become a member, while others allow you to immediately join.

Groups are some of the most highly trafficked areas of LinkedIn, and where many users within the LinkedIn community flock to discuss industry news, seek resources, support and advice, and look for recommendations of businesses with whom to do business.

With the new design, LinkedIn has mirrored the newer Facebook layout changes we’ve all experienced with an overall goal to make LinkedIn easier and simpler to use. Additionally, the overall look of LinkedIn Groups has been streamlined, and with the new changes, LinkedIn has focused on providing more options and control to the LinkedIn Group managers and members when it comes to customization and visual presentations of their particular conversation space.

One great feature of LinkedIn Groups is the ability to moderate content and posts as well as approve or remove members. This is extremely beneficial when you amass a large following in your LinkedIn Group, only to have members that try to use the forum to skirt the anti-spam regulations that are so prevalent in other forms of communication. LinkedIn has implemented a few resources to alleviate spam, but moderation is the currently the most effective method.

LinkedIn continues to be a favorite social media platform among users, marketers, and brands. Social Media Marketing on LinkedIn is typically focused on networking, filling and finding employment opportunities, and a place to have conversations for small businesses looking for expertise and recommendation or resources.

As part of the launch today, LinkedIn shared a neat info graphic for those new to LinkedIn Groups and who may be looking to find out more information. If you are new to LinkedIn Groups, and you need some assistance with setting up your group, or customizing the images, check out our blog on Using LinkedIn Group's To Extend Your Brand Message.

LinkedIn is one of the oldest social media sites, having launched on May 5, 2003. It is geared towards business professionals and boasts the largest professional network with over 238 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

What WordPress Users Should Know About Version Updates

WordPress™, one of the world’s most popular Content Management Systems (CMS), allows users to instantly launch a new website or begin blogging without the knowledge of web coding languages.

This software is free unless you want a custom WordPress website, which means you will purchase a web address; add your brand design elements; and install "plugins" to enable special features or functionality such as slideshows, event calendars, forums, or online shopping. However, this versatile technology comes with security hazards so WordPress helps keep hackers out of your website by providing version updates. Make sure that your site is running the latest one.

What are WordPress version updates?

Like most open-source software, WordPress websites are vulnerable to security breaches. As a result, WordPress releases a new “version update” any time they want to fix a security problem.

So, to ensure the best user experience, business owners who have custom WordPress websites must perform version updates with every new release. But before you press the update link from your administrative dashboard, we recommend that you complete the following steps.

Step 1: Educate Yourself

After you receive notification that WordPress has released a new version of its software, read about:

• what security concerns the update will resolve;
• how the update will affect your site’s theme; and
• how your plugins will be affected.

Step 2: Make a Site Backup

Before you update your version, always backup your website. This means that if you have problems after the update, you can easily restore your files until you can find help.

Step 3: Deactivate Plugins

Turn off the plugins of your custom WordPress website. Some plugins may conflict with the upgrade process, particularly if your version is 2 or more updates old.

Step 4: Update Your Version

WordPress gives you two options for updating: automatic or manual.

Automatic Update

Current versions of WordPress feature an automatic update. For an automatic update to work, WordPress requires the following criteria (from wordpress.org):

(a) file ownership: all of your WordPress files must be owned by the user under which your web server executes. In other words, the owner of your WordPress files must match the user under which your web server executes. The web server user (named "apache", "web", "www", "nobody", or some such) is not necessarily the owner of your WordPress files. Typically, WordPress files are owned by the FTP user which uploaded the original files. If there is no match between the owner of your WordPress files and the user under which your web server executes, you will receive a dialog box asking for "connection information", and you will find that no matter what you enter in that dialog box, you won't be able to update automatically.

(b) file permissions: all of your WordPress files must be either owner writable by, or group writable by, the user under which your Apache server executes.

On shared hosts, WordPress files should specifically NOT be owned by the web server. If more than one user owns different files in the install (because of edits made by deleting and re-uploading of files via different accounts, for example), the file permissions need to be group writable (for example, 775 and 664 rather than the default 755 and 644). File permissions (in general) should be adjusted as appropriate for the server environment (the shared host RackSpace CloudSites for example recommends 700 and 600 for a single FTP user, or 770 and 660 for multiple ftp users). See the file permission section for more (some files and folders require stricter permissions).

If you meet these requirements, simply click the upgrade link in your dashboard banner or go to the “Tools” tab, then click the “Upgrade” menu.

Note: If you have customized a standard theme, such as “Twenty Twelve”, do not use the automatic upgrade as it will overwrite your changes—use a manual update instead.

Manual Update

1. Download the latest WordPress version.
2. Unpack the downloaded zip file.
3. Turn off your plugins.
4. Delete the old “wp-includes” and “wp-admin” directories on your web host.
5. Upload the new “wp-includes” and “wp-admin” directories, overwriting the old files.
6. Upload the individual files from the new “wp-content” folder to your existing “wp-content” folder, overwriting existing files. Do not delete the existing “wp-content” folder nor any files or folders in your existing “wp-content” directory.
7. Upload new loose files from the root directory of the new version to your existing WordPress root directory.

Lastly, look at the “wp-config-sample.php” file to see if any new settings are there that you might want to add to your own “wp-config.php”.

Step 5: Reactivate Your Plugins

Now your custom WordPress website is updated and ready to work for you.

Step 6: Watch for Update Notifications

Check your site regularly so that you do not fall behind with your version updates—your site might become vulnerable to hackers or you might lose customers due to poor site performance.

Note: You will update your plugins in a different way so be sure to subscribe to Paveya's blog to read this upcoming article.

If you need help updating your custom WordPress website, contact Paveya at 855.372.8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Twitter’s Shiny New TweetDeck

On Monday, Twitter announced that there will be many new features added to their TweetDeck. The features will not be released all at once—they are starting with the website and Chrome app, and then Windows and Mac apps.   

The sleek new panel can be accessed on the TweetDeck after you click on the “New Tweet” button or when you go to reply to a new tweet. This new panel allows you to choose which account you would like to submit a tweet from. When you select an account, the icon will be illuminated and have a green check mark in the bottom right corner. As for the accounts that are not selected, they will be dim and have no check mark. Underneath the “New Tweet” box there are three buttons that will enable you to add an image, schedule tweets, and write direct messages.

One of the most exciting new features that have been added to the TweetDeck is that we will be able to reply to multiple users within a tweet. Users will simply click the “reply” button and that will automatically import all the usernames in. Another exciting feature is that when you are writing a tweet and begin to type in usernames and hashtags, they will auto-generate.

These changes are being made not only for convenience purposes but to entice people to engage in tweeting more. I don’t know about you but with all these new features and simplicity of using them, I plan to be tweeting a lot more!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. Our team of experts is ready to help you with your social media marketing. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Website Optimization Strategies for Redesigns

Develop an SEO Plan while Redesigning Your Website

If you are currently using search engine optimization techniques for your company’s website, you probably understand the importance of showing you are a reliable source and the significance of a high ranking in search engines. Website optimization includes using keywords and keyword phrases within your web page content, blogging with keywords, generating internal and external links, optimizing images, and creating the appropriate redesign for your website. If you are updating and redesigning your website, there are various ways you can follow SEO methods to gain traffic and grow your reach.

Keywords

One key component of SEO that is essential to incorporate into your website optimization strategy is the use of keywords and keyword phrases. Consistently brainstorm the keywords and keyword phrases that people use to find the goods and services provided by your industry. Conduct keyword research by watching your competitors’ websites and studying your website’s analytics, such as through Google Analytics. These keywords and keyword phrases should be integrated into your website’s design, including the written content, file names, the Meta Description tags, and the HTML Page Title tags. Keywords and keyword phrases, when used accurately, can help increase your ranking and the chance that someone will visit your website.

Content

Content is an additional part of SEO and website optimization. Content on your website can be in the form of a blog, in descriptions of products, and in details of the services your company provides. Your website traffic can increase when informative and updated content is consistently posted to your website. Through content, your company has the potential to show that it is a reliable and dependable resource in the industry. While redesigning the website, make sure you understand which pages and which content has been the most beneficial for your company and the website’s visitors.

Links

Links, both to your own content and to third-party content, are important SEO and website optimization factors to consider as well. Within the content on your company’s website, provide internal inks. Link to certain places, such as to archives and to blogs. Internal links can develop your presence on the Internet. It is also beneficial to link to third-party content. Exchange links with other professional companies and develop connections to show that your brands are dependable. Links are great for website optimization. As you add these links, make sure you track these links. Understand which links are helping your website gain traffic and helping your website’s ranking within search engines. If you are redesigning your company’s website, make sure these links are accurately changed if needed. You must check the links to make sure website visitors are directed to accurate web pages. A proper website redesign should have the most helpful and relevant links for website optimization.

Images

While redesigning your website and working on the website optimization process, make sure you are optimizing your images. For example, use the right keyword and keyword phrases for the title of image. In addition, incorporate keywords and keyword phrases into the "alt" tag. Alternate image tags, or alt tags, not only give blind users a description of an image on a web pages, these titles also help search engines rank what a page is about. Some content management systems, such as WordPress, provide the option of image captions and descriptions. Optimizing images is a significant component of website optimization as you are updating the website’s design.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. Our team of experts is ready to help you with the design and redesign of your website and with website optimization. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 for more information.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Inbound Marketing for Retail

Content in inbound marketing for retail includes social media posts, blog articles, and how-to videos about your products. Relevant, reliable web content and a consistent online presence will drive more traffic to your website because people are searching the internet for your products—everyday!

According to Mashable.com, consumers spend between $1,200 and $1,300 annually for online shopping. Inbound marketing for retail can be cost effective and increase your company’s revenue without being time consuming.

Social Media

Social media is an effective form of communication for retailers. According to Mashable and Booz & Company, online sales that are from social media networks will grow 93 percent annually in a four year period, starting from 2012. Inbound marketing for retail includes Facebook posts about your industry, Instagram pictures of the latest trends, product release tweets on Twitter, blog posts within your website, pins on Pinterest, and YouTube videos on how to use your products. By actively engaging customers in social media, companies can develop relationships with their customers; find out their opinions on your products; and share informative content with them.

An important advantage of social media within inbound marketing for retail is that your fans will share your content, and that means more people will see your products and develop an interest in your brand. Customer reviews and referrals are important for your retail company, and brand recommendations can produce new clients. Through customer reviews and referrals, you can learn about your customers and what they are interested in.

Blogging

Blogs are another essential component of inbound marketing for retail. Your retail company should create informative content through blogs to help answer your customer’s questions. The key to inbound marketing for retail is to allow customers to find you through quality content. Your company might write blogs about the unique features of your products, industry-related news, and trends in your industry. On your retail blog, you can announce new specials and sales offers. Share relevant content through text, pictures, and videos. Your blog must be a good representation of your retail company and your industry.

Website and E-Commerce

Company websites are important components of inbound marketing for retail. Your clients should visit your website and know that they will have a good experience as they learn more about your company and your products.

Inbound marketing for retail includes e-commerce on your company’s website. Customers can shop on the website and buy products directly through the Internet. According to Mashable, from 2011 to 2016, 15 percent more people will shop online. That means 192 million people in the United States will shop online. Having informative and easy-to-use websites are essential to success.

A retail store’s website should have more than just product information. It should have shopping carts, such as X-Cart, as well as payment gateways, and catalog packages. Paveya can help your company create an effective and personalized e-commerce website. We also provide a variety of web design and e-commerce services such as search engine optimization and mobile marketing. Your retail website will be customized for your audience and your needs. 

Paveya's team of professionals is ready to help you with your inbound marketing for retail strategies, including website design, e-commerce development, SEO, and social media. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

How to Create a Social Media Content Strategy

The marketing content you publish and share in social media networks is another key to successful inbound marketing. Social media marketing on networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is an important way to increase your audience. Social media marketing helps a company increase its presence online and allows the company to share content with a large audience. Social media marketing has many benefits, including increasing traffic, revenue, and interaction.

Create Content Ideas

Informative content is important in social media marketing and inbound marketing. Post educational content and write about a variety of topics in your industry. Ask employees from different fields within your company to provide ideas for new social media marketing content. This will allow you to provide content that is beneficial to a large audience.

Other posts include questions. Ask your audience questions that can lead to conversations. Their feedback is essential for your company to improve. Questions are an excellent way to understand your audience and their needs through social media marketing.

Pay attention to the latest news and the interests of your audience. Social media marketing content also includes photos, videos, and infographics. Keep your audience engaged and wanting to learn more about your brand.

In addition, the tone of your updates and content is important. It must match your brand and sound like your company, and this must be true for all your social media networks. A conversational tone that is based on your company’s identity will be effective. All of your social media marketing posts should be educational and helpful to your audience.

Engagement and Updates

One of the most important practices of a social media marketing strategy is to post frequently. It would be helpful to create a schedule so you are aware of when to post your updates on a regular basis. A social media marketing content calendar can be created with a spreadsheet, and you can easily track how frequently you post and what topics you will be writing about. Consistently posting to social media networks, like Facebook and Twitter, will increase your presence online.

In addition, if you publish a new blog post on your website, you should also share it on social media. This will indicate that your company is reliable. Your company and social networks will gain value if have engaging and informative conversations with members of your audience. They are interested in your brand, and you should provide them with the feedback they need. An increase in interaction and engagement is necessary for a successful social media marketing plan.

Hashtags

To make your content easier to find, you can use hashtags. Hashtags help people become engaged in conversations and find the conversations throughout the main social media networks. Hashtags can also help you find a target audience for your content. Hashtags are very powerful within social media marketing because they initiate conversations and can have a large following.

Social Media and Your Brand

Social media is not separate from your website and your company. Your social media networks, along with the content that you post, should remain associated with your company and your brand’s goals. Social media is a part of your company’s inbound marketing plan to teach others about your company and industry and to increase traffic and engagement for your company. Your social media content and campaigns should be representative of your business.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Use Facebook for Business

Facebook, the largest social media network in the world, is an important marketing tool for all businesses. Any type of company, from a small business to a large corporation, can benefit from using Facebook for business with the proper marketing strategies.

Create a Fanbase

Building a fanbase is an important first step while using Facebook for business. There are various ways to create a fanbase on Facebook for business. Your company can purchase advertisements and Sponsored Stories to increase its reach. If you develop an advertisement on Facebook for business, Facebook users can like your company within the ad. Your ad can be customized to connect to the right audience, and you can test a variety of ads to see which ads work well on Facebook for business. If your company has a blog within its website, as well as Twitter and Pinterest accounts, connect your Facebook account to them and share it to others. For example, you can share your Facebook posts on Twitter and insert your Facebook link on Twitter. If you have an email mailing list for purposes such as a newsletter, you can also share your company’s Facebook page within the emails and newsletters. These methods will allow you to connect with your audience and grow your fanbase while using Facebook for business.

Connect with your Fans and their Friends

The next step in using Facebook for business is to consistently post educational and relevant content to keep your fans informed. You should also interact with your fans. It is important to develop relationships with your audience members. Facebook for business posts can also include company news, photos, videos, and information about contests. Have conversations with your audience on Facebook for business by asking questions and responding to their posts. While using Facebook for business, connect with fans and personalize your company. Your company and your audience will see the benefits. To further expand your reach and to connect with your fans’ friends, you can create offers that your fans will share with others, create events for people to join, and develop Sponsored Stories. According to Facebook, 80 percent of consumers say they are more likely to try something new that is based on a friend’s suggestion within social media.

Campaigns

Facebook allows you to manage ads and Sponsored Stories through ad campaigns. Campaigns allow you to track the social reach, campaign reach, and click-through rates for ads you create on Facebook for business. Facebook's social media ad campaigns can also help your company organize ads, receive more likes, and increase engagement. You can create a budget and duration for each campaign that you create and develop on Facebook for business.

Page Insights

Checking analytics is an important part of using Facebook for business. Page Insights will allow you to understand your audience and know which content is relevant to them. In other words, they are the analytics for your company’s page. Through the Insights tab, you can see how many people have liked your page, the number of friends your fans have, the number of people who are telling friends about your company, and the total number of people who have seen content that is related to your company’s Facebook page. You can divide information up into demographics, such as age, gender, and location, to have a specific understanding of your audience. Page Insights and analytics are great ways to learn how your company’s page is doing and who the content is reaching as you use Facebook for business.

Paveya’s inbound marketing specialists are ready to help your company with social media and inbound marketing. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Create a Successful LinkedIn Company Page

Promote your business with a LinkedIn Company Page.

LinkedIn is the largest professional network company in the world and has more than 225 million members. Business-to-business companies and business-to-consumer companies can find many benefits from using LinkedIn, including the LinkedIn Company Page. A LinkedIn Company Page can help businesses inform customers about the brand and the company’s product and services. LinkedIn and a LinkedIn Company Page are essential parts of a company’s social media strategies.

Home & Overview

When you create a LinkedIn Company Page, you can create the profile to introduce others to you company. Within your profile, you can explain your company’s background. This includes adding an image to the profile that can help explain your brand. You should also provide contact information and other general information. In this section of the LinkedIn Company Page, you can post updates on industry and company news. You can also post links to products, links to blog posts, and links to careers.

To keep your other members engaged and interested in your company, post consistently and share relevant content, including your company’s educational blog posts. As you create content, it is essential to follow search engine optimization strategies. Use keywords and keyword phrases that you use on your company’s website to stay consistent. Post educational information, photos, and videos to keep followers engaged and informed. 

Products & Services

LinkedIn gives you the option to add a Products & Services tab to your company’s LinkedIn Company Page. Provide current and potential customers with information on what your company offers. Talk about your products and services and share pictures, videos, and specials. As you add content, you must make sure it is educational and relevant to your audience. In the Products & Services section of your LinkedIn Company Page, you can also display customer recommendations and links to purchase your products and services.

Careers

Within the Careers section of the LinkedIn Company Page, you can share job postings, testimonials that feature employees, and additional content related to employment. LinkedIn members who visit your page can apply for jobs, search your listings, and learn information about your company. You can find experienced employees and reach a large audience through the Careers page. There is a paid subscription that is required for this section of the LinkedIn Company Page.

Employers

According to LinkedIn, your followers are the first people who can advocate for your company. Your current employees can advocate for your brand by being followers. Your employees should develop professional LinkedIn profiles and follow your LinkedIn Company Page. They can be displayed as employees on the LinkedIn Company Page, and, on their personal profiles, they can display your company as their employer. You can also add employees as administrators of the LinkedIn Company Page.

Promote

Members of LinkedIn can find your LinkedIn Company Page by searching for it, but you can promote and share the page as well. Methods of promotion include ad campaigns and sharing your account on your company’s other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Follow Ads and Follow buttons with links can help promote your company and increase engagement. You can also use Targeted Updates and select which part of your audience sees certain posts. You should gain a large audience and promote your information effectively through a LinkedIn Company Page.

Insights

The Insights section of a LinkedIn Company Page is where your company can check analytics. Analytics allow you to understand who is seeing your content and which content is relevant to the visitors. Analytics allow you to understand your followers and how effective your content is for them. The page administrator can check your LinkedIn Company Page’s analytics. This section can help you measure your LinkedIn Company Page’s traffic, engagement, and success.

Paveya is prepared to help your company with social media marketing. Our professionals have experience with LinkedIn and are ready to help you with your social media goals. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Inbound Marketing Content for Small Businesses

Inbound marketing is essential for small businesses.

Relevant blog articles, social media posts, newsletters, and press releases will funnel prospective leads to your website. Outbound marketing can no longer compare to inbound marketing and its benefits. Small businesses must create focused content to let potential customers find them. Through inbound marketing for small businesses, you are no longer looking for clients; they find you through your high-quality content.

Studies show that small businesses are the main users of inbound marketing. According to HubSpot, the pioneer of inbound marketing, 43 percent of businesses who have five employees or fewer are using content-driven marketing.

Customers want to see content that will help them make decisions and solve their needs. They do not want to hear sales calls or see commercials right away. Instead, customers want to see the content you can provide them.

Website Content

What type of information is your target audience searching for? Begin your inbound marketing for small businesses strategy by developing content that will help your website’s visitors solve a problem or answer a question. The inbound marketing content on your website might include case studies, infographics, eBooks, whitepapers, and webinars. Web visitors will consider the quality of your content before they decide to hire you or buy your product.

As the prospects of your small business become interested in your content, you can ask for their contact information, including the name and email address. You must continue to provide more informative content after this, and you can convert them into customers of your small business.

Blog Articles

Your blog content can help you differentiate yourself from competitors in the same industry. Explain the benefits your small business can provide and show how you are unique compared to your competitors and their small business products and services. Showing how your small business is different from others is important in inbound marketing for small businesses.

A blog is an example of how to showcase your knowledge and expertise. Create keyword phrases for your company to follow, and include a phrase in each post, depending on the topic of each post. A business blog provides informative content for your prospects and customers. In addition to the text, add photos and videos to make your content more engaging. The average company that has a blog has 55 percent more website visitors, according to HubSpot.

Newsletters

Inbound marketing for small businesses includes tools such as newsletters. Newsletters are sent via email to clients who have chosen to be included in your mailing list. These emails provide informational content, which includes industry updates and company news.

Press Releases

Press releases can also update your clients with the latest news. Press releases, like blogs, can include search engine optimization so that your company will be easily found on the Internet. These tools are effective in inbound marketing for small businesses.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. Call us at 855-372-8392 and find out how we can help you develop an internet marketing strategy for your small businesses.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Use Videos on Instagram for Businesses

Facebook recently released a video feature on Instagram.

Instagram lets you share videos that are three to 15 seconds long. You can share your videos just like you are using Instagram for business with photos. It’s important to remember that Instagram content can be shared to Facebook, which means you can reach more people. More than one billion people are on Facebook, which is the world’s largest social network, and more than 100 million people are active members of Instagram. Instagram, a Facebook-owned application, is a great way for businesses to use social media. With photos, and now with videos, you can share content with millions of people who are on Instagram.

A great way to use Instagram for business is by providing previews and behind-the-scenes pictures and videos of your products and services. You can also take videos of the process of creating a product as well as a short video of employees working in the office. If your company is having a sale or starting a new contest, use Instagram for business and post a video of the announcement. Share creative videos and small commercials by adding one of 13 new custom filters that Instagram offers. Show updates to products and services so customers are informed. There are many ways to use videos on Instagram for business.

Relating to customers is an important part of social media marketing and using Instagram for business. Show your company’s personality and share your company’s story by using Instagram for business. For example, share interviews of employees or an important part of the company’s history. By posting videos of your background, you can personalize your company and create relationships. A customer testimonial is a great video to post on Instagram for business. If customers tell you how your product or service has helped them, ask for a video to share it with others. Customer testimonials will produce benefits in Instagram for business.

Instagram’s video service allows you to edit videos, select a cover frame, and improve the quality of videos by using stabilization features. The cover frame is a custom frame that will give a proper first impression of the video. The stabilization feature will improve the quality of recordings. Sharing videos is a great way to use Instagram for business and to use video marketing.

Video marketing has proven to be effective. Short videos that display your company’s products and services can produce benefits on Instagram for business. Product videos can help customers, and they can help your company be easily found on Google as well. By the end of 2012, mobile video traffic equaled 51 percent of total traffic, according to Cisco. Out of the marketers in the United States, 65 percent plan to increase their mobile ad budgets because of video, according to eMarketer and Insivia. Posting videos on Instagram for business can help with video marketing strategies.

As you post videos, you should continue to interact with your followers. Use common and interesting hashtags to start campaigns, create informative captions, respond to comments, and share company-related photos that are posted by followers. Visual content and interaction with current and potential customers are essential components of social media strategies. Using Instagram for business can be effective with both photos and videos.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. Call us at 855-372-8392, and we can help you with your Instagram for business campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Inbound Marketing - Where to Get Real Estate Leads

Where does your sales team go for leads?

Does your real estate company have a large sales team that is contacting leads through phone calls and emails to convert them into customers? While this can be a beneficial approach, inbound marketing practices effectively engage leads and convert them into customers.

Inbound marketing means advertising a company through blogs, podcasts, videos, eBooks, email newsletters, whitepapers, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing. This content attracts people to your website, and your sales team can learn how to turn these visitors into real estate leads. Your company must then follow management practices to convert these leads into customers.

The Inbound Marketing Sales Funnel

The top of the funnel includes unknown visitors to your website. To attract visitors and turn them into leads, you must produce quality content. This includes posting relevant articles in a blog. Your sales team should know that a blog is one place to get leads. Within your blog, you can provide helpful information, best practices in your industry, news, and descriptions and pictures of your houses.

Use social media networking to drive traffic to your website. Facebook and Twitter are effective lead-generating avenues for real estate companies. You can provide information about your company and industry news.

In the middle of the sales funnel, you can provide additional helpful information. These leads are knowledgeable about your company, but they are not prepared to purchase anything. They need to be converted into customers, and with effective middle-of-the-funnel marketing, this can happen. 

Your sales team can provide real estate content that helps leads who are in the middle-of-the-funnel stage. Content is a reason the sales funnel is where to get real estate leads. You can provide eBooks, information about real estate listings, data about the real estate market, video tours of houses, and other informative content. Within this stage, you create a connection when you provide leads with informative content. Leads in this stage need to develop a stronger interest in your company and your houses.

Call-to-action links, which target visitors based on their interests, send visitors to a landing page on your website. This landing page explains the value of the article or service provided by your company. For example, a landing page might contain an offer such as a free eBook or home valuation. This page contains a contact form that the person must fill in to get the free offer. As potential customers research your company and your houses, you should move them to the next stage. While your sales team knows where to get real estate leads, the team should also understand how call-to-action links can help convert unknown visitors into sales leads.

Your company now knows that the sales funnel is where to get real estate leads and that the leads in the bottom of the funnel would like to buy from your company. They are interested in your houses and services. Your sales team must know information about your leads to continue marketing, and this is a reason the sales funnel is where to get real estate leads.With effective landing pages you can offer your visitors relevant content and can give you an opportunity to convert your web visitor into a real estate lead. The middle of the funnel helps you market to leads and is a reason why the sales funnel is where to get real estate leads. You gain information about them based on their activity on your website.

Your sales team should know what your leads are interested in, what they have studied on your website, and the ways in which they have communicated with your company. By being knowledgeable about your real estate company’s leads, your sales team can convert leads to customers.

The sales funnel and inbound marketing are where to get real estate leads for your company. Your sales team can manage leads for a longer period of time by following lead engagement practices. Knowing where to get real estate leads is an important component of the sales funnel and the inbound marketing process. By being knowledgeable about your visitors and leads, providing visitors with informative content, and developing a relationship with leads, your real estate company can have success in the inbound marketing process.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. We are committed to helping you create leads, connect with customers, and develop your real estate business. Call us at 855-372-8392.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

How Sponsored Stories on Facebook Can Promote Business

Sponsored Stories on Facebook allow businesses to engage more people. Advertisements become more social, and word-of-mouth recommendations are spread in a more effective manner with these stories. These recommendations can attract a wider audience and create more leads for your company.

Sponsored Stories come from the actions of Facebook friends. Facebook friends can endorse businesses and companies. These stories are messages that involve friends’ interactions with a Facebook Page, application, or event. The messages are available on the News Feed, but they may not be seen by most of the user’s friends. To increase the chance that friends will see the action, an advertiser pays Facebook to have these messages highlighted.

Various actions can become Sponsored Stories on Facebook. If a friend likes a Page or engages with features on a Page, such as by commenting on a Facebook post, the user could see these stories about his or her friend’s actions. Other types of actions include a friend joining an event, interacting with an application, or liking a website. If a friend joins an event and this is then sent to your News Feed, you could have an increased chance of seeing this story on Facebook if the company or individual has chosen to promote it.

Businesses and individuals can create Sponsored Stories on Facebook. Within Facebook’s ad creation tool, you will be given an option to promote a Page, application, or domain. You will also choose which kind of Sponsored Story you would like to be promoting to your audience.

Types of Sponsored Stories

• Domain Story: These stories help send traffic from Facebook to your company’s website.
• Page Like Story: This story helps send people to your Facebook Page.
• Page Post Story: This one is associated with the positive comments on your Page. When a user visits your page and leaves positive reviews regarding your company, this can lead to an advertisement.
• Check-In Story: When users check in to a location by using their mobile phones, this check-in can be shared.
• App Share Story: This allows users to share the story from your application. Advertisers can highlight these stories.

Other types of Sponsored Stories are available also. You have the option to select which type of Sponsored Story will be the most effective and beneficial for your business.

Business and individuals must pay for Sponsored Stories. They will be charged based on the number of clicks that the Sponsored Story receives. The amount a company has to pay for the Sponsored Stories on Facebook will not go over the daily budget or the lifetime budget of the business, and no additional fees will be present.

Sponsored Stories are different from advertisements on Facebook. Sponsored Stories are more relevant to Facebook users. These stories can relate to information about Facebook users’ friends. Since the Sponsored Stories are more relevant to Facebook users and their friends, there is a higher chance that Facebook users will click on the stories compared to the advertisements. Regarding advertisements, the advertiser develops a message that will be shared with an audience.

Sponsored Stories on Facebook are a form of word-of-mouth marketing. By receiving information about friends’ recommendations, the stories are effective and provide relevant information. Companies and individuals who use Facebook to advertise can receive benefits from Sponsored Stories on Facebook.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Social Media 101 for Small Businesses

Social media is becoming the number one marketing tool for small businesses.

Not only is it inexpensive but it is easy to use and doesn’t take much time to spread the word about your products and services. There are multiple benefits of using social media for your small business such as being able to connect with customers, becoming more visible, and promoting your company for little or no cost.

Don’t think for one second that using social media for online marketing is a field of daisies, it can also cause social media suicide! But have no fear Paveya’s here! So get ready to take some notes because we are reviewing Social Media 101 for small businesses.

Don’t Get a Failing Grade

First things first, do you remember that saying “there is no such as bad publicity?” Well, this does not apply to those of us in the business world. Bad publicity does exist!

When it comes to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. you are constantly representing your company. Posting with poor grammar, misspelled words and even using “u” instead of taking the time to write out “you” can make your business look careless and unprofessional.

As for the saying “guilty by association,” this does apply to the business world. Be aware of the friends and likes that you have on your social media page. If you have friends who constantly post bad or inappropriate pictures or comments, know that you are guilty by association. Most of time people learn about a company and/or the people behind the company before doing business with them through their social media accounts. They will read the comments on your wall, look up your likes and start to create a mental image of you and your business based on that information.

Social media is called social media because… well… you need to be social! It is sad to say but there are so many businesses (even large businesses) on social media platforms that don’t interact with people who show an interest in their companies. This is supposed to be a place where you can gain and maintain the interest of people. If you don’t respond to people, you are basically giving them the impression that your employees are rude and don’t care about your customers.

Work Towards an A+

Conduct yourself on social media sites like you would if someone would come into your office at work. Let's say a person comes to your work place and needs your help. You would immediately assist them in a friendly manner, right? You would not wait days to get back to them, you would provide them with good customer service and help them as soon as possible. So work towards implementing that mindset into social media skills. When people post questions or comments then do your best to reply as soon as you can. Make sure that you are not "pushing" your company on people. Here at Paveya we strongly agree with the 80/20 rule: This is when 80% of your posts will be geared towards your audience and encourage replies and 20% of your posts are related to your business or promotions.  

Remember that social media is supposed to be social! Remember to keep in touch with the friends and followers that you have. Responding to their tweets, comments, and replies shows them that you promote good services and demonstrate your approachability. There is a lot on the line when you decide to use social media to market your business and your reputation can either benefit from it or suffer. Use our guidelines above to ensure that you reap all the benefits of having a social media account.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Inbound Marketing for Professionals

Learn how inbound marketing can grow your business.

Inbound marketing is a strategy in which your company attracts and nurtures customers with relevant information through blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, email campaigns, whitepapers, and social media.

Inbound marketing can help a variety of businesses and industries, which includes professional services. If someone has a problem and needs advice to fix the issue, those potential clients might search the Internet for help. As they look for a solution, they search for helpful and recent content. Through successful inbound marketing for professionals, you can provide this content and gain clients.

As a professional, you are experienced in your field and, with inbound marketing, you can communicate your knowledge and attract new clients. Whether you are a CPA, a doctor, or an attorney, you can provide helpful information to customers through inbound marketing for professionals. You should be able to understand what they need help with and develop a solution to their problem.

A strategy to follow as you develop useful content is to consider a buyer persona.

A buyer persona is a possible prospect. As you follow methods of inbound marketing for professionals and write your content, you can write to the buyer persona, or the ideal customer. By doing so, you can write for their needs and situations.

Inbound marketing is content-driven marketing.

While practicing inbound marketing for professionals, provide the best information about your field. Explain a variety of concepts you are knowledgeable about and provide useful and relevant data. You are supplying your website’s visitors with informative content, including blogs, articles, infographics, and images. It is important to provide educational and engaging information to your potential customers. By helping your website’s visitors and following strategies of inbound marketing for professionals, you can turn leads into customers.

You can provide information to consumers through blogs, social media networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, articles, videos, and images.

This stage is associated with top-of-the-funnel marketing in the sales funnel. You should provide the best content in your industry. Share information that is valuable and engaging for consumers. Follow strategies of inbound marketing for professionals to inform customers that your content is available to help them. Other forms of content include e-books and webinars, which are forms of middle-of-the-funnel marketing. Gain leads by providing content, and convert them into customers by helping them find solutions. Also in this stage of the sales funnel, you should create a relationship with consumers. They should show a stronger interest in your services. Through social media and search engine optimization that are associated with inbound marketing for professionals, you can share your content, engage with consumers, and gain clients.

As you provide information to consumers, you should also interact with them.

This is an important step in the process of inbound marketing for professionals. For example, if you are posting your ideas to social media networks, respond to consumer feedback. If they ask questions for more information, provide them information from your knowledge and expertise. This is a step toward successful inbound marketing for professionals. Respond to messages and comments as you actively engage in communication. There are various opportunities to respond to consumers and communicate with them. It is essential to share your valuable information with current and potential customers. As you engage in inbound marketing for professionals, you can become a well-known and respected professional.

Inbound marketing for professionals is a way to share your knowledge as a professional in your industry. Providing content to current and potential customers is a way to engage in inbound marketing for professionals. To convert your website’s visitors, leads, and ultimately clients, you should follow strategies based on inbound marketing for professionals.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing agency. Our experts have experience with inbound marketing for professionals in a variety of industries. Our team of professionals is prepared to help you develop leads, communicate with your customers, and excel as a professional in your field.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Promote your Vacation Rental Company with Social Media

Learn why social media has become critical for vacation rental companies.

While traditional marketing worked in the past, we are now moving towards a more technological era that predominately relies on online marketing. People like to shop around online and become more educated before making a choice. Being able to research a product or service before purchasing allows consumers to feel more confident in their purchase. Being able to post information online for people to research is beneficial for vacation rental companies. But how do we guarantee that the information about our rentals is going to spark the interest of new customers? Two words: social media.

Social media is the interaction of people through online sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and the list could go on and on. Facebook alone has over 1 billion active users. The article below contains tips from Paveya on how to fully take advantage of social media for vacation rentals agencies.

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Studies show that pictures of products are able to grab a customer’s attention in less than one second. When you post pictures on your social media sites, they will show up in your followers’ or friends’ news feed which will spark an interest.

We suggest posting a picture of your rental or a view that your rental has with a brief comment that will lead back to your website for more information. Sites like Facebook allows you to make photo albums so you could make an album of each rental which would include pictures of the inside and outside of the houses you have.

Engagement is Essential

Having followers and friends on social media sites is great but in order to keep them interested in what you are trying to sell entails maintenance. If they ask questions, always answer in a timely manner. A study performed by Cone Business in Social Media showed that 56% of consumers feel that when companies interact with them through social media sites, that they are receiving better service.

Be aware of the tone that you are using when you reply to people making comments or asking questions. Your tone should always be courteous and sincere. Try to post on a regular basis to keep people interested.

Asking questions is a good practice to start integrating into your posts. Say something like “our perfect activity to do while on vacation is fishing, what is yours?” This will attract replies from people and you can use it to have a conversation with them. Say someone writes back and says that they like to go to the beach you could reply something like “oh yeah, beach time is great too. The best beach near us is *blank* have you ever been there?” Get people interested through suggestions.

Know What You Post

When you get into the swing of posting on a regular basis, start observing your posts and taking notes on what images and comments get the most “likes,” “shares,” and responses. This way when you make future posts you will know what captures attention the most. Not only is this going to get more feedback from your followers and friends but it will show them that your company is also being responsive to them.

Being involved with social media is becoming essential to achieving a successful business. But just making an account on social media sites isn’t enough. You need to make sure that you are regularly making contributions and constantly interacting with existing customers and potential customers.

Paveya is a full-service inbound marketing agency that helps their customers create leads, connect with customers and grow their business using cutting edge internet marketing. Contact us or call 855.372.8392 to discuss you social media marketing strategy.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers and GROW their business.

Pinterest Best Practices - Social Media Marketing

Pinterest is a popular social network and is increasing its engagement throughout the world. Business owners can take advantage of the popularity of Pinterest. You can share and pin pictures and videos and follow other Pinterest users and Pinterest boards. Pinning can help your company engage with others, drive traffic to your website, and encourage others to learn about your company. Follow these best practices for Pinterest and discover how this social network can help promote your business.

Prepare Your Website for Pinterest

Best practices for Pinterest include making sure that your company’s website and content work well with Pinterest. With a browser plug-in for WordPress® sites, Pinterest users can pin images and videos directly from a website. The image or video is saved and uploaded or a URL can be used to import the image. After the image or video is sent to Pinterest, the user can pin it to the appropriate board and describe it. To make sure Pinterest users can do this, you should test this process. Pinterest users need to be able to easily pin from your website to benefit them and your company. This is one of the best practices for Pinterest. In addition, Pinterest has recently added a button for Google Chrome. The extension simplifies pinning. Having a website that works well with Pinterest is one of the best practices for Pinterest.

There are other best practices for Pinterest and website integration. Every page of your website needs to have a dominant image. You should have interesting content throughout your website. Informing your consumers through pictures and descriptions is one of the best practices for Pinterest.

Explain Your Brand

Another one of the best practices for Pinterest is to explain your company’s background and history. Show your company’s products and services. It would be interesting to display how your company has grown with new improvements and innovations. There is a variety of best practices for Pinterest as you build brand loyalty on the social network. Include pictures of employees, behind-the-scenes images and videos, and company logos. These methods will allow you to create a personalized profile. Stay original and show your brand as you creatively pin. There are many best practices for Pinterest to follow for brand loyalty.

Provide Informative Content

Supplying current and potential customers with informative content is another one of the best practices for Pinterest. Provide tutorials, directions for products and services, links to blog posts and company articles, information for company contests, and suggestions. Your Pinterest boards should provide advice and help to your consumers. Providing guidance is one of the best practices for Pinterest. For example, if your company supplies e-books to consumers, show a picture of the e-book on one of your pins. You should inform consumers about how to download the e-book and how it can help them. Using graphics is another technique to provide engaging content. One of the best practices for Pinterest is to provide guidance for those who access your boards.

Check Analytics

Checking analytics is another one of the various best practices for Pinterest. Pinterest has added new analytics. They permit Pinterest users to check how many pinners and pins are using content from their boards. The analytics also show the number of repinners and repins for each pin you add, your reach, and your impressions on Pinterest as well. Following analytics is one of the best practices for Pinterest. The analytics will help you understand who is engaging in your company’s content on Pinterest. This will be beneficial to you in many ways; for example, you will understand where you can improve and who is in your audience on Pinterest. Checking your profile's analytics is one of the best practices for Pinterest.

There are numerous best practices for Pinterest. Pinterest is an excellent way to expand your reach and communicate with consumers.

Paveya is a full-service inbound marketing agency, and our professionals can help your company with social media marketing strategies. You can call us at 855-372-8392 or email us at grow@paveya.com.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their business.

Vacation Rental Internet Marketing - Email Campaigns

The goal of your email marketing campaign is to turn your new leads into bookings and nurture existing customers. To keep ahead of your competition, your vacation rental internet marketing must include email campaigns. This content should include relevant information that matters to perspective customers and repeat bookers.

Email Content

Identify your Subscribers

Take time to develop a buyer persona—a fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on analyzed data. This will help you understand what a day in the life of a potential client might be like and how to address their needs.

To learn more, read Paveya’s blog article, “Vacation Rental Website Design - Identify your Customer”.

Deliver Content that Matters

Vacation rental companies might want to promote upcoming events and make announcements that matter to your customers. For example, your email newsletter might include

• a list of discounted home rentals for a particular week;
• a schedule of events in your area for the month of July;
• a promotion of pet-friendly homes in your rental program;
• a press release about the completion of a new tourist attraction;
• an announcement of road or bridge construction that might impede travel in your area;
• an update from your town about leash laws; or
• an article about what your vacationers can do with recyclable materials.

Social Media

People frequently share emails, and that means that you can contact someone that is not yet on your email list. Include forward and social sharing buttons in your email messages.

Include Call-to-Action Links

Call-to-action buttons ask your new lead to take action on an offer such as booking a rental special or downloading an article, whitepaper, or eBook.

Create a simple graphic or sentence in your email that links to an offer on a page of your website—a landing page. There you might ask your email subscriber to fill in a form to

• request an article that lists everything that they might need to bring on vacation;
• download a calendar of events; or
• sign up for updates on discounted rental homes.

Call-to-action links can help you create new leads and montior the effectiveness of your email campaign.

Email Design: Keep it Simple

Here are a couple important reasons to make a simple design:

• A plain text email is what your subscribers receive from friends or colleagues, without graphics or videos. You're free to just say what you want to say, and the reader can just ... read it. 
• It's easier for the email message to render. Emails with several design elements—large images or videos, for example, might load slowly or display incorrectly. Some of your recipients' email accounts might have images turned off by default, so your email might look unorganized or lacking content. Don’t rely on images to deliver your message.
• Sometimes your recipients are reading your message on their mobile devices—will your customer wait for that huge email to load? If they do, will it still look as good as when you designed it on your desktop computer? Unlikely.

Insert a concise signature and footer. Include your name, title, social media links (one or two), a link to your website, and maybe even a postscript. For example, "PS: Check out our exciting photos from our special event." Studies show that people usually scroll to the bottom of an email to make sure that they didn’t miss anything.

Best Practices

Adapted from Paveya’s eBook, "The Complete Guide to Optimizing Email Marketing for Conversions"

1. Do you have permission to email the people on your list? Use contacts that signed up on your website. Never purchase or rent contact lists.
2. Include an unsubscribe link. If you don’t, you might be marked as a spammer. Spam complaints will hurt your reputation and even hinder future email deliveries.
3. Segment your list. Make sure you send the right message to the right customer. Create at least 2 campaigns: one for potential bookers and one for existing customers.
4. Personalize the email whenever possible.
5. Write in the second person: "Here is what you should bring on vacation".
6. Create consistency with “from” name and email. Email from an individual person, not a team. No-reply emails not acceptable with marketing emails.
7. Create clear and compelling subject lines that are less than 50 characters.
8. Use actionable language in your call-to-action links. For example, "Download now" or "Request a brochure".
9. It is better to focus on benefits instead of features. Write to the pain point of the reader or answer a frequently asked question.
10. Be brief, less than 200 words.
11. Send test emails to different types of email accounts such as Google, Yahoo, and Gmail.
12. Make sure you use an email delivery system that provides analytics.
13. Analyze your email statics. For example, study how many emails were opened, which links were clicked, and how many emails were forwarded.
14. Send email campaigns every 3 to 6 weeks, depending on the season.

Although many people who fill in the form on your website to receive your email newsletter are still in the research stage, you can use this opportunity to establish brand awareness and offer specials for the upcoming vacation season.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Instagram for Business - Social Media Marketing

Instagram is growing in popularity, and it is a beneficial way for businesses to market to consumers. An increasing number of brands are joining Instagram for business and gaining a large audience of followers. There are many best practices to follow to use Instagram for business effectively. The following are tips on how to use Instagram for business and examples of how popular brands use Instagram:

Create a strategy that you will follow consistently with your posts to Instagram for business. You should be aware of what content you plan to provide to your followers, and you should have a goal for the process. Follow the strategy while posting on a regular basis. Methods to follow include informing your customers about your history and background, providing behind-the-scenes pictures, and promoting your products and services.

GAP uses Instagram for business by sharing pictures such as pictures of its products and company events. Each picture is unique and creative to engage followers.
 
Be aware of how to use hashtags. Hashtags allow Instagram users to gather content with a shared hashtag in one place, and they help create a community of Instagram users. Use relevant hashtags and popular hashtags. Create a hashtag for your business. Hashtags can help you find more followers and allow you to share your pictures with a larger audience. Check consistently for the latest popular hashtags.

Dunkin' Donuts frequently uses Instagram for business and uses hashtags, such as #ddlove, that relate to the company.
 
Tell a story about your business by using your pictures and captions.

Disney Channel uses Instagram for business through a variety of methods to engage and update followers. For example, the company posts pictures of Disney Channel stars at events. The company also informs followers about its channel and its history by sharing scenes from shows.
 
Have contests to promote your company. Create campaigns and engage your followers. Provide a clear explanation of your contest. Common hashtags can help promote your contest. The hashtag should be short and should have a connection to your brand. The reward for the contest winner should also relate to your company.

General Electric launched a GE Instagrapher campaign. The campaign was launched to inform followers about the company and how it operates. GE wanted followers to take pictures and use the hashtag #GEInspiredME to explain how they are inspired by the ways in which GE operates. The prize was to become a GE Instagrapher for one day and to travel to the United Kingdom to take pictures of GE's jet engine plants. To share the pictures with a larger audience, the company posted pictures on Pinterest.
 
Share pictures with other social networks as you post. Instagram can connect to other social networks like Facebook. You can increase your following by posting to multiple social networks. For example, J.Crew posts similar pictures to Facebook and Instagram.
 
Engage with your followers. Like their pictures, respond to their comments, ask them questions, share their pictures of your products and services, and encourage them to join contests and campaigns by your company.

Ben & Jerry's posts pictures from their Instagram followers. For example, Ben & Jerry's uses the hashtag #FanFotoFridayto post pictures by fans.

Instagram is a popular social network and is a way to engage your current and potential customers. Using Instagram for business is an opportunity to reach a large audience and to promote your company.

By using Instagram for business effectively, you can inform your followers about your company, company events, the latest updates, and more through creative photography, captions, and social media marketing strategies.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Vacation Rental Website Design - How to Optimize Blog Posts

Attract New Customers with Your Blog

The purpose of your vacation rental website design is to attract new customers. Your blog can help if you publish relevant information and use your content management website to optimize the content for search engines.

Every vacation rental company has a website. So, to keep up with your competition, your website must include a blog that contains fresh, relevant content. Daily—or at least bi-weekly—blog posts are essential.

This article will teach you the basics of how to improve the quality of your web traffic and how to optimize each post for search engines.

Optimize Blog Posts for Vacationers

Subject Matter

So what information is your potential customer searching for?

Answer frequently asked questions. It is also important to write about area entertainment, kids' activities, historical landmarks, sporting competitions, fairs, exhibitions, and businesses that offer services that will appeal to your target audience. Highlight a business such as a restaurant that features local musical talent; a golf course hosting a tournament; a boutique planning a sale; a spa offering wedding packages; a theatre promoting a new play; or a professional sports instructor offering a discount for large groups.

Remember to post unique content. Do not rob text from another source and call it your own—this might damage your reputation and credibilty. Site your sources when it is necessary.

Image Selection

Post relevant, high-quality imagery with each post. Whether it's a photograph or a graphic, use original images that help the reader relate to the general message of the blog post. Throw out blurry, out-of-focus images. These will likely compromise the impression that you are hoping to convey to your web reader.

Optimize Blog Posts for Search Engines (SEO)

Content Management Websites

Your WordPress website is the perfect tool to optimize your blog posts for search engines. However, it requires an understanding of how search engines "crawl" and rank your content; how to use your WordPress on-page editor; and how to name image files.

Content Crawlers

After a user types in their search terms (keywords), the search engine sorts through thousands upon thousands of web pages to find relevent content. The stronger the keyword placement is in your blog, the better your ranking will be.

Keywords

Choose keywords that an information-seeking user might type to find your blog post. For example, "Laguna Beach Vacation Rentals" are keywords that you could use within different, focused topics.

Use these keywords in your post's

• blog title;
• blog URL (web page address); and
• topic sentence.

The screenshot above shows you where to edit the blog post URL, if necessary. Use keywords and always separate the terms with dashes. Keep in mind that if your post has already been published and shared on social media networks, it is best not to change this address, even for SEO purposes.

Put your On-page Text Editor to Use

Your WordPress site has been set up with pre-defined text styles. Use them! These tags are important for visual consistency and, more importantly, for search engine ranking.

Inside the drop-down menu under "paragraph" (or it might be labeled "format", depending on your site's theme) you will see a list of headings 1 through 6. Search engines place more importance or relevancy on text that uses heading tags.

1. Highlight your topic sentence and change it from a "paragraph" to a "Heading 2". This topic sentence should include your keywords.
2. Use headings 3 and 4 for subsections of your main topic.
3. Use bulleted or numbered lists, blockquotes, and bolded text as search engines give more SEO credence to text within these tags.

Text formatting improves SEO and breaks up long pages of text with subtle visual accents.

Name Image Files with Keywords

Title your graphics and photos with relevant keywords and phrases, not your company name. For example, name your image "laguna-beach-vacation-rental.jpg". Do not post images with the default title that your camera creates. Search engines cannot give you SEO credit for a photo named "CMI234566.jpg". It also is important to use dashes to separate your keywords—never spaces—and limit the file name to about 24 characters.

Supply an Alternate (alt) Image Tag

Alternate tags on images "tell" blind web visitors what the image is about, plus these tags improve SEO.

Your WordPress editor includes an image uploader that will instantly give you an opportunity to assign alt text to the image. Use your keywords if they are relevant to the imagery.

Use your On-page SEO Generator

At the bottom of every post, your WordPress website should include a SEO editor that generates a SEO title and a "meta" description, which both display on a search results page. In the screenshot below, the SEO title and meta description are shown in the "Snippet Preview". 

This screenshot illustrates where to insert your keywords within this SEO generator:

• SEO Title
• Meta Description

Never use the "Keyword Focus" generator—Google now discourages the use of these "meta" keywords.

To many WordPress users, this is tons of work but if you make a habit of creating blog posts that are optimized for your potential customers and for search engines, you will see results with time.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Generate Real Estate Leads with Your Website

A realtor’s job is never done… between working with buyers and representing homeowners will negotiating with banks and attorneys you are constantly on the go.

So it can seem almost impossible to find the time to continually fill your sales funnel. What if I told you that there was a sure fire way to constantly have leads available to you who have already qualified themselves and are waiting for your call? This is what a well-designed internet marketing strategy can do for you.

Here’s where to find real estate leads:

• Now that we understand that 90% of all customers begin their search for a new home on the internet, the MOST IMPORTANT THING is to have a website. This website should be helpful and have easy to use. Put the MLS search right on your home page, if not at the top of the page, then no lower than a person would be able to see on a regular screen. Make sure that no matter where your potential buyers or sellers land on your site that the MLS Search is available on every page. This is why they’ve come to your page—they are interested in real estate.
• The easiest way to engage your potential buyer or seller is to have educational content on your website. One quick way of providing educational content is by installing widgets on your website that provide listings, market conditions, etc. This keeps the user engaged on your website while they are doing their research. See https://www.trulia.com/tools and https://www.zillow.com/webtools/widgets, for some examples. Make sure that you aren’t installing something that ultimately end up taking leads off of your site. Ask yourself before installing these “Is this something that my buyers and sellers would be looking for”
• Internet marketing may the medium, but what this person is looking for is whether they want to be in a business relationship with you. A great way letting them get to know you is to use a blog. Tell them about the houses you are selling, sure, with great pictures, or better yet video. Write about your specialty as a short sale agent. That’s a given. You can also get more creative here… tell them about the local elementary school from your perspective as a parent. Take the time to write about the Farmers Market that services a community. The great part is that not only will a person get to know your personality and expertise in the area; they may bring new leads to you who are searching for that kind of content. 
• Finally, make sure that you allow folks to subscribe your blog. This is a great way to build your email list of prospective buyers and sellers. In fact, your blog should be a great start for a monthly email newsletter. Use the first several sentences of each blog that you’ve been publishing with a link back to your website to read more. This a great tool to continually engage in dialog with leads and prospects.  Learn more about how to create successful email campaigns by downloading the eBook

So you are going to have to start working differently and spending your marketing dollars differently. With a well-designed, educational website you are actively trying to build relationships. The great part is that you are building relationships with the leads you didn’t even know about and at their convenience. The whole goal is that when your lead that you’ve been nurturing is ready to buy or sell, they already know who they trust and want to work with-- you!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Content Development - Use Keywords to Improve Search Engine Ranking

To improve search engine ranking, use keywords to help create relevant information that addresses your customer's questions.

Writing web content and blog material is a challenge for every business owner. However, if you develop relevant writing themes, your job will become easier and you will boost your ranking.

1. Make a list of the words and phrases that a web customer might use to find your services or products.

For example, let’s say you own a toy store in Nags Head, North Carolina named “The Playroom”. Your keyword list will include phrases such as

• Nags Head toy store (include your town name and what you are offering);
• Outer Banks toy store (include regional names);
• Toddler toys Outer Banks;
• Educational toys;
• Video games for children; and
• Board games Nags Head.

Your list can include hundreds of key phrases—add to it whenever you think of a new one. You can also check your ideas for keyword using a Google AdWords Tool. This will show you the number of people searching using that keyword phrase in any given month and the difficulty, which they higher the number the more difficult it will be to achieve ranking.

If Google Analytics™ is installed on your site, take advantage of this tool and study the terms people have used to arrive at your site. These statistics can help you figure out the keywords that your site is missing—and the customers you might be missing due to a lack of that content.

Remember to keep the words simple: unless you want to target a limited audience, change technical terms to common ones.

After you have developed your list, insert these keywords into your main page headings, blog titles, and body text.

2. Name your image files with your keywords to improve search engine ranking.

Title your graphics and photos with relevant keywords and phrases, not your company name. For example, use words such as “nags-head-toy-store.jpg” instead of “theplayroom.jpg”. Don't post images with the default title that your camera creates. Search engines cannot give you SEO credit for a photo named “CMI234566.jpg”. It also is important to use dashes to separate your keywords and limit the file name to about 24 characters.

Be sure to add the keywords to your “alt” image tag. Alternate tags on images “tell” blind web visitors what the image is about, plus these tags improve SEO

3. Add fresh content to your site.

To reach the top pages of an internet search and remain there, you must update your site—daily, if necessary. Even if you hire a web developer to optimize the main content of your site, competitors who regularly post relevant articles, photos, and client feedback will quickly out rank you.

If you make a habit of blogging, your search engine ranking will improve. Here are some basic blogging tips to help drive the right customers to your site.

• Choose a relevant, focused topic that addresses a client’s need or a frequently asked question (remember those phrases you discovered using Google Analytics?).
• Use the keywords in your post title.
• Insert the keywords in two spots (blog posts should contain a total of 500 to 600 words). Use the keywords in your pre-styled headings (heading 1, heading 2, and heading 3) and in the body text.
• Use one relevant photo or graphic and remember to named it for search engines.
• Use keywords in your CMS’s “meta” title, keyword focus, and description. For WordPress™ users, make sure you have a SEO plugin installed such as Yoast™. This editor appears near the bottom of every page and post on your site.

4. Learn how to edit your content management website (CMS) and make a habit of updating the main content and adding new blog posts.

If you have a site that you can update yourself, learn how to use it. Many business owners shy from using their CMS to its fullest potential.

Your website is probably the most important marketing tool that you have so get best practices instructions from a professional internet marketing agency. Paveya offers a great deal of educational material on our website and through our blog.

But your best bet is to dive right in! It can be daunting at first remember the reason why you started in this business in the first place… tell about your passion and why your products are unique. Once you become proficient, your search ranking and the quality of your web traffic will improve.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Outer Banks Relay for Life 2013 - Help Find a Cure for Cancer

In the United States, cancer is considered the second most common cause of death, according to the American Cancer Society. Cancer consists of more than 100 diseases, and it begins when abnormal cells start growing without control. Relay for Life is an event in which communities throughout the word raise awareness and come together to raise money toward finding a cure for cancer.

The Outer Banks community is proud to participate in Relay for Life, which includes an annual event. In 2011, Dare County was the number one participant in the United States per capita. Annually, Dare County continues to be one of the top contributors per capita in the United States for giving for Relay for Life.

This year, Relay for Life of Dare County will take place from May 18-19 at First Flight High School. The event starts at 12 p.m.

Community members honor those who have survived cancer, remember loved ones who have lost their lives to cancer, and fight this disease. The event includes a fundraising walk and live entertainment as well as food, games, and activities. This year will also include a bake sale, raffles, face painting, and cupcake decorating.

The Opening Ceremony is the official start to the event. In the Survivors Lap, music plays while the survivors make the first lap around the track. Other participants help celebrate their victory. In the Team Banner Lap at 3:30 p.m., each participating team can march behind their banners.  During the Luminaria Ceremony, community members remember loved ones who have lost their lives to cancer and honor and support those who have been battling against it. The candles will be lit in personalized bags, and they will be located around the track. The Closing Ceremony remembers the lives that have been lost and honors Relay for Life participants for their contributions to fight the disease.

The Annual Cupcake 5K will take place for the third time, and it will also be at First Flight High School. The race is focused on a world with more birthdays and is focused on fighting cancer. Participants can run in honor or in memory of loved ones by wearing dedication tags with their names. The event starts on May 19 at 8 a.m. Pre-registration for the event is required. If the event is not sold out, on-site registration will be available.

This year VBL Technologies and its internet marketing subsidiary Paveya will be participating as the team “Techs for a Cure”. We are pleased to have the following corporate sponsors, including Carolina Designs, Johnson Burgess Mizelle and Straub, BD&A, Villas at Corolla Bay, Resort Realty, Elan Vacations and Artistic Elegance Spa and Salon.  For each of these sponsors the Techs for a Cure team will walk the track with the name of the sponsor prominently featured. Subsequently, for the rest of the year, each of these companies’ websites will be featured on our Paveya website and will receive the benefit of our extensive search engine optimization strategy for their website.

Team members will also be staffing a food tent offering curried chicken and fried rice available for $5 a plate and drinks for $1. All proceeds will be donated to Relay for Life.

We want to thank our corporate sponsors and everyone in the Outer Banks community for their continued support of this important cause. We will look forward to seeing you there.

You may also continue to donate Relay for Life through August 2013.

LinkedIn - Consumer Inbound Marketing with Social Media

Companies realize that the success of their brands largely relies on inbound marketing with social media. Social media marketing means using websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others to promote products, services, and other opportunities that companies want to get into the hands of consumers or businesses.

LinkedIn is the primary social networking site for B2B marketers but somewhat secondary with the B2C arena. Statistics from LinkedIn show that only 51 percent of online marketers use this site for consumer marketing while a whopping 83 percent of those handling the same for B2B rely on LinkedIn.

With over 200 million members, LinkedIn is definitely a force to be reckoned with when planning inbound consumer marketing. In an effort to make it more engaging, following are tips for maximizing your LinkedIn company page.

Tips for Maximizing Your LinkedIn Company Page

Include Pictures on Your Page. As the ultimate advertising genius, David Ogilvy said years ago, perception is reality. With today’s advances in online marketing, the same holds true. Your cover image is the first thing to draw consumers to your brand(s).  Make sure the image has the elements necessary to generate curiosity to want to know more – a photo of products, mentions of promotions, or a quick one-line explanation of the brand. In addition to the cover image, make sure to include pictures of your brands in the products and services section.

Take Advantage of the Services Tab. Doing this is your shot to sell your “wares.” Showcase the benefits of what you have to offer. Posting blogs, featuring brands, and descriptions, or even asking a question to invoke a discussion are excellent platforms to feature your brands and abilities. Ask current users to share their experiences with your brands – nothing is better than testimonials and recommendations from current users who are familiar to other members via their LinkedIn connections.

Post Quality Content Constantly. By “constantly,” we mean at least once a week but if you have important updates, you can do it daily (if it makes sense). As with any form of inbound marketing with social media, updating your company page is crucial to its success. The updated content must be pertinent and provide useful information with an edge to it. LinkedIn research shows that its members are much more likely to want to read quality content from brands on LinkedIn rather than on other social networking sites like Facebook. Because LinkedIn is a professional social networking site, its users have a purpose when perusing it – they will take the time to read worthwhile content from which they believe they can benefit. Interesting content, even with a little humor, generates interest and drives consumers to share your information which ultimately drives them to your brands.

Focus on the Right Target Audience. With LinkedIn, you have the ability to target your brand to the right audience. This is where the fun begins. LinkedIn offers the Insights tab on company pages. The Insights tab provides admins of a company page with the ability to scan statistics like page views, unique visitors, page clicks and more. With page views, they are broken down by tab, visitor demographics by page and so on. Armed with this information, you can post various updates that are geared to specific target audiences. When experimenting with such targeted updates, it is important to remember that this works best with those companies that have a larger number of followers, a nice array of brands and various segments of an audience.

Promote Your LinkedIn Company Page. In order for your users to know about your LinkedIn company page, you have to promote that you have one. LinkedIn provides a widget that can be downloaded onto the home page of your website. When users go to your website, they can click on the LinkedIn logo and go straight to your LinkedIn page. Another way to promote it is to download another widget that allows followers to share content such as posts and blogs on other websites.

Analyze the Results. Because you can test content by updating posts of various topics, it is important to keep up with LinkedIn Analytics. Analytics allows you to review the performance and statistics on your page. You can see impressions, click through rates, and even an engagement rate.

Take Your Consumer Marketing to a New Level

Keep in mind that while LinkedIn is a professional social networking site, its members are people. These people use products and brands in every aspect of their lives. Whether they are interested in business or consumer brands, they bring a huge opportunity to get your brands in front of an audience who wants to be on the forefront being “in the know.”

LinkedIn is a valuable resource for inbound marketing with social media. Be sure to add it to your mix.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Vacation Rental Website Design - Identify your Customer

The goal of your vacation rental website design is to attract prospective travelers and convert their web visit into bookings. Fill your site with content that informs your customers.

Flesh out your Buyer Personas

So who are these customers? Although the answer might seem obvious, you might be surprised about how much you can learn by developing a buyer persona.

Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on analyzed data. The more data you have about your customers and prospects, the more useful your personas can be.*

Examine your customer’s demographics and online behavior. Invent personal histories, motivations, and concerns and then put the down on paper and maybe even name her.

"Valerie" the Vacation Rental Booker

As a vacation rental company owner or manager, the goal of your website is to increase bookings for your homeowners. Who do you want to attract?

Research your existing customer base to identify the most common booker. For example, let’s say you want to begin by developing a specific persona: a mother planning a family vacation. Here are questions* to help flesh out one of your ideal customers:

1. What is Valerie’s demographic information? Based on your data, decide how old Valerie is, the number of childern in her care, her employment status, and where she lives. In this example, Valerie is 32 years old, has two kids, is employed, and owns a home in New Jersey.
2. What is her job and level of seniority? Does Valerie have a demanding job? If yes, she doesn't have much time to research vacation rental companies. Therefore, your vacation rental company must achieve top search engine ranking to get found. Studies show that most web visitors never go to page two of an internet search.
3. What does a day in her life look like? Valerie might wake up every day and take care of her school-age children, work eight hours, and then return home to feed her family or escort her children to after-school activities. So she needs a rental company whose website contains a large, sharp photos of the homes and a full-service booking system.
4. What are her pain points? What problem will you help her solve? Valerie wants to see every corner of the home and property that she rents. Therefore, your website should include at least twenty clear photographs or a video tour of each property to supplement its list of amenity details, rental availability, and prices for every season.
5. What does she value most? What are her goals? Valerie wants to make a memory that will last a lifetime and that starts with being able to entertain her family in a comfortable home. She wants easy access to activities for her kids. She also wants suggestions for dining and shopping. Make sure that your website contains a page that details your area’s main attractions.
6. Where does she go for information? Valerie goes to the internet for information. She will search for vacation rental companies in your area so the quality and regularity of your content must surpasses that of your competiors. Because she is busy, Valerie also connects with her Facebook™ friends to find out what companies they recommend to book rental homes in your area.
7. What experience is she looking for when seeking out your products or services? Valerie requires one-stop shopping: she wants to search your homes with defined parameters such as the number of bedrooms, pool availability, accessibility to local attractions, and region or town; she wants to ask questions so an immediate response from your company is crucial; and she also wants to book online and make a secure payment.
8. What are her most common objections to your product or service? Valerie wants a pool table but doen't find one when she arrives at her rental home. Make sure all your rental information is current, including the photos.

Explore all your personas. Develop others such as a business manager arranging a company retreat; a couple searching for a reception venue; or an event planner looking for the perfect spot for a reunion. These details can help you discover the strengths and weakens of your internet marketing efforts.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Marketing with Facebook - Is it REALLY all that important?

Short answer: Yes, yes it is. Very important.

If you want the longer answer, you must first ask yourself this: When you’re on Facebook and you see one of your favorite companies or brand names, do you “like” them?

According to new research by a company called  Syncapse, th is kind of activity on the popular social network Facebook actually has a cash value. Every time you click “like” or when you friend a business, your actions benefit the company—so much so that they assigned it a pretty high cash value. Who knew that a simple action on Facebook—one that takes users mere seconds— could be worth so much to a company? According to Syncapse’s research, every time you “like” or “friend” a brand or business, your clickable actions are worth approximately $174.17 to that company! It's important to note, too, that this number is on the rise, showing a 28% increase since 2010.

To determine the cash “value” assigned to consumers’ social network activity, Syncapse took into account factors such as product spending, loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value acquisition cost and brand affinity. Why should businesses care? Well, according to Statistic Brain, when it comes to your “potential” consumers, there are over 900 million active Facebook users who are using the social network for a total of 700 million minutes per day!

Still think that marketing with Facebook isn’t worth your company time?

The study by Syncapse focused on 2,000 Facebook users who had liked a brand. The study found that these Facebook “fans” spent more money on the brands that they “liked,” and spent over $116 more per year than non-fans did. Within the brand’s sector they spent 43% more, despite not having a higher income than non-fans. Facebook fans are also 18% more satisfied with their brands than those who weren’t fans, and they are 11% more likely to continue purchasing the brand than non-fans.

Thankfully, lot of marketing with Facebook can be free or at a low cost to your business. It all depends on the amount of time and effort you want to put into your strategy. While you can pay for Facebook advertisements, it is possible to reap the benefits by implementing a few Facebook best practices yourself.

How can you utilize Facebook to gain and encourage your fans?

Steps to "Facebooking" the right way:

1. Build your Facebook page. A strong presence is crucial. Create an identity and voice for your business and remember to strive for continuity.
2. Connect with potential customers – First define your ideal buyer and analyze how they use their own Facebook. Connect with potential fans by mimicking their behaviors. 
3. Engage with your audience – You will want to start meaningful conversations with your fans. Don’t talk solely about your business and listen more than you talk. If a customer suggests an improvement or comments, thank them and let them know they are heard. They, and other fans, will see this and appreciate your willingness to improve and reach out. 
4. Influence and expand your reach – A great way to expand your reach when marketing with Facebook is to see your fans as promoters. When they share or “like” your activity, it will be posted in their newsfeed, therefore being seen by a whole new set of potential customers. Happy customer = promoter. 

A cool way to think about this type of marketing is to consider your company's Facebook fans as your evangelists. They are the ones who are more likely to purchase your brand and they are much more likely to talk about, promote and support your brand. Your company’s focus when marketing with Facebook should be to engage and interact as much as possible with the fans of your business.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Google+ for Real Estate Marketing

A crucial aspect of current real estate marketing is figuring out which are the best social media platforms to utilize and how to use them in the most beneficial way. Realtors everywhere have been catching on to the Facebook and LinkedIn craze, however, it seems as those they are brushing off the one social network that could be of greatest use to them: Google+! Why is this social media essential for real estate marketing?

SEO Benefits

Unlike other social media content, your Google+ posts can potentially rank on Google’s search results. By submitting your posts on Google+, your site could be indexed super quickly instead of taking the weeks and months like it normally does. This is great for real estate marketing because you want those pages to be ranking faster and higher in Google search results!

Search Plus Your World

In January of 2012, Google took the personalization of search to a whole new level. If you have a Google+ account and you are logged into it when searching on Google, your search results will be affected by your network. So, the larger your Google+ network, the more searches you can influence just by having your account. Google+ can get your name in front of more people than ever before. By searching pages that are recommended by people in their own network, users will be much more apt to trust a result that is connected with a friend than a traditional result that came up from an ordinary Google search.

Google Authorship

If you are producing content for your real estate marketing (and you should be), you will fall in love with this aspect of Google+. Google Authorship allows you to connect your content on the web with your Google+ profile. This then allows you to utilize “author rich snippets” that will pop up in search results. This means that when your content shows up in a search, applicable information such as your photo, a link to your profile, the number of your followers and relevant links will also be shown as well. If you have a large network, and a solid Google+ presence, this “snippet” can do wonders for your credibility!

Features of Google+ for Real Estate Marketing

Circles

Have you ever been on a social network and you had to stop yourself from posting something in case your elderly aunt or judgmental coworker might see? Finally, Google+ has found a way to segment your social networking. Now, you can create circles that will determine who can see your posts. Now you can segment your connections into groups such as personal and professional, or even more specific as in friends, families, peers, coworkers, etc. This is especially helpful for realtors whose social lives sometimes intersect with their professional.

Video Chats

With these nifty chats, you can have up to 10 different people join you for a video chat. Perhaps you want to share the inside of a home with an interested buyer, but they are unable to make it themselves. Invite them on a video chat as you walk through the home yourself. Clients will appreciate the extra effort and you might have just found them their dream home!

Streams

Ever log on to one of your social networks and get overwhelmed by the number of posts and news you were bombarded with? With Google+ Streams, you can tweak just what circles you want to see in your stream and which ones you don’t. If you’re tired of seeing irrelevant and irrelevant posts, you can customize your settings to include only what you need and want to see!

When it comes to real estate marketing, you will want to include Google+ to your strategy to get the most out of your social media marketing.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Marketing with CTAs

Ah, Calls to action. Those fun little marketing “buttons” may seem daunting at first, even for the most savvy and seasoned marketer. It might even seem like results from a CTA are unattainable at first. But results are possible and success is closer than you think! So, how do you know if your marketing with CTAs is up to par with the best of ‘em? Read on for more social media CTA tips and guidelines:

Pinpoint what it is you want your followers to DO.

If your CTA doesn’t have a clear and definitive purpose, your fans or followers will be lost! In what way do you want your followers to engage with you and how can they start the process? Do you want them to read your blog, download a white paper, or sign up for your email list? Make the subject of your call to action crystal clear and give your reader a distinct goal with a definitive path of action to take. Want them to sign up for that email list? Give them the means to do so. If any part of your call to action is confusing, you will lose potential customers.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse.

People are constantly being bombarded with offers and advertisements. If they are not going to receive something of value from your call to action, you better believe that they are not going to click on it. Offer them something enticing enough that they won’t be able to say no to. Save your best content for your CTA’s. Have a fantastic blog? Post a link and urge people to subscribe in order to receive more where that came from. Or, offer a discount or an exclusive coupon to customers who “like” your business on Facebook. Your offer has got to be appealing and exclusive to those who act. In order to get something, you must be willing to give.

Set up a time frame.

When marketing with CTAs, you must provide a sense of urgency to motivate your followers and fans to act. People can be lazy. Give them a timespan in which they must act to speed up the process. For example, if your marketing goal is to receive more shares, give your customers a deadline to share a piece of your business’s content and reward them with being entered into a contest of sort. Urgency will improve your response rate!

Be consistent.

Marketing with CTAs should remain consistent. Your calls to action should be branded similarly and in a way that potential customers can recognize your business again and again. Same goes with landing pages. If a customer arrives at a page that does not look familiar to them, they may become confused and leave. Have strong continuity throughout.

Test and measure those results.

Change and test each individual element of your CTA to better understand what works for your customers and what doesn’t. Items that can (and should) be tested include all aspects of: Text, copy, color, graphics, size, and placement. Also, you will want to make sure that you measure your reach when improving upon your CTA. The “impression” is the number of people who were exposed to the CTA, its “click-though” is the number of people who clicked or took action and the “click-through rate” is the percentage of people who checked out your offer out of the number of people who saw it. “Completion” is the number of people who completed your offer and the “completion rate” is the percentage of customers who did so.

If you’ve tried your hand at making calls to action before, you might be hesitant to try again if you didn’t reap much reward the first time. However, a well-done call to action that is placed strategically on your social media accounts can bring in a whole lot of business for you. Marketing with CTAs is a strategy that you do not want to miss out on, regardless of your industry. CTA’s can be a bit tricky, but when done correctly, the benefits are endless.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

The Importance of Marketing with Facebook

Whether we like it or not, social media is here to stay. Facebook, Twitter, and Google + are not going anywhere anytime soon—these social networks are no longer considered trends. Communication between our friends, family, peers, coworkers, and strangers has changed since the introduction of social media began influencing our daily lives.

Recently, with the rising popularity of smart phones, marketing on social media networks has become even more important. According to an infographic by Qwaya, a Facebook ads tool for professionals, 75% of the world’s population now has a mobile phone and almost 50% of the phone subscriptions in the U.S. are for smart phones. The numbers may seem staggering at first, but it is not so hard to believe when you notice that almost everyone you see out in public is glued to their phone! As Bob Dylan would say, “the times they are a-changin’.”

So what does this mean for businesses?

Do companies need to step up their marketing with Facebook? The answer is a resounding “yes” and here’s why: The majority of your customers most likely already have (and use!) an account on Facebook. Qwaya reports that Facebook has 955 million monthly active users and 57% of them are using Facebook on their mobile phones. Not only that, but they are using Facebook more than any other mobile platform! That’s a lot of people (and potential customers) on Facebook!

How can businesses incorporate marketing with Facebook?

According to Qwaya, the only way to reach Facebook users on their mobile devises is via their newsfeed. How can you do this?
Well first, you’ll need to publish high quality content that is valuable for your target audience. To maximize your reach, you’ll need to utilize post ads and sponsored stories. Qwaya also notes that it’s essential to develop placement targeting and optimize your campaigns based on device.

Are you ready to start using Facebook for marketing?

Here are some tips from Paveya to help you get started.

1. Define your marketing goals. What do you want to get out of your Facebook page? Focus in on your ideal buyer and analyze how they use their Facebook. 
2. Post regularly (but not too often!). You will want to post enough to remind your customers of your presence, but not so much that you annoy them.
3. Give your customers a reason to “like” your business. (Hint: 10% of a purchase or a give them a special promo code) People like to feel like they’re part of something exclusive; make them feel special. 
4. Listen to your customers and start meaningful conversations. They will be impressed that you responded and this is a great way to give your business that personal touch.
5. Share press releases, blog content or business news with your fans. Update them with important and exciting news from your business.
6. Make your posts interesting and engaging enough to prompt sharing. Your fans can become some of your best promoters. People tend to trust their peers more than advertising so try to make that content as interesting—and shareable—as possible!
7. Only 30% of your content should be about you! Push marketing is old news; don’t make it all about your business. By sharing other relevant information, you will educate and entertain your followers in a friendly, non-intrusive way and they will appreciate this!

Ready, Set, GO!

It’s not too late to starting your Facebook marketing plan.. If anything, statistics have proven that Facebook and mobile marketing are only going to become increasingly more important for marketers. Don’t let your business miss out on this fun opportunity to step on the social media bandwagon.

Need help with marketing on mobile? Check out our blog here to grade your mobile marketing solutions today and see how you score! For more information on Paveya's mobile marketing solutions, click here.

Two Popular WordPress Plugins Wreaking Havoc

Although issues were reported a month ago by a user named kisscsaby on the WordPress forums, it has taken a month for Google to catch the issue with two infected plugins. Over 25% of all WordPress websites were hacked and the grand total of affected websites is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands. These were two very popular plugins that were downloaded over 6 million times. It’s certainly shocking that such plugins were able to be hacked in the first place and that the issue managed to remain out of sight by Google for 30 days.

The problem is that the plugins transmit a serious vulnerability to the websites that they hack. Called remote code execution, or RCE, it enables an attacker to execute any commands on a target machine. Both of the plugin authors have since published new versions of their plugins that have disabled the vulnerable functions. However, the effect of the two earlier plugins has been seen across a vast number of websites. 

How to tell if your site was affected:

If you are using a third-party service, you should be fine. However, for those WordPress sites that have comments enabled, these plugins can cause some real issues. To test to see if your website has been affected, leave yourself this comment: <!–mfunc echo PHP_VERSION; –><!–/mfunc–>. If your reply shows the version of your server’s PHP install, you’ve got a problem. This means that anyone who replies can pass on commands to your server and those commands will then be executed by remote code execution.

Was your site compromised? Protect yourself.

The significance of these hazardous plugin issues should not be brushed off. Any user that is enabled to comment on your website can exploit it. How can you protect yourself? Upgrade your WordPress. The latest upgrades can be found on the WordPress.org repository. Use Super Cache and W3TC Total Cache. Also, as an alternative, we recommend WP Super Cache which can be found here.

Upgrading your website often is one of the most important things you can do to keep your website safe from hackers.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Retail Internet Marketing: A How-To Guide

Regardless of what products your retail business specializes in, you will need a strong internet presence to attract new customers and encourage existing ones. Are you a seller of high-tech goods? Need a website. Think you get a free pass because you deal only with age-old antiques? Surprise! You still need to be active online in order to get and keep customers. With the recent popularity of smart phones, your customers are online now more than ever. Want to make sure your retail internet marketing is up to speed with your competitors? Follow these guidelines to ensure that your retail business succeeds online.

Stay in Touch Please!

Once you snag a customer, you won’t want to lose them for good. Ideally, you will want to ask for your customers’ emails at the point of sale. However, you have to make your offer extremely enticing—people don’t want their already full inbox to be crammed with more “junk.” Explain to them the benefits of signing up for your newsletter and give them a great reason to sign up. For example, perhaps you could offer them a weekly/monthly newsletter with exclusive coupons and 10% of their purchase instantly if they give you their email. Make them an offer they can’t refuse and you’ll have scored a repeat customer!

Be a Social Butterfly!

Most of your customers will have at least one social network that they log on to often. You will want to create a presence on the main social media networks (think Facebook, Twitter, Google+, MySpace) in order to connect with your customers. Once you get a feel for who your ideal buyers are, start analyzing their behaivor. Which networks do they use? And how do they use their accounts? What types of content to they post and share? Ask yourself these questions, and then mimic their behavior to better connect with your followers.

Post Some Content Already!

Having a blog is great for retail internet marketing because it allows you to share your knowledge with your customers. Your products and services are your niche and you are already an authority on that subject. Why not share this with your customers by educating them? Do you have a store that specializes in sports gear? Start a blog and keep your customers up to date about the best sports equipment and trends in sportswear. Any content that is relevant to your ideal buyer will help bring more qualified traffic to your website.

Promote, Promote, Promote!

The internet is a great tool when trying to advertise promotions, special deals or contests. Not only can you post these on your website, but you can amp up the excitement by promoting events and deals on your social media pages. Try to get your customers excited about your brand by starting fun and engaging contests or offering exclusive online promotional codes! If the deal is enticing enough, your followers may even decide to “share” via social media, thus getting you even more views and potentially, more customers!

Go Forth and Go Mobile!

You are going to need a website that is mobile friendly. Imagine this scenario: Your ideal customer is out shopping when they decide that they need to find a product that you happen to specialize in. If you customer searches your business on the internet, and your website is not mobile friendly, they won’t be able to find you and they will take their business elsewhere. Make sure that your mobile website is functional and that your general information and contact details are in clear view!

The way that you market your business online can be just as important as the way you market your businessin the physical world and inside your store. Whether we like it or not, the world is becoming increasingly dependent on the internet and technology. Retail internet marketing can be a great tool when bringing in more customers and getting more business.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

9 Tips for Real Estate Search Engine Optimization

If your real estate website is not getting you the traffic and leads that you need, you may want to reconsider your SEO. Real estate search engine optimization can be a great tool when getting the most business out of your website. Once your website is optimized correctly, you will find that you can get many more targeted leads and clients. When implementing the best search engine optimization to your real estate website, follow these nine essential tips!

1. Research - Without the perfect keywords and keyword phrases, you will have a difficult time ranking your real estate website. Take the time to research a select group of keywords that you will want to optimize for. Try to find ones that have the lowest amount of competition for the highest amount of search volume. (Hint: Try local keywords to better define your niche!)
2. Optimize Titles - You will want to create titles for everything from your blog post titles to your website pages and URL links. Include those keywords that you researched in these titles to alert search engines as to what your content is about!
3. Optimize Images – For real estate websites, it’s important to have an abundance of high quality, professional photos of your listings. Make sure that all of your photos are optimized correctly by using keywords in the file name, as well as the alt tag and image descriptions. 
4. Post Virtual Tours - A key to real estate search engine optimization is engaging and intriguing the visitors to your website. A great way to get and keep potential clients on your site is to offer virtual tours of the houses available. Take advantage of technology and let customers see your homes without ever having to leave their seat!
5. Include Internal Links - Many people often overlook this step. Include links on your pages to relevant content on other internal pages. You want your visitors to stay on your site, and this is a great way to provide them with even more information that they might find useless within your website. 
6. Backlink – A key to search engine optimization is the number of quality backlinks on other websites that bring traffic to your own. Reach out to relevant websites and offer to link to their site if they will return the favor. 
7. Don’t OVERlink – While internal and external links are essential for your SEO, do NOT overdo it. Choose quality over quantity and you will receive the most payoffs. Link only when it is necessary and helpful to the reader. 
8. Update Content – Your SEO efforts must be ongoing to ensure the maximum benefit. If a webpage receives a high ranking, this does not mean that your work is done! Keep creating relevant content and new pages to keep your visitors engaged and interested to retain that high ranking!
9. Improve Functionality – Your website must be easy to navigate and use on all resolutions and devices. If search engines see that visitors are coming to your site and leaving just as quickly, they will assume there is an issue with the functionality of your website and will rank you accordingly.

The most important thing for you to remember regarding your real estate search engine optimization is that you must be patient! Despite your best efforts, a website cannot go from receiving a low search volume to appearing on the first page of search results in just one day. It will take time, patience, and whole lot of effort to start seeing results. It will be hard work to increase the SEO for your real estate website, but with determination and technical savvy, your real estate website can become optimized with the best of them.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to "Like" Facebook for Tourism Marketing!

Gone are the days when marketers disregard Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social networks as simply a place to goof off or waste time. Social media is now a fantastic tool for tourism marketing and other businesses to attract and gain customers. When used correctly, you could potentially start gaining a whole new set of leads. Having a social media presence will gradually build an online and offline recognition of your brand name. This is so essential for tourism marketing because your ideal buyers ( i.e. tourists) are not normally the people who live within your company’s city. Without the right marketing, those visitors and tourists won’t be able to recognize your name. How can tourism industries best leverage their Facebook account to engage with their potential customers?

Identify your Audience

First, take the time to analyze your ideal buyer. Do a little research to find out how they use Facebook: What types of content are they posting, how active are they online, what types of products and services are they “liking,” etc. This will help you better determine your tourism marketing plan of attack. Are they posting a lot of photos? Mimic this by posting vacation photos with enticing captions or a question that will encourage a conversation. Are they more apt to share blog content? Write a short article that is relevant to your location. Are their statuses more comedic or do they lean toward the serious kind? Do they tend to comment on posts or “like” them? Try and get a vibe for the personalities and social tendencies of your ideal buyers so that you can better relate by imitating their behavior on your own account.

Leave “Old Marketing” Behind

Social media is a part of the new kind of inbound marketing. This means that businesses should not be setback by using the older and more traditional “push” marketing when on social networks. Push marketing is when businesses constantly advertise their brand and “push” their product on their customers. People do not want to be advertised to on Facebook and they will quickly “unlike” or “unfollow” your business if you do this. Instead, you will want to listen to your fans more than you talk about your business. When you post, only about a third of your content should be about what you are trying to sell. Promotions are good, but they should be limited in number. The rest of your content can be anything relevant that you think will engage your readers.

Engage and Excite!

Besides posting content, you also should spend a decent amount of time on Facebook having conversations with your followers. If people ask questions or comment on your page, make sure that you reply in a timely manner and thank them for their response (yes, even if it is negative!). The more authentic your voice is, the more trustworthy your business will seem. People tend to forget that businesses have actual people behind them; interacting with customers on social media is a great way to remind them of this. When conducting conversations, always stay professional and friendly. Feel free to start your own conversations by posting questions or photos that you think will get a positive reaction from your followers. Tourism marketing is unique in that most of your customers are far away. Entice them by posting photos of what their future vacation could look like!

Tons of your potential customers are out there using social media and you do not want to miss out on this fun marketing opportunity. Social media is a huge portion of consumers’ online lives. In fact, internet users spend 4x more time on Facebook than on Google. Not only that, but there are over 1 billion active users on Facebook, and that number keeps on growing. A recent study done by Nielsen has shown that consumers trust their peers’ opinions over advertising, in fact 78% of them trust their friends’ recommendations while only 14% trust advertisements! When you leverage your social media accounts, you can reach a variety of your potential customers in a fantastic way!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Paveya Attends VRMA Eastern Seminar April 22-24

Paveya, a full service internet marketing agency, joins other vacation rental management industry leaders at regional seminar 

Powells Point, NC– Members of Paveya will attend the Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) Eastern Seminar April 22-24, 2013 in Savannah, Georgia. 

One of the largest events for the professionally managed vacation rental industry, the VRMA Eastern Seminar offers more than 25 educational sessions and designated networking time with the most influential minds in the vacation rental industry. Attendees learn how to improve their company’s bottom line, better serve their homeowners, market their destination effectively and keep guests coming back.

“We are excited to attend our first VRMA Seminar to learn about what the marketing concerns are for our fellow VRMA members,” notes Claiborne Yarbrough, Business Development Manager for Paveya. “We are also proud to represent Hubspot. Their software is the most powerful, tightly integrated and comprehensive marketing software available, putting personalized inbound marketing into the hands of vacation rental companies.”

Claiborne will participate in the “Ask an Expert” during the opening session and will be available throughout the conference in the Vendor Showcase.

About Paveya

Paveya is your full service internet marketing service agency. We will work with you to understand your specific revenue generation goals and work to create an inbound marketing plan that will drive success—whether you are trying to attract visitors, convert leads, or close customers. In order to support our customers at every stage of an internet marketing campaign, we offer the following services: custom website design and development, search engine optimization, social media management, content generation, ecommerce solutions and integrations to accounting, reservation and other industry specific software.

Paveya is excited to bring Hubspot’s inbound marketing vision to their specific industry verticals such as vacation rentals, real estate, hospitality, accounting professionals and small businesses. As a Certified Hubspot Partner, we look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers and GROW their business.

About the Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA)

Founded in 1985, the VRMA is the international, professional trade association of the vacation rental property management and hospitality industries. Membership includes hundreds of vacation rental professionals and vendor suppliers across the world, representing tens of thousands of vacation rental homes, condos and villas available to travelers through its Discover Vacation Homes initiative. For more information, visit www.vrma.com.

Need an SEO Quote for 2013?

Unfortunately, all SEO is not created equal. Search engine optimization, when done correctly, can drive large amounts of targeted traffic to your site and can potentially be a great source of business for your company. However, there are right and wrong ways to implement SEO and in the ever-evolving world of technology, these strategies are constantly shifting and changing. When you are in the market for an SEO quote this year, make sure that the marketing company you hire is fully aware of these 2013 trends for SEO.

Providing Quality over Quantity

Search engines, such as Google, have caught on to the sneaky tactics that businesses have used in the past to score a higher ranking. Before, strategies such as keyword stuffing could work in a pinch. However, when search engines provide their users with poor quality content that employs such cheap tactics, it starts to look bad on them. To fight this, search engines have come up with algorithms to better determine the quality and relevancy of a website. This means that your SEO must focus, not on providing masses of “optimized” low-quality content, but in producing high quality, valuable content. Make sure that your SEO quote includes packages that are geared only toward quality content creation.

Hiring Niche Writers

Such a large portion of your SEO is going to stem from your website’s blog. Google is now using the information on the blog’s author to rank your content more accurately. If the person writing your content is not qualified, then this will show in your ranking. Remember, if you don’t have a writer on staff, some SEO companies offer content creation as a part of their packages although it is important to make sure their writing is up to the highest standards. If you prefer to do the blogging in-house, a good SEO company can assist you with this as well. Either way, make sure that whoever is writing your content knows what they’re talking about. The better your writer, the better your content and the better you ranking!

Focus on Mobile

Even though we may wonder what we ever did without them, smart phones are still relatively new technology. This means that inbound marketers have had to jump on the new mobile trend to come up with clever SEO strategies that are smart phone friendly. SEO companies need to be up to date with the latest technology to ensure that your transition to mobile marketing is smooth. Make sure that your SEO quote involves mobile marketing.

Social Media

Search engines actually pay attention to how often your content gets shared. Going social is essential for virtually any industry. If you don’t have a solid social media presence on popular social networks, you may as well be invisible to both your customers and search engines. A good SEO company will help you set up and maintain your networks. Social media is no longer just for socializing—it can be a valuable marketing asset to your company and its SEO.

Visually Pleasing

Giving your website a virtual makeover won’t matter much to search engines or your SEO. However, it will make a huge difference in the amount of traffic that comes to your site and decides to stay there. A visually pleasing website will keep visitors on its pages longer, and search engines actually do pay attention to those statistics. Find an SEO company that knows how to develop your web design to attract customers and keep their attention!

If your business is in the market for affordable SEO services that work, look no further than Paveya, your full service inbound marketing agency. Contact us for an SEO quote and for more information on the services which we will provide. The trained staff at Paveya is always up to date with the latest trends in SEO and they know best how to get the most out of your company website.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Vacation Rental Management Blunders: Advice You SHOULDN'T Take

It’s difficult for vacation rental companies to have clear visibility when popular marketing strategies are constantly shifting and changing. It seems that marketers have a different opinion when it comes to what will work for your vacation rental management and what won’t. It’s hard to keep track of what you should include in your marketing efforts. The following tips are outdated when it comes to vacation rental marketing and you should avoid the following four strategies at all cost.

Focus on “outbound” promotion.

Ah, traditional marketing. If you’re stuck in this old way of thinking, it may be time to make a few changes to your marketing strategies. For example, ask yourself this: Would you rather buy, say, a new kind of snack that you saw on a commercial or one that you saw a friend “like” on Facebook? Would you buy a snack because of an annoying jingle or would you be more impressed by a friend’s recommendation? This scenario presents the main difference in outbound vs. inbound marketing. Traditional marketing “pushes” a product onto the consumer with ads, commercials and intrusive marketing. The idea of inbound marketing is that your ideal consumer is out there already, looking for you! Thus, the focus of your vacation rental management should be on educating the customer once they make the first point of contact. This means concentrating efforts on your website and its SEO, as well as using social media.

Utilize Pay Per Click Advertising.

Will investing in “clicks” bring more traffic to your site? Yes. However, there are better ways to gain more qualified traffic that will convert more easily to leads. Making a long term investment and commitment to your on-site search engine optimization will result in gaining more targeted traffic. Instead of receiving paid traffic, with SEO you will be getting more organic traffic. Ideally, this will include people who are seeking you out and who are genuinely interested in your vacation rental services. A blog is a great way for vacation rental management to utilize SEO!

Linking Links, Links and more Links.

Featuring outbound links (links to other sites) can work to your benefit. However, you don’t ever want to send people away from your vacation rental website. Make sure that the links you used are limited in number and are ones that will ultimately help the guest on your website delve further into the booking process. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about some of your new vacation rentals, it is okay to link to another blog that does a great job in writing about local events or activities. However, this type of link building should be used sparingly. When you do post outbound links make sure that they open up in a new window by setting the Target attribute to _blank so that your visitors can stay on your site.

Ignore negative reviews.

Bad reviews are going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it, right? Wrong. Those negative reviews are unfortunate, but they need to be addressed in a timely and professional manner. This process is very simple and easy, but if you need help, I talk more in depth about it in a blog here. Vacation rental management not only involves keeping your happy customers happy, but also dealing with those not-so-pleasant vacation-goers.

With a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy, vacation rental management can be cost-effective and beneficial in the long run. However, it can be difficult for all industries to pinpoint exactly what it is that they need to do when it comes to marketing their business. There are tons of tips available out there for vacation rental companies and it can be overwhelming when deciding which routes to take and which to avoid.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

In Need of a Muse When Blogging for Hospitality Marketing?

A blog is a fantastic tool for any hospitality industry. When you create a blog you are opening all sorts of doors in marketing. With a blog, you can educate and entertain your readers, receive more traffic, encourage conversation between potential customers, and improve your SEO. The list goes on. However, being a blogger myself, I understand that there will be days when the words just won’t come to you. We call this “writers block” and it can be difficult to snap out of. To help you, here is a list of 10 ideas geared towards hospitality marketing to get you started! Good luck and happy blogging!

Write a List.

Lists are not only extremely easy to write, but they are also fun and easy to digest for your readers as well. Guests to your site will appreciate a short but sweet list containing things such as the area’s top attractions or events. Lists work especially well when you use intriguing titles with numbers such as “Top 12 Things to do in ______” or “You’d be Crazy to Miss Out on ___ while staying in ____!”

Promote a Contest.

This is a great way to get some interaction going among your customers. The best contests are the ones that engage your visitors. If you’re in the restaurant business, try running a contest offering a free gift card to followers who tweet about their favorite entrée.

Make a Schedule.

If you’re planning on blogging a few times every week, you can get creative with your titles to encourage readership. For example, create “themed” blog days such as “Motivational Monday,” “Wacky Wednesday” or “Thoughts on Thursday.”

How To’s & Tips.

In the forms of lists, these instructional blogs could be anywhere from “Tips for a Stress Free Vacation” for hotels and vacation rentals to a “How To Guide on Tasting Beer” for those in the restaurant business. Educate your readers and have fun with it!

Surveys.

Conduct a survey with your customers or guests and share the results via a poll. Not getting the positive results you wanted? In that same blog, feel free to let your customers know that you are making necessary improvements!

Photos & Videos.

Center a blog around a particularly interesting photo or video that guests or staff members took while at your business. Your hospitality marketing should involve a good mix of visual media to attract tourists and visitors who have never been to your location.

Report on Current or Past Local Events.

Have an important race coming up near your business? How about an exciting art show? Write a post about the event and promote it. Event planners may decide to repost your blog and you’ll receive even more traffic.

Guest Posts.

Ask a member of your community or a staff member to write a post every once in a while. Each writer will have their own voice and unique spin on content, so mix it up!

FAQs.

Have you been getting a lot of the same questions from your customers? Why not write a blog about it and post via social media. If people are already asking similar questions, it’s bound to get a lot of interaction.

Introduce New Products & Services.

Unveiling a new menu item? Do you have new amenities available at your vacation rentals? Let your readers know! Share the reasons why you think they should try it out.

Hopefully some of these ideas for your hospitality marketing blog will get the ball rolling. If you still find yourself struggling for inspiration, try keeping a notebook with you at all times to jot down notes or ideas. Ask your staff or visitors for suggestions. Keep your eyes open; ideas are all around you! Hospitality marketing also revolves around customer interaction, so do make sure to reply to any comments on your blog in a friendly, timely and professional manner. With time, your blog can be a remarkable asset to your hospitality marketing website.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

7 Nifty Vacation Rental Website Design Tips

Almost three quarters of your ideal buyers (i.e. tourists and vacationers) are going to be using the internet when doing research for their upcoming getaways. According to a Toluna survey of 2,004 UK consumers, the web was involved in 85% of all travel purchases, either in the research state or when actually booking. Your website will be acting as your main sales guy who will be available to your visitors 24/7, 365 days a year. Thus, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting the most out of this segment of your marketing strategy. So, is your vacation rental website design primed to grab the attention of future vacationers and keep them interested? What should you focus on for in a good vacation rental website design?

Fast loading pages

It doesn’t matter if your website design is the best one out there—if visitors to your site have to wait around for any page to load, you aren’t going to get too many people sticking around. In this era of new technology, people want what they want and they want it now. Test your website on a variety of browsers to make sure that the loading time is as close to instant as possible. Your vacation rental website design should be optimized for the web and should never take more than 15 seconds to load.

Clear Navigation

Have you ever gone into a store that was just so chaotic and disorganized that you ended up walking out? People don’t want to have to work to search for what they want. Once people arrive at your site, you’ll want them to stay awhile and click around. If they don’t know where to find a page, or can’t find a link, they will become impatient and leave your site. Make sure that your main menu and pages are in clear site (at the top or on the left or right) and that all of your important links are available from every page (the footer is a good place to do this). Your information needs to be accessible from every page on your site for a polished vacation rental website.

Optimize for All Resolutions

Your potential customers will be viewing your website on a variety of computers with all kinds of resolutions. Design your site to be compatible on every computer screen so that visitors can see the website in its best format. This means mobile too!!

Professional Fonts

When I say professional, I also mean “readable.” Don’t use extravagant or hard to read, unprofessional fonts. For example, Comic sans, while cute, does not give off the impression that your site should be taken seriously. Keep this in mind.

Working links

Check your links to make sure they are in working order. Nothing is worse than having a visitor leave your site simply because they clicked on what they thought was an interesting link and was taken to an error page. Yikes!

White space

Simplicity is key. Don’t clutter up your vacation rental website design with too much text or too much content. Sometimes, less really is more. Visitors to your site don’t want to be greeted with a block of text or a page jammed with words, graphics and backgrounds. Make use of white space to make sure that your content is easy to digest and can be read quickly.

Use Images/Video Sparingly

Yes, visual media can be a great asset to your site. However, you do not want to include so many that the photos overwhelm your guest. Pick a few of your favorites that you believe will intrigue your visitors and stick with those. You can always post more photos or videos in a blog or on another page!

It is so important to make an assessment of your website often to ensure that it remains in tip-top shape for your potential customers. Why is a fine-tuned website so important? According to that Toluna survey, 29% of the respondents didn’t find travel websites easy to use and that lack of clarity was the most likely reason in buying elsewhere! Especially with the upcoming spring and summer seasons, it’s important to take a look at your website and make sure that it is optimized to its full extent to bring you leads.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Your Google Real Estate Marketing Kit 101

Want to boost your inbound marketing? Start first with your tools. Your real estate marketing toolbox should include a variety of nifty design, analytics and reporting tools that will help your business get the most out of internet marketing. There are a few apps—courtesy of the world’s most powerful internet search engine— that you should include in your all-inclusive marketing toolkit. Your internet real estate marketing goals should prioritize getting more qualified traffic to your site. When using these four Google apps, your inbound marketing goals can be easily attainable. What Google tools should you be using for your real estate website?

Google Analytics – First off, it is important to note that Google Analytics is a free (yes, free) tool for those businesses whose websites generate 10 million or fewer hits per month. For the amount of comprehensive reporting that the app does, this service is invaluable. Google will give you the insights into your website traffic and provide overall analytics by giving you a breakdown of your visitors (new vs. returning) and their traffic type (organic, referral, direct, etc.). You can also see what they’re doing on your site to decide where you should be focusing your marketing strategies. For example, after seeing that the majority of your visitors are stopping by your blog upon arrival, you may decide to strengthen this portion of your website. Or on the other hand, if a page on your website is not getting much traffic at all, you may decide to focus on that section first.

Google Trends- When determining which keywords your real estate marketing should focus on, you should use this handy-dandy Google Trends tool to help you pick ones which are peaking in search engines. You can compare the volume of search between two or more terms. The provided graph will show users how the term has ranked in the past as well as predict the topic’s popularity in the future. Proving especially helpful for location-specific real estate marketing, you can fine tune your results by searching specifically by country, city or region. 

GoMo- Your on-the-go clients will greatly appreciate a real estate website that is mobile friendly. Don’t lose a potential customer by having a website that is not fully functional on their cell phones. This free do-it-yourself mobile website creation tool helps connect with your customers while they’re out and about, whether they are looking for an agent or searching for their next home. Simply put, with a mobile optimized site, your real estate marketing can reach more buyers and sellers.

Google Alerts- Want to know what terms buyers and sellers are using in your area? Set up Google alerts and monitor when specific keywords are being searched on the web. When someone searches one of your terms, you will receive a message from Google. Sign up to get alerts when the name of a specific realtor, your real estate business or its competition is mentioned. When using this tool for real estate marketing, you can easily find out when your real estate business is being talked about in a review or discussion so that you can respond (if needed) in a timely manner.

If your real estate marketing toolkit does not contain a basic variety of development and analytics tools, you may not be getting the most out of your real estate website. To make sure you are receiving the optimal amount of targeted traffic, you have to rely on data and reports to ensure that the visitors that are coming to your website are the ones that will be converting to leads and customers. By becoming aware of the behaviors of those who are visiting, you will be better off when developing and optimizing your web pages. These four Google tools can prove priceless when amping up your real estate marketing!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Big News-- Paveya Becomes A HubSpot Certified Agency Partner!

Powell’s Point, NC, United States – Paveya is pleased to announce that it has joined the HubSpot inbound marketing team as a Certified Agency Partner. The world leader in inbound marketing thought leadership, HubSpot recognizes the value of its Certified Agency Partners and welcomes Paveya to the team that is revolutionizing marketing.

“It’s time to replace traditional, one-way marketing with personalized, targeted, inbound marketing. If people are being educated about a product or service that they need, rather than being talked to, that is marketing people love,” says Adrianne Mayshar, HubSpot Senior Inbound Marketing Consultant, “We recognize the dedication and passion that Paveya brings to this partnership and we are excited to have Paveya on board.”

“As a business development manager who bridges sales and marketing, learning about Hubspot and being Certified as an Agency Partner is thrilling. We have always wanted to help our clients grow through best practices in internet marketing. Now we have a vigorous software platform that will continually help our customers refine their marketing efforts to continually drive revenue,” offers Claiborne Yarbrough.

The Paveya team is constantly cranking out educational and relevant content that will help spread the word about Inbound Marketing and best practices in internet marketing. You can follow the arrival of each of these new pieces of content by following Paveya on Facebook or you can subscribe to our blog.

Look for more news and success stories from our customers in the future. Let’s grow!

About Paveya

Paveya is your full service internet marketing service agency. We will work with you to understand your specific revenue generation goals and work to create an inbound marketing plan that will drive success—whether you are trying to attract visitors, convert leads, or close customers. In order to support our customers at every stage of an internet marketing campaign, we offer the following services: custom website design and development, search engine optimization, social media management, content generation, ecommerce solutions and integrations to accounting, reservation and other industry specific software.

Paveya is excited to bring Hubspot’s inbound marketing vision to their specific industry verticals such as vacation rentals, real estate, hospitality, accounting professionals and small businesses. We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers and GROW their business!

About HubSpot

HubSpot is on a mission to replace the world’s traditional marketing with marketing that people love. HubSpot software is the most powerful, tightly integrated and comprehensive marketing software available, putting personalized inbound marketing into the hands of any business.

Over 8,000 companies in 56 countries use our software to create lovable inbound marketing to attract, nurture and convert leads into an accelerating stream of new customers and revenue. HubSpot has been named one of the most promising, fastest growing companies by Inc, Forbes and Deloitte for the best possible reason: customer results. HubSpot has over 400 employees, was founded in 2006 and is based in Cambridge, MA. For the love of marketing, find us at https://www.HubSpot.com.

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Local SEO for Vacation Rentals

Businesses know that their customers gravitate toward the web first when researching and purchasing new products or services. We know this already—it’s old news! However, when it comes to internet marketing, businesses need to brace themselves. There’s a new search in town and it has a whole different kind of focus. Allow us to introduce you to the new guy, Local SEO.

Now, if you haven’t heard of local SEO or local search, don’t panic. With a bit of time and effort, local SEO has the potential to be extremely helpful (and affordable!) for businesses whose products and services are based on a geographic location. This means you, vacation rental companies!

What is local SEO?

With a local search, your potential customers are now searching using a “where” component instead of just a “what” component. For example, instead of searching for “beach vacation rentals,” future vacation-goers are more often searching for something more along the lines of “Virginia beach oceanfront rentals” to find exactly what they’re looking for, where they’re looking for it. With the recent popularity of smartphones, technology has gone mobile. The behavior of consumers and the tools they are using have changed the way that they search. Now, consumers can actively seek out local places on search engines and will receive more locally centric businesses on the first page of search results—not just large corporations. Local businesses and those who serve a specific geographic location need to adapt their strategy by focusing more on local SEO. Vacation rental companies especially can really benefit from prepping their business local search.

Setting up your Local Search

You’ll want to first set up your local SEO on Google, as it is the number one place for local search marketing. It’s also free, so all you’ll need is a bit of time and effort on your part. Google Places display its listings based on a series of different components. The ranking system is meant to be as fair as possible since businesses can’t pay for a better ranking (yay!). Your business will be ranked mainly based on its relevance to the search terms and geographic distance, among many other components.

When you are setting up your Google Places Listing here, keep these things in mind to ensure a top ranking:

Be Consistent:

Check, double check and check again when making sure your vacation rental company’s information is the same across multiple sources. Google wants to be able to trust your information so that they can provide their users with the best, correct information out there. Your address, phone number, URL, and all other contact information need to be the same asis found on your primary domain.

Be Complete:

Don’t just do the bare minimum. To optimize your local SEO in the best way, you will need to provide a thorough listing. The service is free so there is absolutely no reason why a business would not want to put as much information as possible in their listing. People are out their researching their next getaway, so vacation rental companies can really entice their customers by adding beautiful photos, videos, and coupons.

Remember, an effective Google listing will contain: 

1. Business name.
2. Business location.
3. Website and phone.
4. Categories. Vacation rental companies will want to be as specific as they can here. You want your customers to know all of the areas in which you have vacation rental homes.

Check Citations:

Much like how backlinks create trust for your on-page SEO, citations help your local SEO. Citations are links from an authoritative source or directory, review site or local pages directory. Again, make sure that these citations are accurate and consistent across the boards to ensure trust and to up your ranking. 

Although Google is the most important place to set up your local SEO and search, you will want to add your business to a number of different local search listings and review sites. Some of the most popular include Yelp, Bing, Yellow Book, and Four Square. Reviews on these listings can be a great source of information for your potential vacation rental clients because those people who are searching for your business “locally” are probably not from the area. When they see positive customer reviews underneath your listing, they will be more inclined to trust you. Set up your local SEO today to get more targeted traffic and leads to your primary website. 

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

More Bang for your Buck: Affordable Search Engine Optimization

So, you want to hire an SEO company? Well, for starters, what types of SEO services do you think your business needs? What are you trying to gain as a result of your SEO internet marketing campaign and how do you know what your return on investment will be? Search engine optimization is a team effort; to see the full potential of successful SEO, you will need all of the pieces of the SEO puzzle. If your plan does not include these 5 SEO services, you won’t be getting the most out of your search engine optimization.

Research Potential Keywords:

You could waste a lot of time and money on trying to target the wrong keywords for your website. Proficient SEO companies will know how to find the best keywords for your site. When you find and target keywords that are relevant to your content that have a high amount of monthly searches but still have a relatively low difficulty level, you will be able to receive much more traffic to your site. A good SEO company also knows the difference between getting more traffic and getting qualified traffic that will more easily convert to leads. 

Content Creation:

You’ll want to start using those keywords once you know which ones you want to target. Several companies that offer affordable SEO services will also include assistance in creating content, mainly in the form of blogs. If you want help writing your own, any SEO company that is worth their salt will help you find your voice and help you with topics. Some companies will even write your content for you! If you need help coming up with content for your website’s webpages or blog or social media, SEO experts will point you in the right direction. 

Link Building:

There is a right and wrong way to build links to your website. Companies that offer quality affordable search engine optimization will help companies build better links, rather than just doing the bare minimum of basic backlink building. Better companies will help you create viral campaigns and will search for more hard-to-get, better-quality links that will bring in targeted traffic to your website.

On-Page SEO:

SEO companies should have experts on staff who know how to leverage on page optimization and will make sure that your website is completely SEO-friendly. The main goal of affordable search engine optimization is to get your website optimized and ranking on popular search engines! This is one of the most important things your SEO company can do for you, so make sure that they know what they’re doing.

Social Media Marketing:

Many businesses scoff at the idea that social media, such as Facebook, can help their business! But it can, and it will. A company could very well be lost without it. A good SEO company knows the importance of connecting with customers on social media and they know exactly how to create efficient social media strategies that will prove successful for your specific industry and business. If your affordable search engine optimization plan does not include social media marketing, you may want to reconsider. This type of marketing is an extremely valuable piece of the SEO puzzle.

Currently, there are over 200 factors which determine your relevancy and rankings on Google and they are constantly changing. Implementing one or two practices won’t give you much of a jump when it comes to targeted traffic. To get the most out of affordable search engine optimization, you will need to invest in an SEO company that knows how to utilize several best practices to improve your long term SEO. What can an experienced SEO company do for your business? Invest in affordable search engine optimization today and see what good SEO can do for you.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Why Should You Update Your Website? Don't Get Hacked!

If you already have a website, you know how valuable of a tool it can be in finding and communicating with your potential customers or clients. When setting up their website, most businesses are smart in investing a chunk of their time and effort into building a strong online presence. They know the value in having a well-designed website. However, many people don’t realize that creating and developing their website is just half of the battle. A website is a part of your marketing strategy that should be tended to, and maintained, quite often.

The internet is a constantly evolving entity and you have to be able to update your website frequently to keep up with the changes. Not only will updating your website keep your content fresh, engaging and timely, but you will be improving the security of your website as well.

If you don't know yet why should you update your website, you are probably already putting your website in danger. If you are not continually updating your website, hackers and cyber criminals will see you as an easy target. If your third party applications are outdated, your anti-virus software isn’t up to date and you are still using a weak password, you are making your website extremely vulnerable to attacks. It’s crucial to update your website often to create a strong defense against cyber criminals. You should put just as much effort into maintaining your website as you did into its initial development. Unfortunately, once a website has been hacked, it’s going to take a lot of work to nurse it back to optimal health. The damage that hackers could potentially cause could be highly expensive and difficult to repair.

Updating your website can involve several different tactics, including, but not limited to: updating your software, creating tough passwords, and creating backups regularly. These practices should aid in creating a barrier against hackers. Creating a strong, hard to guess password and changing it often is a vital step in defending your website. A good, strong password should be lengthy, void of common dictionary terms or personal information, and should always include a good mix of characters, numbers and upper and lower case letters.

A business would be smart to hire an experienced technician to better perform these defensive strategies to ensure a fool-proof security for your website. If you are a business that is using a WordPress platform, it is even more important to continually upgrade your blog for security purposes and here’s why: 83% of hacked WordPress blogs are not upgraded!

Updating your Website Powered by WordPress

When you refuse to install those updates (you know what I’m talking about) you are leaving yourself vulnerable to hackers. It’s so easy for hackers to tell if your site is not up to date and when they see that it’s not, they will target you. Not only do updates create a stronger defense, but the majority of updates are created to fix a previous problem in an earlier version. Most of the time, this means correcting a hole they found in security. When an update is released, sometimes those security loopholes that they are fixing are mentioned in its release. So, when a hacker sees that you are using an older version of a plugin, they already know of the holes in your security and can easily figure out how to break your site. Those updates may seem pesky at times, but they really are important to keeping your site safe and secure.

If your WordPress powered website needs updating, but you are not entirely sure where to begin, let us help you!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

The 2 Best SEO Services to Help your Business Win the Ranking Race

Businesses today need to have a solid presence online to be noticed by their customers. The only perceivable way that a business would not benefit from having a high quality, optimized website would be if the target audience of a business did not use the internet. So, unless your customers are primarily Amish, you will need to work on building your online presence. To do this, you will need to take the time to learn some of the best SEO services.

You can hire an inbound marketing agency to help implement more specific actics to drive traffic to your site, however, there are a couple things that businesses can easily do on their own to jumpstart their internet marketing. If you’d like a head start when it comes to the best SEO services, here are some techniques that have been tested and proven to improve a business’s SEO.

Two of the Best SEO Services:

Blogging:

One of the best things you can do for your website, no matter what industry you are in, is to create a blog. Search engines rank websites higher when they have more pages of applicable content. Each blog post creates a new page on your website, so write a blog and watch your ranking soar.

You're an expert in your field, so why not share your knowledge with your clients and customers? Not only is writing a blog a fun way to help educate and entertain your readers, but you can also benefit greatly from the SEO that will ensue when you optimize your blog. To optimize, you will need to use keywords and place them strategically throughout your posts.
(Quick FYI: Blogging & keywords are intertwined; however finding the right keywords is a whole different ballgame. See "Keywords" below)

When you are writing your blog post, make sure that you are using the keyword in a natural, conversational way and that it occurs in the title, the images, and numerous times in the body of the article. You will also want that keyword somewhere in the Meta description and tags as well. Blogging is going to be an ongoing process for your business. Tend to your blog when you can; write often and on a schedule to encourage strong readership. Remember, you are an expert in your field so don’t be intimidated if you aren’t a “writer.” Your blog should be about 600 or more words and as long as it is relevant to your industry, feel free to have a little fun with it and get creative! 

Keywords:

Keywords can be your best friend when optimizing you website for SEO. The reason keywords are one of the best SEO services is because they serve to assist search engines in providing better results to their users. Whether you are a keyword-savvy business, a search engine wanting to provide better results, or someone who is surfing the web for more targeted results, when you use keywords correctly it becomes a win-win-win for all involved.

There are several free tools on the internet that can help you choose the right keywords to focus on. AdWords, a Google tool, will let users look up specific keywords of your own or find the keywords of your competitors. Then the tool will determine the competition for each keyword, as well as clue you in on the global and local monthly searches it receives. You’ll want to try and find keywords with a low level of competition that still have a high number of searches. This way you can more easily rank for a keyword, while still getting a fair amount of traffic. If a keyword you are searching for is too high in regards to competition, try zeroing in on a more specific, long-tail keyword.

Writing a blog and creating keywords are going to be two long-term strategies that you will need to "keep up" for your website. It may be difficult at first, but these two ongoing strategies should become ingrained in your marketing approach over time. These two best SEO service will work for your website to continually bring in more and more ideal traffic to your website. When you blog and focus in on the right keywords, your website rankings will steadily start to rise. Start implementing these two best SEO services today and reap the benefits of SEO.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Effectively Use Social Media

With the buzz on the web about the rules of social media, it is easy to see why anyone with a new or small business may be feeling a bit confused about how to effectively use social media. Yes, we know that Facebook and Twitter are big on the web, but for many the real question is how does something like this translate into sales? The real answer is, social media is not like advertising, you don't look for actual ROI as much as use it to gain recognition of your brand. Still, even with that as a goal, many businesses are feeling the need to define the rules of social media in order to understand just what they can expect when they use it to promote their business. Because the reality is, even if a blog and social media does bring in new customers; they still need a compelling message to make them come back again.

Numbers Don't Lie

It isn't that surprising that many companies have been trying to get their hands on some hard cold numbers to give them an idea of how effective either a blog, social media or others media really is when used properly. Here are the results from three different polls that website socialmediatoday looked at when considering the effectiveness of the rules of social media.

Revenue growth for those who use social media was 19% versus those who didn't use it who saw a gain of a little over 5%. Those using social media had grown their client base by 21% more than those that didn't use social media. There was a clear gain of clients for companies that used specific social media tools.
 

• 61% for LinkedIn users

• 35% for Facebook users

• 47% for blog owners

As you can see the blog social media tool is one of the most effective and yet is often overlooked when deciding on a social media campaign. These kinds of numbers show that more and more the rules of social media has become an important tool to reach out and increase your client base.

Engaging the Brand

Using sites like Facebook and Pinterest to give your customers more investment into your business can increase both your visibility and your client base. Small businesses in particular can use a blog social media tool to connect their customers on a more intimate level, making that company a personal connection for their clients. Facebook, with 97% of the top 250 internet retailers remains the place to gain data and analytics on your client base while offering a payment technology that makes it easy for small business to move a portion of their marketing and sales onto the site.

The bottom line for any kind of rules of social media engagement is to connect with your clients at their favorite places. Having a page on Facebook if you target customer is below 40 will give them an easy place to discover you. Adding a blog, social media video, keeping your site current and up to date, answering questions on the sites as they appear are all good rules for social media if you want it to be successful.

Most of all, remember that any kind of blog, social media or other media is just one tool among many. Newsletters, email campaigns, and good customer service still make a huge impact in how your customers see and remember you business. Yes, adding in those social media platforms is a part of it, but they need to work with the rest of your marketing strategy to really succeed.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

The Power of Social Media for Hotels

Social media is in a state of constant evolution. Or more correctly, our understanding of social media continues to evolve and change in light of how it can benefit businesses. In the early days of Web 2.0, when early adopters began to hop on the social media bandwagon, there was a lot of talk of “free advertising” and “promotional opportunities”, but our understanding of the medium has grown to include much more than that. 

In social media, the end user holds the reins. Each user decides what they like and what they’ll follow; they can hide content streams or seek out specific ones, liking and sharing only what appeals to them. This creates a community based on a shared interest.

Build Community. Build a community around your hotel social media profile by creating and sharing content that has its own momentum, content that people will voluntarily share and like. Avoid the temptation to simply post deals, advertisements, or promotions. Thinking of social media simply as “free advertising” will not inspire you to post compelling content, and no one will share it. It has to be interesting; no one opts in for spam. This means, too, that it can be very valuable to Like and Share content from other hotels and businesses you respect. While some will balk at the idea of even mentioning their competitors, users are following your feed for one reason: is to find great content. Sharing a funny post from another hotel or related brand gives your feed some credibility and a more rounded-point-of-view. Your followers will enjoy reading your feed, they will associate your informative feed with your brand, and in this way they’ll actually be listening when you do post promotions and advertisements. 

User generated content. Travel photos and stories are the most popular content on social media sites. More than ever, your guests are sharing their own pictures of your hotel rooms and everything you provide. While this removes some control from the hands of the hotelier, user-generated content provides you with opportunities to be memorable or to make an impression. Your efforts in creating a great hotel will not go unrecorded as everyone with a camera (which is everyone these days) will share all those details you painstakingly thought of. Also, it’s free content that has the potential to go viral. Users will more likely see and share content created by their friends, and a hotel social media profile gives them the space to do it. 

Viral content. As the term suggests, viral content spreads exponentially on its own. One person who likes a video may share it with everyone they know, and their friends in turn share it with everyone they know. The value here is that even through multiple degrees of separation, everyone who shares your content will see that it is branded with your name, and they will associate this great content with your brand.  Keep the user interested and on your hotel social media profile and they will share everything for you, raising the potential for your content to become viral. 

Paveya employs experts in social media for hotels to most effectively leverage the opportunities and tools provided by your hotel social media profiles. Want to know how? We think of the whole concept of inbound marketing and how your attract your bookings.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Take Your Own Advice -- Local Search for Real Estate Marketing

Realtors should be all too familiar with the old adage: Location, location, location. You may even find yourself saying this when giving advice to your clients. However, when it comes to real estate marketing, this may be a nifty piece of advice that you should be taking yourself! With industries that are location specific, such as real estate, it is crucial to target your ideal clients with local search marketing. This form of online real estate marketing helps realtors “zero in” on their niche by targeting their marketing efforts towards a very specific geographic location. Instead of trying to get exposure for a large area, realtors should more clearly define their domain and become an authority within.

To optimize your website for local search, follow these guidelines:

On Page SEO.

Your inbound marketing campaign should already be focusing on specific keywords within your website. With real estate marketing that is specifically local, you’ll need to optimize your page with “local” keywords. Make sure these keywords are in your title, Meta and image tags. You should also have several pages of local content that is optimized with your keyword as well as including optimized images and video for your specified area.

Off Page SEO.

To start gaining local search exposure, you’re going to have to set up your company on a variety of search engines. Try the following 4 practices to set up your off page SEO.

1. Set up your account on Google Places: Click here to submit your business info, address, contact information, photos and details. You can specify your exact location by listing the specific cities you serve or designate your area as X miles from a central point. To verify, Google will send a postcard to the physical address. This free service with Google will help keep your business showing up when potential clients are looking for a realtor that deals specifically within a certain area. This step is especially important for real estate marketing because Google is one of the most popular search engines—every day Google answers more than one billion questions from people worldwide!
2. Set up your account on Bing Local Business: Much like with Google, you will have to submit all of your business details. Make sure to use those same geo-specific keywords we talked about to define your niche. You can set up your real estate company via Bing by clicking here. 
3. Link building: You will also want to have your real estate company listed in several different local business directories. When search engines see multiple quality links leading to your site, they will tend to rank your website higher. Some local business directories will cost, although you can find some that are free. Get more bang for your buck by being listed on directories with a high page rank and that have fewer business listings on a given page. 
4. Set yourself up to be reviewed: There are many free local business review sites (such as yelp) where you can set up your company. After that, your clients can then leave reviews on the quality of your services. Many businesses shy away from doing this in the fear that they will receive a negative review. However, do not let this deter you. The important thing to remember is to respond to as many reviews as you can, especially if they are negative, to engage in a professional manner with your clients. Thank them for the review, apologize, explain how the situation has been ameliorated and appease them however possible. Real estate marketing depends on responding to these reviews to assure your clients that your services continue to be best that they can be. 

Target your real estate marketing to a specific area to receive more quality leads and traffic. Create a niche for yourself in a certain area and become an authority in your field. Take some time to tweak your local internet marketing and then sit back and watch your leads come flooding in!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Bad Reviews: Inbound Marketing for Vacation Rental Companies

It’s bound to happen sooner or later. You’re at your office, surfing the web. The birds are singing in the background and the sun is streaming through a nearby window. You’re reading over all of your vacation rental company’s customer reviews and beaming like a proud parent. Five stars here, a smiley face there… But somewhere, amidst those raving reviews, you see it. At first, you try to ignore it. But it’s there and it’s sticking out like a sore thumb. Your heart is in your throat and you don’t know what to do. It’s a bad customer review. Cue the dramatic music, folks. Your vacation rental company is doomed.

…Or is it?

Good news for inbound marketing for vacation rental companies! No, you can’t delete a bad review. Nor can you chase after those customers and shout at them to take it down. But, you can turn these negative reviews around. Here’s how:

Timing is everything.

You have to respond in a timely manner or risk losing valuable business. You may have lost that one particular customer, but you still have the chance to reel in others who have seen the bad review. There is a nifty Google alerts tool for inbound marketing for vacation rental companies that will send you an email alert when any content is written on the internet that includes your company’s name or website. However, only pages that are indexed by Google will be sent to you. Respond to each one as quick as possible.

Research the facts.

If the customer is complaining about a specific employee or a particular situation, find out all that you can about what happened. You should have a firm understanding of the issue before continuing on.

Be as professional and as civil as possible.

First, give the customer a sincere and thoughtful apology. Be clear as to why you are apologizing and take full responsibility—no excuses!  Shockingly enough, customers are not always right. However, saying this in a review is not going to help your case. Plus, most people just want their complaint to be acknowledged. Hey, you might not have lost them as a customer yet!

Thank them!

If the review was especially harsh, it could be hard to do this. However, you do need to let your customers know that their feedback is appreciated, whether or not you enjoyed reading their callous review.

Turn it around.

If there is an instance that a “bad” review is simply a matter of preference, there could be a relatively simple fix. For example, if one of your guests at a vacation rental left a bad review saying that it was located in a “noisy” or “busy” area, apologize and offer a suggestion. Perhaps the place they stayed at was geared more for young adults on their spring break who are interested more in the busy night life. Tell your customer this and advise them of a quieter vacation rental in a calm neighborhood that would be more their speed, in case they are to return.

Correct the problem.

Assure them that you have listened. Explain to them all of the efforts your company has made since to fix the problem. This is one of the most important steps. People will start to notice when multiple customers have had a recurring problem. Potential customers will also appreciate the fact that, as a company, you are willing listen to your customers and that you will make improvements accordingly. This is key for inbound marketing for vacation rental companies because other potential guests can see your reply and will be impressed by your professionalism and ability to accept criticism.

Make it right.

If possible, offer to make the situation right for the customer. This could be in the form of a refund or a gift certificate. Let them know that they are a valuable customer and that you want to prove to them that the situation has been ameliorated.

Getting a bad review does not have to turn into a Hollywood drama. Honestly, it will happen to even the best companies at some point in the business. Use best strategies when it comes to inbound marketing for vacation rental companies to ensure that one bad review does not send your business spiraling. You’d be surprised at just how much customers will appreciate their comments being heard. Contact a company that specializes in inbound marketing for vacation rental companies for more tips and tricks of the trade. 

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

All You Ever Needed to Know About Law Firm SEO

When law firms analyze their marketing plan, it is crucial that their inbound marketing strategy has a clear focus. One of the main areas that law firms should concentrate their marketing efforts on is their law firm SEO. Unfortunately, if a law firm’s website does not have strong SEO, there is little chance that potential clients will be arriving at their website, regardless of the quality of their services.

A website is a valuable tool for any business or industry. It is “open” 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, all year long, and can provide a multitude of services such as acquiring and attracting leads, providing your contact information, or educating your viewers on your various expertise and services. Optimize your website by concentrating on these 5 simple components:

1. Keywords. You will need to do a bit of background research to determine the types of keywords that will work best for your law firm SEO. There are several keyword tools, such as Google’s AdWords, that will let you explore different keywords, determine your competitors’ keywords and more. Look for keywords that have a low difficulty but still have a high volume of monthly searches. Unless you are a keyword expert or you have already established yourself as an authority in your field, it would be beneficial to look for keywords with a difficulty ranking that is at the very least below 70.

2. Content. Occurring most often as blog posts or articles, content is something that all websites need. Content is one of the best ways for your website to start ranking for specific keywords. These keywords will not only drive traffic to your site, but they will help drive more targeted traffic to your site, resulting in more clients and leads. Content will also educate your readers and will help to establish your law firm as an authority in your niche. The content you provide on your website should be relevant to your ideal audience and should not be focused solely on promoting your services. Write about related current events or educate your readers about some of the types of services that you provide. Anything goes that is relevant to your law firm and engaging to your readers.

3. Meta Tags and Images. Your Meta title tags and Meta description should both provide your readers, as well as search engines, with an idea of what that specific page of content is about. This means you have got to use your keywords! Also, if you don’t write one yourself, a Meta description will be created for you and will often be the first sentence or so of your content. It would behoove you to write your own to give a better description of the content. Also, make sure that the file names, as well as the alt text and title, of all images each include your keyword that you’re attempting to rank for.

4. Links. Search engines will determine the ranking of your website not only by relevant content, but by the links that are out there on the web pointing people back to your website. Don’t simply “buy” backlinks. Instead, write content that is valuable, engaging and educating to readers and this will encourage industry-specific bloggers or news websites to link to your site. When it comes to backlinks, always think quality over quantity.

5. Social Media. Think your law firm SEO doesn’t need Facebook? Think again. The content on your websites should be community-oriented. When you post content, you need to be able to give your readers a way in which to share the information via a variety of social networks. First, establish a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Then, set up your blog so that it can be shared by your followers and readers. Have conversations with your readers as often as you can.

Think of it like this: Your website is much like your ideal employee—a diligent worker that is able to work on a thousand different tasks effectively and simultaneously. When you optimize your website proficiently, you are virtually setting up your website to be a hardworking, lead-generating, traffic-acquiring, sales-calling machine. Consider these 5 crucial components when setting up your finest law firm SEO and you will soon be receiving quality leads and attracting ideal clients—all by way of your law firm’s website!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Grade your Mobile Marketing Solutions

If your business has yet to delve into the world of mobile marketing, don’t fret—it’s not too late for you to reap the benefits of branching out via mobile devices. Mobile marketing is a relatively new aspect of internet marketing and clever, forward-thinking businesses are constantly improving upon their mobile marketing solutions. One great way to determine effective mobile marketing solutions for your own business is to “grade” or assess the mobile marketing strategies of your business as well as others. As a potential “customer” you will be able to determine what works for them and what doesn’t.

Make a point of assessing the strategies of companies that are in the same industry as you. However, it would be helpful to also take a sneak peak at other businesses that have been recognized for their mobile marketing solutions. It’s important to look at a variety of mobile marketing strategies all while keeping in mind that what works for one industry may not work for yours. Fortunately, mobile marketing is still in its beginning stages so this gives businesses more creative freedom when determining their perfect mobile marketing strategies. Practice grading the mobile marketing solutions of your own business and see how they compare to the competition's.

(+/-1) Deliver with a mobile mentality. If your emails and website were created with mobile devices in mind, award yourself one point. Mobile emails and webpages are going to be seen through a much smaller platform than traditional emails and you need to remember this when creating a subject line and writing content. Convey your message simply but without losing meaning and you’ve got the right idea. Plus one point!

(+/-1) Provide easily clickable buttons and links. If your websites and emails have tiny buttons and difficult links, users will soon become frustrated and proceed elsewhere. Minus one point for any mobile marketing solutions that have users poking at their screen with frustrated fingers.

(+/-1) Know your targeted audience. You’ll want to focus your mobile marketing strategies based on what percentage of your users are viewing your material on a mobile device. If you’re ideal customers are retirees, your strategy will be much different than if your audience consists mostly of college students. Add a point if your mobile marketing solutions are customized according to your ideal audience.

(+/-1) Think height over width. If your content is more easily read vertically, give yourself one more point. Most mobile users read material with their phone held upright, and won’t want to be forced to turn their phone sideways in order to understand the message.

(+/-1) Use a logical font size. Smaller is better when it comes to mobile, right? Not always. Putting small font on an email or website that is already going to be viewed through a small screen is the best way to impair your viewers’ eyesight. Minus a point if an email has your users squinting.

(+/-1) Avoid complex coding and heavy content. Think simple and think fast. Customers using a mobile device are probably already multi-tasking. They won’t want to wait around for content to load. If your solution is to keep it moving, give yourself a point.

(+/-1) Look for your main message and call to action. If they are in the top left corner, give yourself one last point. This is the place in which they’ll best be seen. Are you having to scroll past the fold in order to read an important piece of information? Minus a point!

5-7 Points: Mobile Marketing Master.

Great job. You may need only to tweak your mobile marketing solutions a tad and you should be all set to go mobile! Remember though, technology is always changing and shifting so your business, in turn, should never stop testing and improving.

3-5 Points: Mobile Rookie

Keep those mobile eyes and ears peeled for mobile marketing solutions that work well for other businesses. Try incorporating some of their practices in order to improve upon your own. Assess and grade your emails and website often to stay ahead of the competition.

Less than 3 points:

Needs Improvement. Don’t worry if your mobile marketing solutions fall short at first. As mentioned before, this is a new market for most businesses so it will be a learning process at first. Keep testing and assessing your efforts on different mobile devices to better your strategies.  

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Tactics of Affordable SEO Services

Marketing your business on the internet can often feel like an uphill battle. Internet marketing is challenging and extremely competitive. Bigger corporations and businesses can afford to pay big bucks for their traffic, but small companies are often left to their own devices. When looking for affordable SEO services, you’ll find an abundance of inbound marketing agencies that will do a number of things to increase your SEO. However, with enough time, effort and dedication, your business can implement the same strategies that affordable SEO services would. What can you do as a business to increase you search engine optimization?

1. Social Media

One of the first things that affordable SEO services would advise you to do is to create a variety of social media accounts. The practicality of each social network will vary across industries but the big three (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) should be utilized by the majority of all industries. Through social media you can communicate with and connect to potential customers in real time. Having a strong relationship with your clientele is essential with any type of business and these social platforms provide an easy and free way to do so. When you start using social media regularly, you tend to gain a voice and an image that can be beneficial to your brand’s overall personality. Link to your different social media accounts from other networks to provide your followers with several ways to connect with you. While it is important to integrate your social media accounts, try and vary up or change the content when posting similar content to multiple accounts.

2. Blogging

Creating a blog is one of the most beneficial things affordable SEO services will supply. When you write a new blog article you are creating an entire new page for your website with valuable, SEO-rich content that is available for your target audience to read 24/7. Much like social media, you can communicate and interact in real time with a variety of your clients, both present and potential, through comments or email subscriptions. Blogs are affordable SEO services that are often free and easy to set up, simple to maintain, and could potentially be one of the more creative and fun tasks for SEO. Many people shy away from blogging because they claim that they aren’t writers. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a writer to blog. Write what you know. Write about your company’s story, its culture, the industry, or your location if it’s relevant. Since you are writing about what you know, your personality and voice will come across to your readers in a relatable and positive way.

3. Optimize

This may be the most difficult and technical of affordable SEO services. To guide traffic to your website, you will need to optimize its pages by the use of keywords. Keywords are technical terminologies that help search engines “crawl” your page and determine what your content is about. That way, when people use a search engine to find content about a certain term, search engines can provide them with corresponding, relevant webpages. You will want to use long-tail keywords that are easier to rank for such as “Nags Head real estate” instead of more challenging keywords such as “North Carolina real estate” or “real estate.” This will drive more ideal buyers and targeted traffic to your website. Optimize your website by using these key words in content, content titles, images, alt tag

When it comes to all of the valuable tactics that affordable SEO services can provide, there are several strategies that you can implement yourself to start driving more traffic to your website. If you’re having difficulty employing the more technical strategies, talk to an agency that specializes in providing businesses with successful and affordable SEO services. They can help you use best practices when it comes to using social media, blogging and utilizing keywords in order to drive traffics for images, meta tags, meta descriptions, etc.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Using Social Media for Real Estate

In recent years, inbound marketing has changed the way that virtually every industry promotes and markets their business. Companies have had to readjust their marketing techniques and strategies to find new ways of reaching out to their customers. If real estate companies have not shifted their attention to their internet marketing strategies, they may find themselves suddenly struggling finding targeted leads. If you are a realtor and you are wondering where to get real estate leads on the internet, you’re in luck. There are tons of social media for real estate that you can utilize as platforms and networks to get the most out of your real estate marketing. Start setting up a variety of social media accounts and chalk up some quality real estate leads!

Where to get real estate leads:

LinkedIn: This is probably the first social media for real estate network that you will want to leverage. LinkedIn gives realtors a way to connect with potential clients. Since real estate leads often come from referrals, LinkedIn is a great tool because it allows users to give recommendations online. Once you set up your account, make sure that you appear in the employee lists of your broker’s or firm’s company page for further publicity. LinkedIn has a great app to use called Real Estate Pro that allows you to feature property listings and promote client transactions right there on your profile. Get this nifty app here.

Facebook: With this popular social network, you can find and search for new clients and give them a chance to know you. While you can, and should, be more personable on Facebook than on professional social networks such as LinkedIn, you still need to be careful of what you say and how you say it. While you can occasionally update your connections by sharing properties, don’t use Facebook solely to promote your listings. Use this network as a friendly place to introduce yourself and demonstrate your professionalism, NOT as a place to bombard people with your listings.

Twitter: You’ll want to use Twitter as social media for real estate. It allows for public conversations across a network of users. Since your message must be brief—a mere 140 characters—you must learn to condense information in an engaging way that will receive positive attention. If a follower is particularly interested by your “tweet,” they can easily “retweet” it and share with all of their followers! That’s free promotion right there. Unlike with other social media for real estate, you should be able to post a few times a day without overdoing it. Since the twitter feed is in real time, your message may not be read by your followers if you don’t post it more than once or during a prime time.

YouTube: People are visual creatures. Clients will greatly appreciate the added effort when you post a video of your listings—in fact, 58% of buyers want to see videos when they’re looking at property online! You can create your own channel for free on YouTube and potential clients can view, comment on and subscribe to your videos. Promote your YouTube videos throughout your social media platforms to receive more targeted views. Invest in a quality camera to provide your customers with professional footage of the beautiful homes that they are interested in.

When it comes to social media for real estate, it is also crucial to remember to integrate these different networks to reach a greater amount of potential clients. Post links to all of your social media sites on your main webpage. When you send out an e-mail, consider adding links to your signature that will direct your reader to your different social media accounts. Remember: social media is social. Don’t be afraid to start conversations with your clients or reach out to people in a friendly yet professional manner. Your goal on social media for real estate is not to advertise or sell your services; your primary concern should be to get your name out there, relate to customers and to begin and maintain positive relationships with your clients.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Visual Media's Importance for Hospitality Internet Marketing

People are visual creatures. Fortunately for us, advancements in technology have resulted in more and more of our online world becoming visual. Businesses in all industries have got to understand that their potential customers and clients will be searching for them online and making snap judgments about their company based on the images, video and content that they post. When it comes to hospitality internet marketing, you need to concentrate your efforts on keeping up with new technology to leverage your website and social media platforms and include enticing visual content.

Here are some tips for making sure that your hospitality internet marketing plan is presenting your hotel in the best possible way:

1. Make sure that you don’t bog down visitors to your website by using large uncompressed images.   Your images should be optimized for the web and for speed. Don’t lose a booking to a competitor because a guest didn’t wait for your page to load. More importantly, Google is also checking your website speed. Slow loading can affect your ranking so use photos that are optimized for web.
2. Make sure that you are using your prime real estate on your web page to show off beautiful images of your hotel. Investing in a professional photographer is a must—good photos of your hotel’s amenities or other values like a beautiful pool can significantly increase your conversion rates. The majority of people turn to the internet first when researching a vacation. Which hotel do you think they will choose: a hotel with a stunning image of the spacious rooms and poolside or a hotel with a text heavy homepage? Vacationers want to see what your hotel has to offer them. Quality photos are a must for hospitality internet marketing.
3. Integrate these photos and images through social media by sharing your images on all of your social media sites. This means more than just Facebook—your potential guests will be using a variety of social networks such as Twitter, Myspace, Google +, and Instagram. From March through August 2012, Instagram alone had a 724% gain in visits by DAILY mobile users. Those are the same users who are searching for your hotel when they planning their travel. Encourage conversations and interactions when posting these photos by asking questions such as asking, “Who wants to spend their day by the poolside sipping a tropical drink?” when posting a photo of your pool or island drinks. Entice your viewers on social media and they will be more apt to comment or share. Social media is so crucial for hospitality internet marketing.
4. All images should be named using ALT tags so that when the image cannot be displayed or a screen reader is being used the “alternative text” will tell users about the image. This is also important as part of your Search Engine Optimization plan for your hospitality site. Use your keywords for the filename of your image and in the ALT tags. Remember, search engines are crawling your website pages and all of its content and images to pick out certain keywords. Make it as easy as possible for your page to rank on top search engines such as Google.

That well known adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer with respect to your hotel’s search engine ranking and conversion rates. Potential guests want to see all that your hotel has to offer, they don’t just want to read about it! Post tempting photos with an interesting description and you may have just scored a new customer!

If you are struggling with your hospitality internet marketing, we are here to help you grow.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Inbound Marketing for Hospitality: How to Use Instagram

Ah, Instagram. It is the reason why our social media newsfeeds are constantly filled with “polaroids” of the day to day lives of our friends and family. Many businesses have shied away from using Instagram because they assume that the app is geared more towards person to person interaction. This may be so, but several industries could also benefit by jumping on the “faux-polaroid” bandwagon. Instagram has been a favorite for travelers and tourists alike as a means to document their trips and share their images with social media. If these potential visitors are on Instagram, so should all hospitality businesses be on Instagram. Hotels, restaurants and other similar industries are sorely missing out by not using this app as part of their strategy for inbound marketing for hospitality.

Because a picture can communicate so much almost instantly, Instagram is an awesome way to showcase your brand’s personality. Marketing has come a long way in that people no longer want to be distant from the company that they buy their goods and services from. By posting photos that highlight your unique personality as a brand, your target audience will better relate to you as a company. It gives your business a face to the name, so to speak. Give your inbound marketing for hospitality that personal touch by using this fun and creative app.

Instagram is also a great way to encourage visitors to come to your area and visit your establishment. Feel free to post any photos that are travel-related that you think would pique the interest of future guests. Instagram is a popular fun way for travelers to share their own photos with the rest of the world. Their purpose is not necessarily to make us jealous by the fact that they are in the Cayman Islands and we are not, but to share with us certain images and ideas in case we later find ourselves vacationing there ourselves. Mimic this tactic for inbound marketing for hospitality and promote your brand by posting photos of the places (i.e. yours) where viewers would possibly want to visit. Spice it up a bit and make those images really intriguing! The app can be really fun because it allows you to have lots of simple editing and enhancement tools, right at your fingertips.

Speaking of that super cool editing feature, it should be noted that among some social circles, Instagram has gotten a bit of a reputation. The reason why some people may turn up their noses at the thought of using Instagram is because some users “abuse the privilege.” I don’t believe that there is a platform out there that has more than its fair share of dogs wearing glasses, over-edited images of sunsets, close-ups of home cooked meals, or self-promotional “selfies.” As you can imagine, having your newsfeed flooded by a thousand pictures of your neighbor’s cat dressed up in costume is not an ideal situation. Don’t contribute to this reputation when utilizing your inbound marketing for hospitality by posting hoards of unoriginal, thoughtless content. Steer clear of posting numerous uninteresting photos and, even though the editing tools can be fun, try not to overdo it. The photograph should be awesome before editing, so don’t compensate by upping the contrast and adding filters.

Remember, the foundation of having a solid social media strategy is to intertwine all of your different networks. Instagram is one of the few social media sites that is solely photo-centric. It can be a great way to add to your inbound marketing for hospitality strategies by also posting relevant photos to your other connected sites. Interested users can then like, share, tweet or re-post Instagram images on their own networks. This results in even more exposure and recommendations for your company. So make sure that after you set up your Instagram account you integrate it throughout your different networking platforms for a more complete inbound marketing strategy for your hospitality industry business. For more tips how how to improve inbound marketing for hospitality and for more assistance on how to use Instagram and other social media networks, contact Paveya today!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

3 More Reasons to Blog for Vacation Rental SEO

Vacation Rental Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the ongoing effort to make sure that the almost 90% of internet users who rely on the internet for travel planning are going to find your vacation rental and book. What you might not know is how critical it is for a significant part of this effort to be writing content, and more specifically blogging. Any inbound marketer worth his or her salt would tell you that you absolutely MUST create and tend to a blog to drive customers to your site. A blog that is created and maintained correctly should be bringing the traffic that you want to your site. Blogs work by providing content that matches the specific searches that online customers will use to make their booking decisions.

Besides bringing all that beneficial (and targeted) traffic to your site, we would like to offer some suggestions for other ways that blogging benefit a vacation rental company?

Be your own online concierge
Your blog can be working for you 24/7, 365 days a week as your company’s own personal (and unpaid) concierge. Your blog, however, can serve as a place for your vacation rental guests to go when they want to find out about the best local restaurants or about any events that are happening in the area.  Use your blog to point out the features of the rental home. These posts will also improve your vacation rental SEO when you utilize those phrases like “family-friendly events in _____” or “local restaurants in _______.”

Have an ongoing dialog with your target market
Blog comments provide a platform for your guests (past, present and potential) to easily contact you and leave their comments. This is a much more cost effective (i.e. free) and faster method that hoping that a guest survey card will be filled out or returned. Best of all, when guests leave a comment, you can receive and respond to it in real time, further reinforcing dialog and loyalty. It will provide a discussion that will clue you in to what your guests want, allowing you to improve accordingly. Think of a blog as an ongoing conversation you should be having with all of your ideal guests!

Promote
Post a blog to highlight a specific property or write about new features and amenities. People are visual creatures so always add photos. When a snowbound, potential visitor is online looking at your tropical home, they will be easily tempted by photos and details about a particularly beautiful vacation rental house. Your blog can serve as a free advertisement for your potential guests, and will be available to them 24/7. Make sure you include high quality and professional images and make sure that you optimize these photos to improve your vacation rental SEO.

Remember to post regularly to keep visitors engaged with interesting content. Communicate with your visitors to give your company a personal voice. Promote your blog offline and online to attract more visitors and give readers a way to subscribe to your blog via email. All of these are best practices when it comes to vacation rental SEO. Keep blogging and you’ll be sure to see an increase of targeted traffic to your website in no time at all!

If you would like more information about Search Engine Optimization for Vacation rentals and blogging, we offer an eBook about Blogging for Vacation Rentals.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

What Is Inbound Marketing for Retail? It's Not All About You

We all have that one friend. You know the one I’m talking about. You seek a conversation with them, maybe because you’ve had a tough week at work or you’re having relationship problems, either way you need them to be there for you. As the conversation progressives you suddenly realize the conversation has somehow shifted to them and the latest antics of their pet iguana. When did that happen? Friends like these—friends who enjoy the sound of their own voice more than anything in the world—aren’t exactly the type of people we tend to rely on or trust. We probably don’t like them all that much either. Unfortunately, the same rule applies to businesses. This means you, inbound marketing for retail. 

There is such a vast amount of content available on the internet, that it may be hard for your targeted audience to sift through it all to find interesting information. According to Beth Kanter, who was named by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most influential women in technology, we are living in an era of content abundance. She states that on Facebook alone the average user creates 90 pieces of content each month. Consider for a moment that there are over 800 million Facebook users. That is a lot of content. If retail companies continue to create content for the sole purpose of blabbering on about their brand, it’s going to get old quick for the majority of their customers.  

We need to shift the focus of inbound marketing for retail to better provide your users with quality and engaging content. Retail needs to find new ways to advertise their brand without constantly self-promoting and obnoxiously pushing their brand on users who are already blasted with too much content. The solution? Content curation.

Content curation is defined as the process of sorting through overwhelming amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. If your inbound marketing for retail strategy centers on blabbering about your business and continually patting yourself on the back, people are going to be quick to pass on your self-absorbed content.

So how can inbound marketing for retail utilize content curation? Pinterest has several great examples of effective content curation, although you can apply the same strategies anywhere. The image here was pinned by Evokingyou.com which is a blog focused on photography, fashion among other things. The pin has taken several different stylish pieces and arranged them in a visually pleasing way. These products are not from the same brand, but they are put together cohesively. This example is specific to the clothing industry, of course, but it can apply for any types of goods or services. The key to content curation for inbound marketing for retail is taking your product and displaying it in a way that does not necessarily make it the focus, but as a delightful garnish—an a la carte piece that will encourage viewers to go out and buy it, and buy it now.

The idea behind content curation is not to advertise solely your own brand, but to present your products and pieces with others in a way that will make consumers want to buy it! This may mean having to go outside your brand. This may be a big, scary step for inbound marketing for retail, but it works. Don’t believe me? A study was done by www.convinceandconvert.com in 2011 to determine how customers responded to two different content types: created (typical advertisements) and curated. According to that study, brands that posted curated content linking to 3rd party sites experienced a 33% increase in clicks versus those with original content linking back to their site. Still want to keep patting your own back, retail? Consider content curation for inbound marketing for retail. Don’t be that awkward brand left alone in the corner talking about yourself. No one wants to listen!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

ECommerce Web Design Tips-- Let's Grow!

Gone are the days when needing a new pair of jeans meant heading to the mall or the local department store and fighting traffic and the hustle-bustle of crowds to snag a brand spankin’ new pair of pants. Now, we can shop for almost anything online without ever leaving the house. We don’t have to fight off any angry shoppers for that last pair of designer pants; now we can browse thousands of different styles and sizes and purchase them in a matter of clicks—all from the comfort of our home.

Alas, it must be said that our technology addled world can’t always be so perfect. If you’ve ever had a bad experience while shopping online, you know that the ecommerce web design can be prove to be just as much of a hindrance than it is a help when shopping for purchases. When it comes to ecommerce web design, here are some best practices to apply when ensuring your customers have a pleasurable and stress-free online shopping experience.

Keep that search bar in plain view.

Shoppers sometimes come to an ecommerce site to browse, but more often than not, the person will already have something in mind to look for. Consider making your search bar the main focus of your ecommerce web design. It will encourage customers to look around your site and will also assist those who are looking for something more specific.

Allow customers to refine options.

Let customers to filter their search options to better provide them with results that they might be interested in. For example, with items such as clothing, make sure you include size filters so a customer won’t become frustrated when their search continually produces items that are not available in their size.

Improve immediacy and speed.

If your ecommerce web design becomes heavy and is crammed full of slow loading content, people who come to your website for a quick and convenient shopping experience will be quick to leave. Your website needs to be able to load on shoppers’ screens quickly and efficiently to keep them interested and engaged.

Clarify which items are out of stock.

You will have a ton of angry customers on your hand if you fail to let them know when you are out of a certain product. Once, I ordered a tee shirt that was actually out of stock on an online clothing company. I alerted them to the problem and they ended up refunding my money and sending me a free tee shirt. You could potentially lose money by having to “appease” those customers who complain about ordering an out-of-stock product.

Use quality photos.

We have yet to make online shopping into the equivalent of shopping for a product in person. The closest thing to seeing a product in person is providing high quality photos on your ecommerce web design. Using poor quality photos or having none at all opens the door for all sorts of problems. Potential buyers won’t want to buy an item they can’t see, and if they do, they could end up getting a product that looks entirely different than the one on the website. Without these photos, consumers will quickly become disgruntled.

Include testimonials.

You know that your product is phenomenal, but buyers might not want to take your word for it. They might, however, believe reviews left by customers who have already purchased the product. Don’t let the possibility of receiving negative reviews scare you—almost every product out there is bound to get some negative reviews, but those will just give you more room for improvement.

Eliminate checkout distractions.

It is so crucial not to distract your potential customer at this point in the buying process. You want them to be focused enough to complete the entire order. For your ecommerce web design, make sure you remove items like sidebar navigation and define a clear goal to the path. The more content on this page, the less appealing for the buyer.

Your ecommerce web design should be entirely focused on making the process of online shopping as simple and pleasant as possible. Shoppers who quickly become aggravated with the functions of your site are not going to stick around for long. For ecommerce web design especially, it is so important to build a website that is not just visually pleasing but is also easy to navigate and functional. For more ecommerce web design tips, contact an internet marketing agency that specializes in ecommerce and online marketing. 

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Spring Cleaning: Inbound Marketing for Hotels

I don’t know about everyone else, but spring has been on my mind for months, probably since the first day the temperatures dropped below 60 degrees. Unfortunately, the weather can’t seem to decide if it wants to fully commit to warmer days quite yet, but I for one am rejoicing that spring will officially be here on March 20th. That’s less than a week away! For hotels, spring can be a hectic and busy time with spring breakers and eager vacationers retiring their coats and hats and taking advantage of the warmer temperatures. To celebrate the upcoming season, why not take part in a little inbound marketing spring cleaning? Don’t procrastinate this year; grab your mop and bucket and ramp up your inbound marketing for hotels!inbound marketing, hotels, spring cleaning
Dust off your SEO

Travel giants such as Travelocity have grown as popular as they are because of their advertising and SEO strategies. Over 80% of online transactions begin with keyword searches. Inbound marketing for hotels relies on optimizing your site to keep it appearing on the first page of search results. Any further and you might as well be invisible. Conduct ongoing keyword research to make sure your company is targeting your ideal audience by using the most profitable long-tail keywords. Analyze your competition and see what’s working for them. Utilize free keyword grading tools and analyze keyword traffic. SEO can be hard work but in the long term it will pay off and bring hoards of traffic to your site.

Give your content a fresh coat of paint

I’ve been over this time and time again, but I cannot stress this enough: To keep visitors coming to your website, you need to supply them with fresh and engaging content. Inbound for marketing for hotels is unique in that you’ve got a great reason to write new content. Ideas for your blog should be easy—you are writing for people who know very little about the area! Talk about local events that are happening near your hotel’s location, post about some of the best restaurants and bars, highlight some of the greatest activities in your area. You can provide them with a unique local standpoint, and that, for vacationers, is incredibly valuable. Hotels should never run out of fun content!

Tend to your Social Media

People want to be constantly connected via their social networks. People are heading over to sites like Twitter and Facebook to check out deals or do research on where to stay during their vacation. If your social media sites are dull and boring, chances are vacationers will not choose your hotel. Social media can be a fun and rewarding aspect of inbound marketing for hotels. Networking sites allow companies to engage directly with their customers, and your guests will certainly appreciate this! Try holding a contest or starting a conversation with people who are planning a vacation to the area.

Weed out bad reviews

There are so many search engines that allow customers to post reviews and rate different establishments. Even if you have not set up an account for your hotel, chances are if you’ve had a particularly unsatisfied customer (hey, it happens) they have posted a review about your hotel already. While you cannot necessarily “remove” these bad reviews, on most sites you can reply to any negative feedback or thank a customer for a positive review. Make sure your responses are professional and friendly, and for any negative comments, assure any future customers that you have done everything in your power to fix the issue.

Try to conduct these little spring cleaning practices often, especially right before your busiest seasons. Don’t focus on just one of these tips; concentrate your time and effort across the board. Inbound marketing for hotels should be a comprehensive project that encapsulates SEO, social media, and content. Take advantage of the slower business hours of the wintertime and spruce up your inbound marketing strategies for hotels. Contact your inbound marketing professionals for more tips and tricks of the trade.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Create the WORST Real Estate Website- Tips for Realtor Web Design

A real estate agent’s website is a great extension of any inbound marketing approach. A high quality website can serve as an excellent marketing tool because it is available to potential clients 24/7, 365 days a year. And they can (hopefully) stumble upon it themselves! Think about it: You have pages among pages of relevant information and content just hanging out online, working for you constantly, without you ever having to raise a finger. Of course, your website must be setup and tended to, quite often in fact, but the benefits it can reap are endless.

On the flip side, if you don’t know what you’re doing, real estate agent websites can also wreak havoc on your reputation-- recent studies suggest that 95% of buyers and sellers begin their real estate search on the internet. Without a plan for your internet marketing, you could potentially be losing clients, well, 24/7, 365 days a year. And I’m here to tell you how to do just that.

Announcing the top 4 Ways to Create a Negative Image, Lose Clients, Confuse Buyers and Have the WORST Real Estate Agent Website Ever:

Camouflage your contact information

When creating the worst real estate agent website in history, it is absolutely imperative to hide your contact information. Might as well make a game of it—keep your potential clients guessing as to how to reach you. Make your information as tiny as possible and make sure to hide that contact form in some remote corner! Or, make them fill out a really long form with lots of required questions. In fact, if you really want to aggravate your customers, throw out that contact information all together. Let them work for it.

Delete your blog

Who needs content? Again, keep them guessing about what you offer, why you are good at what you do and why they should choose you. Take all those pages of significant content that you spent hours writing and throw them out completely. Relevant material on properties, the real estate market, how-to guides and community information? Only the best real estate agent websites would waste their time on that type content. If you want to bore your clients and customers completely, make sure those blogs are gone for good. Note: If you do insist on having a blog, use only the most mind-numbing, repetitive information possible. The older it is the better. That’ll turn your customers away for sure!

Forget about Social Media

No one uses Facebook anymore and I’m pretty sure no one even knows what “Twitter” means. Don’t waste your time being on social media sites that will probably become ancient history in the next week or so. To create the worst real estate agent website ever, you won’t want to include any links to your social media sites. Why would customers or clients want to connect with you on a more personal or professional level? Leave that to the real estate agents who want to build their brand and provide personal advices and service.

Outdate your website

When potential clients arrive at your website, your job is to annoy them as quickly as possible. You can do this is by one of several ways. Perhaps you could add your personal favorite song, a scrolling marquee text,  obnoxious flashy buttons or post numerous blinking, or animated images. Remember, we’re creating the worst real estate agent website here, so no clean, simple pages with easy to understand navigation allowed. Use only the darkest backgrounds with an even darker text to really ruin your viewers’ eyesight. If you have a headshot from the early nineties, I would strongly recommend using it. If not, find your worst, most unprofessional photo from your Mardi Gras party and post that instead!

I would hope that it goes without saying, but I do not—I repeat, I do not— recommend these strategies. I’m not sure there is any scenario in which making the worst real estate agent website would be beneficial to anyone, unless there is some horrible website contest that I just haven’t heard about yet. I would suggest, however, that you do the opposite of what I have just told you. A well put-together, high quality and engaging real estate agent website can really work wonders for your inbound marketing. Like I said before, your website will be out there working 24/7, 365 days a year to promote you as a real estate agent. Just make sure you are promoting the right way. 

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Pinterest and Inbound Marketing for Small Business

If you are a small business owner and the mention of Pinterest does not pique your interest, then we’ve got a problem. Often grouped with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, Pinterest is actually the third-largest social network that you should be using when improving internet marketing for small business. If you have yet to set up an account, don’t fret. You aren’t too far gone off the bandwagon. As it turns out, now is actually the perfect time to invest a little of that extra time and energy into “Pinterest-ing,” and I’ll explain why in a moment. But first, I want to rid myself from all blame in causing any unhealthy infatuation to Pinterest. Take it from someone who has sat down and began “pinning,” only to look up hours later and realize the entire day had been spent: Pinterest is a really cool—and addictive—site.

The time is right for Pinterest and small business. Just this past Tuesday, March 12th,  Pinterest unveiled their new, handy-dandy web analytics tool. Since I spend my time on my own personal Pinterest re-pinning tasty brownie recipes and photos of tropical island getaways, this tool won’t be of any value to me. But luckily for you, the benefits for internet marketing for small business are abundant. This nifty (and free!) tool allows site owners to track the number of pinners and pins collecting material from their sites and the number of repinners and repins that those initial pins received.

For all you non-Pinterest users, all of that pinning and repining nonsense probably sounded a whole lot like gobbledegook. Allow me to explain: A “pin” is simply an image or video that you wish to follow with your Pinterest followers. Any pin that you upload can be repinned, and all of those subsequent “repins” will link back to their original source (your business). Users of Pinterest have their own boards where they can organize pins by topics. Depending on your small business, these boards can be customized to fit you. For example, if you own a local restaurant, your boards could consist of things such as “Entrees,” “Drinks,” “Recipes” or “Local Events.” Be creative; you can create your own boards and post anything that you believe would entice your customers to visit your small business. Ultimately, the overall goal for internet marketing for small business is to encourage other people to repin and share your images and videos with their followers. When you post interesting content, your pins can travel with lightning speed across a network of other Pinterest users.

Hopefully, now you can understand a little better how that awesome new analytics tool could benefit you as a small business owner. To start using the analytics, first set up your business Pinterest account. Then, have them verify your business by going to your profile, clicking the pencil icon on the botton right corner of the name box, and entering in your website. After you finish that, you can access the Analytics tab in the main menu on the top right and start discovering the different features. For example, with the tool you can determine what is trending overall and what is not, what posts of yours are working and which aren’t. Use this data to create better pins in the future and keep your followers craving more. You can even look back at your most repined content to improve your internet marketing for small business over time. Small businesses on Pinterest can also track total impressions and their reach on the network, as well as referral traffic in both clicks and unique visitors that are sent back to their sites.

If you’re ready to use this exciting new tool for inbound marketing for small business, head on over to Pinterest now and get your small business account set up. Free internet marketing? Can’t beat that.  Happy pinning!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Vacation Rental Web Development-- A Checklist of Ideas

If you are a vacation rental company in the market for a new website design, you probably already know that this isn’t a task you’ll want to take on on your own. Unless you have a website developer on staff, creating a high-quality website design from scratch is a pretty daunting undertaking, even for those of us who claim to be technically savvy. When you’re ready to sit down and start brainstorming ideas for that shiny new website of your dreams, here is a checklist to refer to when considering your new vacation rental website design.

• Appeal to your target audience. Websites are not one size fits all. Are you trying to reach out to students on spring break or are your properties targeted more towards retirees wanting to relax? Do you want to appeal to families or couples on their honeymoon? You really need to hone in and clearly define your audience when deciding on a customized vacation rental web design.
• Consistency/Repetition. Your website is going to have many, many pages. This is a good thing. However, you need to make sure that your image or brand name is the same throughout each page. This means keeping your logo and placement, as well as your footers, headers and navigation area, consistent. For every new page of content, make sure the same general format is repeated.
• Make your title informative. If the name of your vacation rental company does not clearly define the business you’re in, consider adding a short descriptive tagline in your header. Insert your tagline below the company name on the header of every page to keep your viewer informed. Also, put key information on the footer as well, such as contact information, physical address, copyright and the date your site was last updated.
• Prominent display. When creating an effective vacation rental web design, it is crucial to have all your relevant information above the fold of your vacation rental web design. This means that viewers should have access to all of the pertinent content without having to scroll down. Also, avoid the use of horizontal scrolling.
• Balance. To make your vacation rental web design visually pleasing, you will need a decent balance of text, graphics and white space. Avoid large chunks of text by creating lists or bullet points and use only images that relate to your content and are of high quality.
• Contrast between text and background. Nothing is more annoying than viewing a website that is hard to read. If you have a dark background with dark text, you might as well just kick people off your website. They aren’t going to stay long if they have to squint to read your information. Having a professional and clear format is essential for vacation rental web design.

We highly suggest that you invest in an experienced website developer because when it comes to building a superior web design, you get what you pay for. However, it is a good idea to have a general idea of what you’re looking for before meeting with your new website designer. Come prepared and use the above tips to come up with a very basic vacation rental website design. That way, you can collaborate with your web designer on the best customized web design for your company. Your web designer will remind you of these best practices when finalizing on a new design, but contributing to the planning of your webpage will help you and your web designer produce a design that is right for you.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Lawyer SEO: What to Avoid

Internet marketing has become a top priority for essentially any business or professional. When people want to research or find a particular product or service, the internet is usually their first stop. If your lawyer SEO is not up to par and your firm is continually not appearing above the fold of search results, you might as well be invisible. What was that? You object? Understandable. Unfortunately though, the strength of your presence on the internet has a pretty big impact on your marketing strategy. Lawyer SEO can make or break your firm’s success.

lawyer seo, what to avoidThe good news is that Google has caught on to sneaky firms and businesses that have been using cheap tactics to appear on that treasured first page. This gives the lawyers who have committed to quality lawyer SEO tactics the chance to appear on those first pages instead of the firms who utilize superficial SEO. So, for those lawyers who are concerned about boosting their page through relevant content, here are three things NOT to do.

Exchange Ineffective Links:

Link building is an important part of lawyer SEO, but there is a right and wrong way to do it. If you exchange links with a website that is completely unrelated to your own, you may gain a few more visitors to your site, but they won’t be your targeted audience and they’ll soon become disgruntled. This technique is not effective when the links that are both coming and going from your page are irrelevant to your viewers. For those who catch on to your evil plan (i.e. everyone) this will be a huge red flag and will steer people clear of your website.

Stuff with Keywords:

Yes, using keywords, especially long-tail keywords, is a fantastic way to guide people to your site. Search engines such as Google crawl over pages and pick out specific keywords to provide their users with more targeted results. So, when used in the right way, keywords are awesome—except when you “stuff” your content. Using a keyword repeatedly is unethical and will sound unnatural. When you use a keyword so many times that it becomes distracting, your content will lose its value. For example, I have used the words “lawyer SEO” a few times in this article because, to put it simply, that is the topic of this article. However, I’d also like to inform search engines as to what my content is about without sounding like a broken record. I’d like for the people who want to learn more about the topic to arrive here. Fair enough, right?

Copy Content/Swap Pages:

This is the really sneaky stuff. Some web developers have copied pages from websites with a high-ranking in order to boost their own. Once their ranking begins to improve, they swap out the “stolen” content for some of their own. That’s low. If you create your own content and make it engaging and valuable, people will come to your site. It’s as easy as that.

When you use only best practices when it comes to lawyer SEO, you should have no problem boosting your websites rankings. If you use unethical tactics, it is possible that you may receive some traffic at first. However, doing this will certainly harm you in the long run. It’s pretty easy for savvy internet users to distinguish the noble websites from all the scammers. Invest in a suitable internet marketing strategy and watch your page rankings soar. For more information, contact a company that specializes in lawyer SEO.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Why Instagram is Important for Your Business

One of the hottest apps of 2012, and maybe ever, is Instagram.  If you're not familiar with it, Instagram allows you to take pictures with your mobile device's camera and make it look like you took the picture with your grandmother's camera.  You can change color schemes, add filters, and give your memories a rustic, quirky feel.  This has raised an interesting question: Why would anyone want to take a high resolution, high DPI image, and make it look like an old Polaroid?

As technology advances and we eagerly anticipate the "next new thing," we sometimes forget that it's the human elements that make the difference between a successful product and an unsuccessful product.  People are flocking to Instagram, and your business should utilize its potential because of that human element.  Instagram allows us to crave technology, and it gives us creative control.  At the same time, Instagram allows us to escape to another time, a more simple time, and a better time when technology didn't run our lives.  Confused? Sure Instagram creates a bit of irony for itself, but it's not that far-fetched.  Instagram is popular for the same reason why "The Wonder Years," a TV show about life in the 1960s, was popular during its run in the 1990s.  It's nostalgia in real time, and it reminds us that today really isn't all that different from yesterday.

So what does this have to do with your business? Why is it important for a business to be on Instagram? Instagram gives you the power to be really creative with your social media marketing.  Photos are already one of the best ways to interact with potential business online.  A recent Facebook study shows that posts with photos receive 50 percent more "likes" and comments than text-only posts.  Instagram will help increase these numbers, because they will give your business a "hip" factor.  And because you can edit the picture, there's no need to worry about how professional your pictures look.  If you're in a field like real estate, where you need to have detailed photos, remember you can also post pictures without editing through Instagram and still maintain that hip factor.

The potential for your business and Instagram are as unlimited as your creativity will allow.  There are several fun ways to use Instagram to interact with customers.  You can hold contests and give away prizes for the best Instagram photo, based on how unique the photo looks.  You can post your own photos and ask your Facebook fans to come up with a more creative version of the same picture.  If you are in the business of creating memories, like a vacation-service industry, photos should already be your life-blood. The customizing Instagram allows can only benefit your business.  You will be surprised to see how your customers will interact.  There are stories online of children using Instagram to try to duplicate a picture that their mother or father took at the same vacation destination when they were kids.  Even wedding photographers are experimenting with Instagram.  Colleges use Instagram to showcase campuses.  Restaurants showcase great dishes.  Girl Scouts use it to demonstrate training sessions.  The possibilities are limitless.

The key to Instagram is to have fun with it.  If you're having fun with it, you can be assured that the people you interact with on social media will do the same.  The great aspect of Instagram is there is no clear definition of perfect.  However you use Instagram, make sure to include hashtags (#) on everything you do!  Like Twitter, Instagram utilizes hashtags as a way for people to connect.  Instagram continues to grow in popularity and so do the websites and additional apps with even more features.  There are several apps and websites you can find online that interact with Instagram, so you don't have to edit on a mobile device.  Followgram (https://followgram.me/) is probably the best web-based service, but there are dozens of others just like it.  Facebook's recent $1 billion purchase of Instagram means that it will soon be easier than ever to use the two social networking sites together.  As with anything that is a hot-current thing, staying up to date on changes is always key.

So get creative and get Instagram on your favorite Apple or Android mobile device today to start interacting and growing your business while having fun with it!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Real Estate SEO: Blog Tips

One of the biggest and best things that a real estate company can do to improve their real estate SEO is to blog. Blogging is crucial for increasing your page visits and encouraging the interaction of your internet users. Blogs provide fresh new content that is relevant to your targeted audience and is a great way to use keyword rich content that is sure to boost your real estate SEO.

Being a blogger myself, I know that it can be tough some days to think of fresh new content. Honestly, the hard part about blogging is the process of coming up with a grand new idea every day, but once you have that, the blogs come easily! Thankfully, I’m here to help you with your real estate SEO. I’ve compiled a list of potential blog topics that will increase the traffic to your site by utilizing excellent real estate SEO.

Properties:

The first is a no-brainer. Of course you will want to post about properties that are available! These will promote both the listing and the listing agent and will also encourage potential home buyers to come out and see more of the home. Post quality photos and write a detailed description of the property to entice the potential buyer. While you may be posting these listings in shorthand on other sites, it’s okay to post a more detailed description of the house on your blogs. People love seeing photos of beautiful new homes so use this to your advantage for real estate SEO.

The Market:

Keep your readers informed about how the real estate market is doing. Talk about the day-to-day market realities and the effects of local trends. Share experiences with past clients and post a story every now and again. As a realtor, you know that national statistics may not always apply the same way on a local level. Keep those potential buyers in the loop by giving them information on the market.

Community:

Share information about the community surrounding featured homes. Look at how community decisions affect the economic health of a neighborhood and how those would affect future buyers. What types of events happen in the community? Where are the best schools? How close are the best grocery stores and shopping malls?

Home designs/ Model Tours/ Before & After:

Share floor plans, different options for model homes, possible upgrades or adjustments. For new homes, post photos of the construction and before and after’s to keep potential buyers interested. Virtual tours of model homes are great too for real estate SEO.

Community Lifestyle:

When you feature particular homes, share a little bit about the community that surrounds them. Are they primarily families or singles? Retired or young professionals? Keep potential home buyers informed of what properties would be better suited to their lifestyle.

Former Home Buyers/Guest Blogging:

If you had an extremely excited and satisfied past client (and you should have several to choose from!) consider asking them if they want to be featured on a guest blog. If a family is settled and happy in their new home, share their story with the world. You could even use video to share the stories of past clients to mix up your real estate SEO.

At first, it will seem like hard work to start a blog. But build up your discipline and know that your goal is to have them be well-written, interesting, informative and visually pleasing. Once you get rolling, blogging will get easier and should be a fun experience for both you and your readers. You may not see the effect of blogging on real estate SEO at first, but once you start posting fresh content on the regular, potential home buyers will come flocking to your website. For more tips on how to boost your website’s rankings, talk to your real estate SEO experts.

Inbound Marketing Tips for Professionals: Social Media

When it comes to marketing, it’s simple: Outbound marketing is now “out” and inbound marketing is “in.” For some strange reason, some businesses are still stuck concentrating their efforts on outbound marketing when they should be focusing the majority of their efforts on the newer, hipper strategies of inbound marketing.

With outbound marketing, frustrated consumers are figuring out more and more ways to block out invasive advertising, such as screening their calls via caller ID and filtering their email with spam filters. So, instead of chasing after customers and bombarding them with requests that will ultimately be ignored, we’re now letting them find us. Inbound marketing for professionals involves a different strategy than that of, say, a large business. Follow these tips targeted specifically for the social media aspect of inbound marketing for professionals and allow your targeted audience to come to you!

1. Instigate a conversation. One of the differences between inbound and outbound marketing is that inbound marketing is not always about you! Surprisingly enough, talking about things other the then the services that you provide them can actually bring in business. Now, this doesn’t mean you should post personal photos or share a story about something completely unrelated—post industry specific news that is relevant to your ideal audience. Take out the lingo of your industry and put it into plain English for everyone to understand. Ask a question as simple as, “What do you think about that?” to encourage a conversation between you and your potential customers.
2. Your content can and should be your ad. You need to have relevant content on your webpage. This can be in the forms of a blog, photos, videos, etc. Take that content and share it with your followers via all forms of social media. Add a little blurb when posting to inform viewers what the content on your webpage is about to encourage clicks. This is a great way to connect with your followers and, if the content is valuable, your followers may share it with their own connections. Thus, free advertising.
3. Listen! Social media is a two way street. While you should be constantly creating content for the enjoyment and education of your viewers, feel free to learn a thing from them too! Especially if a customer contacts you or connects with you directly offering feedback or a review of your services, you need to listen to what people are saying. When you show your customers that you are listening to their thoughts and ideas, you are showing them that, as a professional, you are willing to accept criticism and grow from it. Inbound marketing for professionals means keeping those lines of communication wide open!
4. Show your personality. This one can be a little tricky, depending on your profession. While you should always, always keep your social media postings appropriate, smart and thoughtful, they do not always have to be 100% formal and robo. Proceed with caution (again, it depends on your industry) but you can show off your personality and unique voice when sharing on social media sites. Get out there and relate with your customers.

Using social media for inbound marketing for professionals should be an enjoyable learning experience. Take the time to analyze the effects of your efforts and figure out what works for your audience and what doesn’t. Use the tools that technology has given us to connect directly with your customers and make yourself, as a professional, more relatable and personable. When it comes to social media, the possibilities of inbound marketing tips for professionals are endless. For more advice, talk to a company that specializes in social media and inbound marketing for professionals. 

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Inbound Marketing for Attorneys: Local Search

Can you remember the last time that you lugged out the old Yellow or White pages to look up people or businesses in your area? Yeah, I can’t either. The practice of using these directories to find who or what we want has become a long lost art. Online local searches have become the most widely used method for finding services from a local business. Attorneys are quite often a local service and could benefit greatly from investing their time in setting up their local search listing on different websites. This local search strategy is a key tool for inbound marketing for attorneys.

When you combine careful local search marketing with a developed organic SEO strategy, your firm will be highly successful when attracting new viewers and potential clients. Most users will turn to search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo to find an attorney and these search engines will display mapped listings that are relevant to the keywords in addition to the organic results. Stand out from your competition and put your business at the forefront of local search by utilizing this best practice for inbound marketing for attorneys. Why should you get started on Google Places, one of the most popular local search engines? Allow me to list the ways:

1. Google Places for business is completely free. This is great for two reasons. For one, its free and we all love free things. And two, Google doesn’t accept payment to include particular listings or sites in their search results, which means all law firms or attorneys are given an equal opportunity to show up in search engines! This is great for small law firms who need a fighting chance in showing up through searches. 
2. When you are on Google, it allows other people to find, share, rate and recommend your services to their friends and people all across the web. This is especially important for attorneys because your past clients can recommend your services based on the quality of services that you had provided them.  People tend to trust the reviews of people that they know personally and so this is a significant tool for inbound marketing for attorneys.
3. Google Places will also let you respond to any of the reviews that your clients post. It is so essential that you keep an eye out on these reviews. For inbound marketing for attorneys, its always important to keep the lines of communication open. Showing both your previous and potential clients that you are willing to listen and accept criticism, shows them that, as a professional, you are constantly working to improve your services. Make sure that these responses are timely, friendly and professional. 
4. Once you are done setting up your firm’s account on Google Places, you can then decide to add photos, update your address and hours or promote your business with ads. With attorneys, adding photos can be a great way to make your firm stick out from the rest by adding a personal and relatable touch. 

When looking into strategies for inbound marketing for attorneys, setting up a local search should definitely be top priority. It will help those people in your area more easily find you when searching on various search engines. Set up your local search on Google, Bing, Yelp and Yahoo to ensure that your business has a presence on all the top search engines. If you need help, contact your local expert on inbound marketing for attorneys and they’ll get you popping up on local searches in no time.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Affordable SEO Services for Small Business

Trying to market your small business in a sea full of corporations may seem like an uphill battle at times. Unfortunately, even on the internet your small business may have a hard time staying afloat and maintaining a presence. It would be wise to invest in affordable SEO services for your small business to participate in a competitive corporate world. When it comes to marketing, the pay-off for quality SEO services is endless. If you aren’t already using affordable SEO services for small business, then it could be difficult to get your brand name and company "popping up" in search engines. If your business does not appear “above the fold,” or on the first page of search results, then there is little chance your targeted audience will ever arrive at your webpage. Affordable SEO services for small business can optimize your webpage by using several different tactics.  affordable-seo-for-small-business

One thing that any company providing quality affordable SEO services for small businesses will tell you is to create content. More specifically, they will tell you to blog. We know that not everyone is a writer, so this can seem daunting at first. But creating interesting content for small businesses can actually be pretty easy after you get started. Companies that blog have 55% more visits to their website, so brace yourself for an influx of visitors! For inspiration, here are several creative ideas to get you started.

1.     Lists. They are quite simple to write. They can be entertaining or informative and the content is easy to digest. They are also visually pleasing and will look easier to read than a huge block of text.
2.     Photos. You should always include some type of photo in your blog, but why not make the photo the main focus? If you own a restaurant, post a quality photo of a new entrée that you want your viewers to get excited about. If it’s a hot day, post a photo of a cool, tropical drink to entice people to come in. Photos humanize a business and add that personal touch that everyone is looking for.
3.     Videos. In addition to photos, videos are another great way to connect with your customers. Although making your own video would be best, you can also share videos that others have made that are relevant to your small business.
4.     How-To Guides. This could be a fun way to educate your readers while entertaining them at the same time. If you own a vineyard, a fun how-to guide on tasting wine might encourage people to come out and use what they learned!
5.     Share your story. This one is great for small businesses because the story of how your business came to be is a unique one that your audience will want to hear. It will personalize your business and your viewers can better relate to you.
6.     Guest blogging. If you know of other people in your industry who are blogging, suggest that they post a blog on your site and vice versa. This is a great way to get diverse content from a variety of viewers and is a cool way to cross-advertise.
7.     Contests. Engage your viewers even more by offering fun monthly or weekly contests. Whether it’s a photo contest or a social media contest, people will love to be engaged and involved with your business. Explain the contest rules through a blog post and promote via social media.

Once you’re got a few ideas to blog about, you’re well on your way. Creating content is the fun and creative side of SEO, but you may find that you need help with the technical side of it. Talk to a company that provides affordable SEO services for small business and they will help you optimize your content to establish your company’s presence on the web.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Keeping up with the Joneses: Mobile Marketing Agencies

A couple weeks ago I looked up from my ancient flip phone and realized that I was surrounded by people who were tapping away on their smart phones, accessing the internet, playing games, using apps and basically, doing much cooler things than my flip phone could ever dream of. It was, at best, a paper weight. And so, I bought a smart phone and a whole new world immediately opened up to me. Virtually everything that can be done on the internet can be done via your phone now. I learned quickly that falling behind in this mobile world is a huge mistake. However, like me, you can also catch up to everyone else. You simply have to tweak your marketing strategies to include mobile marketing. It may sound like hard work but there are mobile marketing agencies out there that can work with you to develop a plan for your business.

Here are some tips to get you started with your mobile marketing strategies:

1. Define your goals.

What do you want to accomplish with your mobile marketing campaign? Do you want to promote brand awareness and collect information about your customers or do you want to do only the bare minimum and create a mobile-friendly website? Clearly defining your objectives and budget will help mobile marketing agencies better customize a solution for you.

2. Decide what tactics to use.

It really depends on what type of business you have and what goals you are trying to accomplish. If you want to promote your brand, contests and sweepstakes work quite well. If you want to encourage conversations with your customers, try engaging them with polls, trivia, surveys and more. Talk with a mobile marketing agency to hone in on your objectives and strategy.

3. Use customer data correctly.

With data as the new currency in today’s business world, mobile marketing tactics are a great tool in receiving useful information about your customers.  However, you must follow the accepted privacy practices. Have you ever had your phone bombarded by junk mail?  And then, desperate to de-clutter, you frantically had to find the “unsubscribe” button on all of the unwanted email? Those “opt-in” and “opt-out” options must be available to your viewers. If you talk to mobile marketing agencies, they’ll assist you with this process.

4. Keep up to date with the latest marketing trends.

The internet is constantly changing and with many of us glued to our phones 24/7, most people are highly aware of what’s hip and what’s not  when it comes to technology. Do not be left behind. Mobile marketing agencies can lend some advice on this subject as well—it’s their job to stay ahead of the curve.

5. Know the importance of customer loyalty.

When people are happy with your business, they will be more likely to share their experience with their peers. Offer freebies that they’ll actually enjoy and give them incentives to stay subscribed to your business. Ask yourself, what can you give your customers that they will actually want or need? 

In this highly mobile, technologically advanced world, it is crucial for businesses to keep up with the Joneses. As a matter of fact, be the Joneses. Stay on top of how technology is constantly changing. Don’t fall behind like I did with my dinosaur of a phone. Get your brand out there by contacting mobile marketing agencies and coming up with a customized solution for your business today. Mobile marketing strategies will do wonders for your business— your competition should be wondering how to keep up with you! For more information, check out this blog post on how to grade your mobile marketing strategies.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

LinkedIn 101: Inbound Marketing for Realtors

Are you a realtor that is new to the social media craze? Have you set up your Facebook and Twitter accounts but have yet to figure out LinkedIn? You aren’t alone. Check out our latest webinar on LinkedIn 101 for some easy tips and expert advice for beginners straight from our business development manager, Claiborne Yarbrough.inbound-marketing-for-realtors

With inbound marketing for realtors, it is crucial to “cover all your bases,” whether you’re using blogs, podcasts, video, SEO or social media marketing. For realtors, that social media aspect involves professional networking, such as on LinkedIn. People normally go to at least one of two different places for information when they are researching a service or product: 1) The internet or 2) People they know. With LinkedIn, people can search and find you, learn about your experience and credentials, and as an added bonus, you can even work in some professional recommendations.

If you are concerned about inbound marketing for realtors, here are some of the basics that Yarbrough covered in the LinkedIn 101 webinar today.

1.     What is LinkedIn?
2.     Who is supposed to use LinkedIn?
3.     What are some best practices?
4.     What should you avoid in LinkedIn?
5.     What are some new features of LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a valuable database of professionals. It is the world’s largest professional network that allows people to share and find opportunities in the workplace. Some people may wonder why they should join multiple networks when they already have a solid foundation on another site, such as Facebook. While Facebook and Twitter and other networking sites are great for socializing, they aren’t necessarily the best tools to use when trying to make professional contacts. Hence, LinkedIn. It is a fantastic tool for inbound marketing for realtors.

By making a LinkedIn account, you will have more control over what people can find when they Google your name over the internet. For realtors, this is especially important as potential customers will be searching your name before using your services. The site allows you to share a wealth of professional information about yourself, your education, background, credentials, and more. Signing up is free and it could quite possibly be one of the best “investments” of your career as a realtor. Most of your contacts are probably already on LinkedIn and reconnecting is as easy as uploading your address book. LinkedIn helps you maintain your current business relationships and also assists you in finding new ones, creating an effective networking strategy when it comes to inbound marketing for realtors. You can find potential customers and they, in turn, can find you.

To utilize your LinkedIn profile in the best way possible, you should be fully aware of all the tools available at your disposal. Groups allow professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share information, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts and establish themselves as an industry expert. Yarbrough insists that it is more important to be active in a select few groups then to be a member of several. Establish your presence in a few relevant groups by posting interesting content often.

One best practice is to use a professional photo on your profile. Like Yarbrough states in the webinar, if you don’t have a profile photo, potential contacts will not take you seriously. Also, many people make the mistake of setting up their professional profile much like that would their social profile. While a summer vacation photo may be acceptable on your social media accounts, it is not at all a good idea to use this on your LinkedIn.  Realtors must have a photo in which they are dressed professionally. A best practice for inbound marketing for realtors is to invest in a quality headshot for your profile photo to get a good first impression among other business professionals and possible connections and customers.

If you’re feeling intimidated, set aside some time of each day to get acquainted with your LinkedIn account. Make sure that you are fully utilizing its tools as a best practice for inbound marketing for realtors. Get out there, make connections, join groups and start a professional relationship today. For a more in-depth conversation, check out Claiborne Yarbrough’s webinar here.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Share the Love: Smart Church Website Design

It is essential for churches to have an effective website in order to bring in outside members of the community. People are no longer looking in phonebooks or relying on commercials for their information anymore. When they want to find out more information on a product or service, usually the first place they go is online. Make sure that your church website design is up to par with these helpful hints.Church-website-design.

1) Select a it color scheme and stick to it.

Your website should be cohesive throughout its many pages or else you risk losing the viewer’s attention or possibly even confusing them. Try to use a color scheme that is true to your church. For example, if you want to show potential visitors that your church is casual and that you can have fun while singing praises, it is okay to use some fun colors in there. However, if your church is a more serious place of worship, neutral colors would be best. When considering colors for your church website design, don’t go overboard. Choose a palette of only a few colors to keep the design simple.

2) Give your viewers a navigation system that is easy to use.

The navigation bar can be on the top, left or right. Here you should provide tabs for different pages of your website. You should only have a few as to not overwhelm the viewer. You should have a calendar or events tab to keep your congregation up to date, as well as an “About” section and other possible tabs such as “Youth Group,” “Contacts,” or “Links.” Try and keep these to a minimum to keep your church website design simple.

3) Stay away from flash intros, moving pictures or music.

This takes away from the professionalism of your church website design. Many people are multitasking when they are on the internet and don’t want to be bombarded with loud music or have their internet slowed down by lengthy videos. If you must, make these “extras” optional and let the viewer of your website have control as to when music or video starts.

4) Make sure that your church website is easy to read and pleasing to the eye.

First, make sure there is enough contrast between the text and the background so that it can be read without squinting. Make sure the photographs or pictures are of high quality. Also, click on your links to make sure that they work and take you to the correct website. All of these factors determine how professional your church website design will come across.

5) Create content on at least one of these pages.

To keep your website coming up in search engines, it’s important to have a blog or some other type of content to keep it relevant. There are plenty of events and happenings going on, so write about them and utilize content to keep visitors coming to your website.

It is certainly a daunting task to create a new church website design. While there are some free templates available for you to use online, it would be best to have your own personal website that you can customize and change to fit the feel of your church. Not only will having a smart church web design help you attract new members, it can also keep your current congregation connected and aware of the different services and events happening on a daily basis. Need help? Contact your local web design experts and get started on your new church web design today. Check out Paveya's portfolio here to see examples of how we can help your church.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 or e-mail at grow@paveya.com and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Is Your Bank on Facebook? The Case for Banking and Social Media

Recently, Claiborne Yarbrough, Paveya’s Business Development Manager was interviewed by Secured Lender Magazine about the trend of Banking and Social Media. We thought you might find it interesting to see the potential pitfalls and synergies between financial institutions and social media.

1.  How critical is social media to a bank's marketing mix?  Why?

Leveraging internet marketing tools like social media is critical to a bank’s marketing mix. Top down communication from institution to consumer, with a bank controlling the message on its own terms is no longer possible. With social media there is more of a buzz and peer to peer communication that can make an institution vulnerable. Something that in the past could have been easy to address or contain can turn into public relations nightmare even before the institution itself realizes what is happening.

While this can seem intimidating from a traditional marketing perspective, the new paradigm for marketing, when harnessed correctly can provide the amazing benefit of knowing what is happening in your customer’s mind in real time so that your marketing strategies can be adjusted to help you communicate your competitive advantage to those who are looking to for you or to create loyalty with customers you have already have. One of the best parts of using social media in banking is that customers tend to provide advice and recommendations to other individuals about the benefits of banking with a smaller, local bank.

Community banks should especially look to harness social media to continually participate in real time in the community. Community Banks are favorably viewed because they are more likely to be involved in local grass roots efforts like charities, partnering with local businesses and providing sponsorships for community events. Social media is the perfect channel for this this type

2.  Will social media marketing be more, or less, important for banks 12 months from now?  Why?

Social media will become even more important over the next 12 months as social platforms continue to evolve and as even more of us continue to rely on social media for our consumer decisions. Consider the fact that smart phone purchases outnumbered the purchase of PCs last year. Consumers expect immediacy in their communication and their customer service. Banks need to take this very seriously and put policies and strategies into place to prevent public relations issues blossoming out of control.

On the flip side, there is a positive benefit for racing to meet this new level of marketing effort. Marketing departments will understand their customer personas more than ever before. Social media platforms are an undeniably powerful research and development resource for new products or services. Even just asking questions like “What can we do better? “can help marketing departments identify a potential product.

3.  How important is a formalized 'Do's and Don'ts' social media policy for banking employees?  Why?

A formal social media policy is a mandate for banking employees. Social media is generally about open, non-regulated information. While some of this is good for business, banks have various fiduciary compliance mandates that must be strictly monitored, especially as it relates to the privacy of its customers.  Having a strong set of guidelines for employees, especially customer service employees, will give everyone the parameters that they need to use social media effectively.

4.  Are there any other insights you'd like to add regarding the use of social media in bank marketing?

In an interesting way, banks and social media are uniquely suited to each other. Banks, especially community banks, have long been one of the institutions that are an integral part of our most important touch points in our lives from attending college, to buying our first cars and building a home, to starting a business and saving for retirement.  Similarly, many of us turned to social media platform s to recreate a sense of community that was arguably lacking in our lives. If banks can leverage social media by becoming a continuous valued member of our online community, it should be a win-win.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Real Estate Internet Marketing: How ZMOT Changed Everything

If you’ve never heard the term “ZMOT” before, chances are you could whip out your smart phone and find the definition quite easily. This is ironic, because ZMOT has to do with just that. See, “ZMOT” is a term coined by Google—an acronym—meaning “Zero Moment of Truth.” It explains why the shopping/buying process has changed and is never going back to the way it was. There is this new generation of empowered buyers; consumers who now have the resources to easily research a product, via the internet, all without ever looking up from their smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Big News:

When the National Association of Realtors and Google teamed up for a joint study, they found that 90 percent of home buyers searched online during their home buying process in the last year, and for over half of home buyers, searching the internet was the first step!  The internet is a BIG source for home buyers, and its only getting bigger: Over the past four years alone, real estate related searches grew 253 percent on Google. Wow.

So what can realtors do?

Know the Importance of Local Search

Over half of home shoppers who took an action on a real estate brand website began their research with a local term. It is important to remember that you are not trying to reach everyone. Especially with real estate internet marketing, you have to implement methods for local SEO. If you have that specific niche, not only will your level of competition be lower, it will be easier for the ideal buyer to find you.

Utilize videos!

Since home buyers are making snap judgements about your company and properties before even checking them out in person, use this to your advantage by bringing the experience to them in video form. Busy home buyers will certainly appreciate the convenience. Creating a video is easier than ever with your smartphone. Check out the trendy new app Vine for ideas.

Here are several reasons that home buyers watch real estate videos: 86% of home buyers watch videos to find out more about a specific community 70% tour the inside of a home 54% obtain general information 44% compare features across multiple companies 38% understand specific features 30% watch customer testimonials

**Keep in mind that YouTube is the top video research destination**

Know your Audience

Nearly a third of all home shoppers who take action on a real estate site are aged 25-24, followed by 21% aged 35-44. The role of age and gender in driving real estate decision making in the market is constantly changing. Don’t think for a second that older generations haven’t caught on to this internet craze— 75% of senior home buyers do go online to search for homes.

Budget Accordingly

You may think that you don’t have the budget to enhance your online presence, but, while it may be costly, it is worth it. Take a second look at your budget. Here’s an interesting fact to consider: For 95% of home buyers, television and billboard ads rarely or do not at all play a role in their research or the decision making process. Use your money where it matters most. Real estate internet marketing trends have proven, year after year, that it is crucial for realtors to have an engaging and professional presence online. Internet marketing is only becoming more significant. With so many home buyers surfing the web first, it’s essential that your real estate internet marketing techniques are top notch. New home shoppers are out there, right now, online and searching not one, not two, but three websites prior to taking action on a real estate site. Make sure that yours is the one that makes them sit up and take notice. Do you have a website that leverages ZMOT? If you need help, let a full service Internet Marketing company like Paveya help you reach your buyers and sellers.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Glenda Tells All: What a Small Business SEO Company Can Do for You!

When it comes to your business, it is impossible to look into the future and distinguish which marketing techniques will be the most beneficial and which ones are a waste of valuable company dollars. If only we had some magical crystal ball that we could gaze into and watch as our ideal marketing plan shimmered into view. Unfortunately, we don’t.  But if there was such a thing, this is how that scene would play out (work with me here):Imagine sitting across from a mysterious woman covered in colorful scarves and laden with jewelry as she gestures to you with one wizened, gnarled hand and whispers:

 “I foresee you hiring a Small Business SEO Company and only then shall you reap many benefits...”

Our fictional fortune teller (let’s call her Glenda) is correct, but let’s get real here. You have to be smart with your dough and consider hiring a small business SEO company; doing this will pay off in the long and short run. They will help get your page in front of the faces of potential customers by utilizing best practices when it comes to search engine optimization. If you’re still hesitant, let me give you a rundown of some of the things that they can help you with:

Social Media

This part of the web is constantly shifting and changing. A small business SEO company will assist you in staying on top up on the hottest trends and making sure that you’re reaching out correctly to your customers via your social media sites and your official webpage. This is great for local businesses especially because it will give you that personal touch that larger businesses can’t. You can communicate with so many people on a daily basis and it gives you the means to keep your supporters updated with super special deals, coupons, giveaways or new products with just one click! Glenda approves.

Utilizing High Quality Keywords

There are several tools out there that small business SEO companies can show you that will allow you to make the most out of your keywords. When you learn how to use your long-tail key words appropriately, a whole new world will be available to you. By using these keywords correctly, it will help search engines guide people to your site. Not just any people, but the right people the ones that you are trying so hard to reach out to—ideal buyers and potentially, future happy customers!

Creating Content for your Website

Websites that have valuable content for viewers to check out are way more likely to show up via organic searches than those with repetitive content. It’s simple. Content can come in many different forms: blogs, such as this one, are popular, although you could also try video, webinars, eBooks, white pages, etc.  It really depends on what your ideal buyer would find interesting. Fortunately, small business SEO companies can help you figure all this out. And get this: there’s this really cool thing that happens when you start creating more and more content. Each topic that you center the content around will create a whole new webpage for your website, and you don’t need old Glenda to tell you that that is a very good thing.

We all know that marketing is some serious business. Sometimes the SEO side of businesses is a bit wearisome and, if you couldn’t tell from my completely fictional creation of Glenda, it can also be a bit dull to both read and write about. This is all the more reason to let that small business SEO company help you figure out all of those boring bits so that you can get on with the fun parts. Happy marketing!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

What Panda and Penguin Could Mean for Attorney SEO

When I use the terms “Panda” and “Penguin,” try to block out all of the cute and cuddly images that come to mind. We aren’t talkin’ the adorable, cutesy kind here. We’re talkin’ the Google kind. The tough kind. Although, I suppose you could say that both kinds can be a little fuzzy. Let me break it down: “Panda” and “Penguin” are recent algorithm updates created by Google to target websites that may be over doing it on their SEO.

This is bad news for attorney SEO, right? Not quite.

In the past, attorneys’ websites have benefitted from paid links, multiple anchor texts (linking to your site excessively and without cause) and poor quality content. Before these updates, the websites that “over-optimized” in those ways would be more likely to come up first via an organic search. I know what you’re thinking: But I thought SEO was a good thing? It is—it’s just not as “black and white” as you might have thought (see what I did there?). This could very well be good news for some. See, Google is not the bad guy here—they are simply trying to eliminate those websites with content that viewers have no use for and give their top ranking spots to those deserving and trustworthy websites that are useful and pertinent to those who are searching for them.

Still, you may have to throw your old attorney SEO strategy out the window. “Bear” with me as I take you through these simple strategies:

Focus on quality over quantity.

It is not at all realistic to tell people not to optimize, as it is not yet clear the exact implications of those wild algorithms. Just make sure that you aren’t optimizing merely for the sake of optimizing— make your content count by making it both valuable and relevant. If you provide links, make sure they will be useful to the reader. Make sure that there is a variety of content. These updates are constantly working to weed out those boring, repetitive sites that continually scored those high rankings in the past (tricky, right?

Visitor interactions are crucial.

Google can now rank your site according to how valuable the content is to its users. If your content and other on-site elements grab your viewers’ interest, they will be more inclined to stick around for a while and click on a couple of those CTA’s. Of course, using analytics will certainly help you out when differentiating between which parts of your site are grabbing viewers' attention and which parts they may be glossing over.

Identify!

Make sure that your business information is the same everywhere on the web. Don’t have more than one website and, even if you don’t plan on using them (although you most definitely should), go ahead and claim your name on those Twitter and Facebook profiles. Having incorrect information on multiple websites could make it difficult for searches to distinguish your business from, say, one with a similar name in Last Chance, Idaho. Not helpful, for one, and two, it creates mistrust (and yes, Last Chance is a real place). Listing the exact same information on every page out there helps make your business easier to find in organic searches.

Still worried about your attorney SEO?

Does your website already consist of high-quality content that involves and engages your visitors? How about superior and applicable links? Is your information up to date? Is your social presence established? If so, you should be fine. Still worried? Don't be! Partner with an inbound marketing agency to help you implement these new changes and make your website the best it can be. Visitors will be flocking in soon enough. That said, I hope my puns didn’t ruffle any feathers, I'm sure they were just unbearable!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Social Media for Hotels: What the Oscars Can Teach You

Viewers of Sunday’s 85th Academy Awards generated 8.9 million Oscars-related tweets. Busy Twitter hands sent an impressive 2.1 million tweets during the red carpet and a whopping 6.8 million during the awards show.social media for hotels

Social media for hotels means that you need to do more than have a Facebook page and you should be branching out through multiple social media outlets in order to build brand loyalty. For hotels, this means at least Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google+ and Pinterest.

Here are some ideas to help you start posting:

1.     Ask for new ideas or suggestions. Customers love feeling like their voice is heard. Let them know that your business is open to feedback, whether it is positive or negative. When people answer, take this as an opportunity for dialogue. Prove to them that you are willing to improve. With social media concerning hotels, you can ask for improvements on both your product and service. Win, win.
2.     Take that feedback and use it. Often times, the people who monitor social media channels of larger businesses are not the ones who qualified to make any final decisions. Even with smaller businesses, it is still important to make sure that the feedback that you’re getting from your social network gets heard by the right ears of the company. Take those social media hotel comments and pass them on and improve upon wherever needed. Be sure to close the loop and let your various audiences know of any changes.
3.     “Speak” with a unique voice. Let’s consider the Oscars again: You can learn a lot about winning people over from my own personal idol, Jennifer Lawrence. She’s cheeky, snarky and I’ll admit, a tad abrasive. But it’s ultimately that quirky personality of hers that ends up charming the crowd. Make your online voice genuine and personal and people will respond.
4.     It’s not always about you. Constantly advertising your products or services will get old quick and your connections won’t appreciate it when they’re constantly being targeted with ads. Try posting a fun contest, polls or questions instead. With social media for hotels, you could post fun events happening in or around your location to draw guests in.
5.     Use your time wisely. Many companies slack when it comes to social media because they believe they don’t have the time or resources. You honestly don’t need a lot of time to create an effective online presence. There are many free social media communication consolidation tools out there. With some planning you can even schedule out your communication in advance. And if you need help, there are inbound marketing agencies that can help you with your social media for hotels.

Let us end on one final, Oscars-related note: Even the always-popular Adele has used social media to her advantage. She previously “advertised” her new song “Skyfall” by posting a photo of the sheet music on Twitter and then turned around and posted the song’s artwork on her Facebook page. Later, her performance of the song and its subsequent win for Best Original Song was Twitter’s second and fourth top-tweets-per-minute. Coincidence? I think not. Adele knows the importance of using multiple platforms, and “Someone Like You” could certainly learn a thing or two from it.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Tips for Proper Vacation Rental SEO

Vacation rental SEO is one of the most important aspects of vacation rental web design today. As more potential guests research properties online before booking, making sure that your vacation rental company ranks at the top of the list is key to growing a successful business in today’s competitive market. Almost eight in every 10 web search comes from Google and their recent changes reward original content. By taking necessary and proper steps in vacation rental web design your vacation rental company can ensure that your rentals are booked all year long.

One of the main negative elements that hurts vacation rental SEO is duplicate content. Many vacation rental companies share their listings with several distribution channels which can create the same content and hurt the overall vacation rental SEO. One way to fix this is to create different content for the listings on the vacation rental company’s main website. Including unique descriptions in vacation rental web design will help to limit the duplicate content and keep vacation rental SEO in tact. This may take a bit longer but the benefits you will reap by changing up the content will pay off in the long term.

Increasing your social media presence is another way to improve vacation rental SEO. Posting on Google+ is necessary for vacation rental SEO because Google is taking steps to index Google+ posts quickly. Additionally using the +1 function on Google+ is important for vacation rental SEO, as is attracting more Facebook likes and shares. It is also important to submit your business to online business directories, especially maps like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps and Bing maps. Typically map pages show up very high in search results so ensuring that your vacation rental company is indexed will help vacation rental SEO. You will also want to submit your vacation rental company to review sites such as Yelp. This way, past clients can post reviews about your services. Keep in mind that you will want to reply to both the positive and negative reviews in a proper fashion. The key for social media marketing is to understand is that participation in social media is no longer a secondary option. Social media marketing is just as important as vacation rental web design.

Knowing how potential guests are trying to find your rentals is another key in vacation rental SEO. Including proper keywords in your vacation rental web design will greatly improve vacation rental SEO. Doing some basic research through Google to find how what keywords people are using to research vacation rentals in your area will go a long way in helping improve vacation rental SEO. When using keywords to improve SEO, it would be a good idea to use more location specific keywords instead of trying to reach too broad of an area. For example, istead of trying to rank for "North Carolina Rentals," try "Duck Oceanfront rentals" or "Corolla vacation rentals." The difficulty for these keywords will be less than those of more broader terms. Incorporating keywords into your SEO campaign will require a bit of research, but once your vacation rental company is appearing on the first page of search results you will notice how the little bit of added work was worth it!

Breaking down vacation rental SEO to its most basic element is content. The better the content and the more original content that exists across a multitude of platforms will ensure high rankings on Google and other search engine sites. While vacation rental web design is always the most important step in vacation rental SEO, social media, blogs and other elements should be included in your overall marketing plan.

 
Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Rank High in Search Engines: Basics About Keyword Research

Keyword research is an essential component of search engine optimization and Internet marketing. Keywords in content should be search engine friendly, and they should help your website rank high in major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Through keyword research, your website could gain additional traffic from current and potential customers as it becomes search engine friendly.

A primary step in the keyword research process for search engine friendly content is listing phrases. You should create search engine friendly keywords that can be associated with your topic. The keywords can be single words, or they can be key phrases. For example, if you are creating content for a webpage with the topic of real estate SEO, possible phrases are SEO for real estate, real estate search engine optimization, and SEO real estate. Choose the most appropriate keywords for your content so that your content is search engine friendly. They should be related to your information, but they should not be too common. As you write your content, make sure there is a keyword density of approximately three percent per keyword to create search engine friendly content. The keyword density should not be so low that your website does not gain traffic, and it should not be so high that your content is considered as spam. For example, an article about SEO for real estate purposes would have the keyword "real estate SEO" with a keyword density of three percent. "Real estate SEO" would be used a specific number of times throughout the content so that the real estate SEO content becomes search engine friendly. Make sure you choose the appropriate real estate SEO keywords that are of high-quality and that are relevant to the information you are providing. If you follow the proper SEO rules, your content can become search engine friendly.

Another step in the process of SEO and creating keywords is checking to see if your keywords are search engine friendly. You want to make sure your website and content rank high in the search engines, so they are then search engine friendly. Your website could gain more visitors who will view your information, products, and services. Use keyword tools such as the Google Keyword Tool, Google AdWords, to create search engine friendly content. These tools will help you with the SEO process for a search engine friendly website. Google AdWords can benefit your company and your website's content to allow it to be search engine friendly. For example, if you are conducting research for real estate SEO content, type in a list of real estate SEO keywords you have created. Google will inform you about the average number of searches for keywords in your list of real estate SEO words. Google can also help you create new real estate SEO content keywords while you are conducting research on real estate SEO. By using tools such as the Google AdWords Tool for your website's topic, such as real estate SEO, you can find out if your keywords are search engine friendly.

When you are conducting keyword research, you must also analyze your competitor's keywords and content. For example, for real estate SEO content keywords, search for real estate SEO keywords you have created and observe who is currently ranked high for real estate SEO topics. After you check your competitors' listings, you may want to create more real estate SEO keywords before finishing the list of real estate SEO keywords that you will be using in your content. By using the proper keywords, such as the real estate SEO keywords, from keyword research, you can help make your content search engine friendly to help you rank high in search engines.

Paveya's team of SEO professionals are experienced with search engines and creating content that is considered search engine friendly. Our team can help your website rank high in search engines and gain more visitors. Contact Paveya today if you would like to receive help with keyword research and creating website content that is search engine friendly.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Real Estate Search Engine Optimization: Not an Option Anymore

As the real estate market starts to show signs of growth it is incredibly important that realtors who want to remain successful and grow their customer base will need to have websites that have taken advantage of cutting edge Search Engine Optimization on their website. With 95% of all home buyers and sellers starting their search on the internet, realtors can no longer put off investing in real estate search engine optimization so that they will be found.

Real Estate SEOBelow we have listed concepts and related tasks that are part of the mix of internet marketing strategies that should be applied:
 

Utilizing Content:

One essential thing to remember when optimizing SEO is to create quality content. Relevant, valuable content helps to build trust with your readers, educate and inform them and will open the doors to communication.Content can come in many different forms: web pages, a blog, calls to action, links etc. Do consider your target audience and traffic sources.

Blogs

•     A blog is like a garden; you need to tend to it every now and again. Be consistent with your posts.
•     Make sure your blog uses a long-tail keyword (see #3) in both the title and in the body.
•     Remember, blogs are a great way to present content in a way that is both creative and extremely flexible.
•     Try writing a “How-To Guide” or a “20 Reasons to ____.” Supply your reader with up to date real estate news or a video.
•     Get visual. Always add at least one relevant photo to your post to keep readers engaged.

Web pages

•     Create a separate web page for each keyword phrase or topic. This will create more relevant content for search engines to find.

Calls to Action

•     A call to action is a something that urges the viewer to take an immediate action, such as “Click Here”
•     Every website page and article should have at least one call to action before the page’s fold.
•     This should create an internal link on your website to a specific landing page.
•     If you use an image (which you should!) optimize the image file name with a long-tail keyword.

Links

•     If you mention a keyword on other pages, link to your first page using the long-tail keyword. For example, if on other blog I spoke about “Real Estate SEO” I would then use that phrase as an anchor text.

SEO & Social Media:

If your entire web presence consists only of your main webpage, you may as well be invisible to the rest of us. Spread your technological wings and get on out there. “Social Search” is the intersection of SEO and social media. Content that has a social connection to the user can actually be prioritized; content that is both relevant and trusted will be ranked first. What’s not to “like”?

For realtors it is important to make an account on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and actually use them. Accounts that are active show up on followers’ newsfeeds—just make sure not to overdo it! Keep in mind that each social channel has its own rules of frequency. Share your business information on these pages. This will drive potential customers to your main webpage.

Keywords:

To make sure your webpage is showing up when home buyers search, real estate Search Engine Optimization of keywords is essential. Search engines crawl over pages looking for relevant keywords, helping qualified prospects to discover your site.

Long-tail keywords should be the foundation of your webpage. It is important to be specific here. Try “Kitty Hawk Vacation Homes” instead of “North Carolina Real Estate.”

To find the perfect keyword follow these easy steps:

1.     Make note of what your buyer persona is.
2.     Decide if you can rank for these specific keywords (there are several websites to determine ranking. Try for a difficulty level of <50)
3.     The keyword should be included in: your page title, a headline on the page, within the URL, as an image file name, and at least once within the content.

Spending on traditional marketing sources to have a successful real estate business is no longer practical. You may want to partner with an inbound marketing agency to make sure that you are growing your business and aren’t left behind.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Lady Gaga and the Importance of Social Media in Business

She wasn’t born this way, but she has become a master at communicating and using social media channels. Although she is a pop icon, she understands the importance of social media in business. Lady Gaga currently has 32,687,155 followers on Twitter and 54,662,659 likes on Facebook. She recently started her Google+ page and within the first several days she had over 20,000 following her on this relatively new channel.importance of social media for business

If you follow Lady Gaga and her communication using social media channels, she could teach us all about the importance of social media in business and how to leverage branding, community and message. Here is a list of 5 things we can learn:

1.        It's all about community!

    Lady Gaga genuinely enjoys her fans. She calls them Little Monsters and regularly sends posts and tweets to this community specifically. Mother Monster inspires great loyalty in her fans by continually respecting what she and her fans have built as community.
    Takeaway: Continually strive to build a community of loyal consumers using respect. This will build trust and customer loyalty.

2.       Be real

   She may be the most influential pop star on the planet at this point, but you’d never know it from a tweet on December 19th that was relatable and funny. The tweet: "that awkward moment when you realzie you JUST took off last christmas' holiday weight and it is indeed now christmas AGAIN can i get an amen?" Who hasn’t felt this way?
    Takeaway: Use your own voice and be real when composing your social media communication. You may be tempted to embellish when posting or tweeting. Keeping your authentic voice will get you more influence. If you find yourself lacking inspiration, just remind yourself of the importance of social media in business!

3.        Don't make it about yourself

  Lady Gaga isn’t just about dance/pop and funky fashions. She and her mother have teamed up with Harvard, The MacArthur Foundation and The California Endowment to create the Born This Way Foundation, to lead a worldwide social movement of acceptance and anti-bullying. She recently posted about a new bus that would be available for mental health counseling in advance of her shows to take the stigma away from mental health issues, especially for teenagers.
    Takeaway: Social Media is about Branding, but that doesn’t mean that all you should do is talk about your business and products. Make sure that you use the 80/20 rule when communicating. 80% of the time, talk about things that will interest your community…events, ask questions, talk about shared interests that you have with your community. Again, this builds trust and loyalty.

4.        Leverage Partnerships to Benefit Your Community

    Recently, Lady Gaga partnered with Facebook’s Zinga to promote her new album to her Monsters. Users that visited Gagaville were able to unlock music from her upcoming album. It was a great social media campaign that benefited both partners and her community of followers.
    Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to think of the box in running campaigns that will benefit you and a partner if it will also benefit the members of your community. It improves your credibility.

5.        Remember to Say Thank You

 No matter how famous or influential you are, remember that it is important to thank the people that got you there.
    Takeaway: Social media is about you and your brand. The way you interact as a business should carry all of the same social etiquette that you would use in your personal interactions.

Keep in mind these simple concepts to continue to build your brand and community using social media. Lady Gaga isn’t the only one you can look to understand more about the power of social media. Check out these blogs for more information:

Video: Why It’s Important to Follow Twitter Users Who Follow You

Video: How to create a Facebook campaign

Podcast: Using Social Media for Customer Service as a Small Business

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Hotel Internet: Content Management Gets Your Ideal Guest

Your ideal guest is probably looking for you on the internet right now. Google reports that over 70% of travelers spend time on the internet searching and dreaming online while they do their travel research. More than 37% of them booked their travel online as a result of that research. So if you aren’t online, or you are online but not optimized for an internet search, your ideal guests are not finding you.

Hotel internet marketing

Why is content so important to your hotel? It all about the search engine that is part of your ideal guest’s time on the Internet. Most of your guests are using Google, Yahoo or Bing to do most of their travel planning. Where your hotel ends up or the position of your website on a search engine response page has a direct result to the amount of internet traffic you will receive… most likely your ideal guest is not going to consider your website if it doesn’t appear on the first page of a search. Getting on the first page is up to each search engine but with Google in the lead they have all placed much more relevance on the amount of content that is hosted on your site and their ability to assimilate that information through a well-constructed web design.

Your hotel internet marketing strategy should be focused on generating content. How can you create relevant and engaging content for  your hotel website? A blog is a great place to start. Each new blog that you write will create a new page for your hotel's website. Having numerous pages gives your website a better chance in ranking on search engines. You should write for your blog as often as you can and keep up with a schedule. Perhaps you could say that you'll post once every week, on a Monday, or twice every week on Tuesday and Thursday. Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you are concentrating on quality over quantity.

For content ideas for  your hotel internet marketing, consider writing about current events that are happening in or around the location of your hotel. Encourage visitors to the area by writing about different restaurants, museums, or activities that are unique to your area. Your content should be keyword focused and should be interesting enough to attract traffic to your hotel's website.

Hotel internet marketing is reliant on a strong hotel content management system. A custom web design for hotels that allows you to make changes 24/7, to the content of your website, including specials, local events or updated photos that will convert that traveler from looking to booking. The content management system is the heart of the hotel internet marketing solution it allows you to have a centralized place to manage and leverage all of your hotel’s internet marketing essential content, like special offers that need to be shared through a variety of channel including social media. This simplifies what could be a very complex job for you and your staff… a one stop shop for communicating with your potential guests.The benefit of proper SEO for hotels is that you are able to reach your ideal guest. Google notes in its 5 Stages of Travel, SEO captures your ideal guest when they are planning and booking. This means that if your guest is looking for a hotel in Greenville, NC because of an important college football game, you want to be right there, with your location and your related events, front and center so your guest will book with you and not the other guys.

Don’t miss your ideal customer, the one that’s been dreaming of vacationing with you. Help them achieve their dream while you achieve occupancy and revenue.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

YouTube for Small Businesses

YouTube is a way to share your company’s activity with consumers by posting videos and information on the Internet. Small businesses can use YouTube in a variety of ways. YouTube is an effective platform, as more than 800 million unique visitors access YouTube on a monthly basis. You may want to consider using YouTube for small businesses as a way to connect to your consumers. Follow these steps to start and maintain your company’s YouTube channel.youtube for small businesses.

Creating your channel

To create an account for your company’s channel, visit YouTube.com. As you start to form your account, it is best to make your username the name of your business. You should personalize your channel and add a description. For example, you can add links to your company’s website and customize the logos and colors that are displayed.

Post informational videos

Your company’s videos should provide helpful information to your customers. Many YouTube videos are viewed for instructional purposes. Provide your customers with content that will satisfy their needs. The videos should attract their attention and supply them with the information that they need. Videos may focus on your brand as a whole, or they can focus on one product that will help customers. You could demonstrate how to use the product and the benefits that are provided. Add a description to your video, and keep it clear and concise. To help keep your videos professional, consider using microphones and focus on the audio and lighting qualities. Add subtitles to your videos. In addition, keep your content well-organized. You can create playlists to organize related videos.

Optimize your videos

To help others discover your videos, your videos should be optimized. Insert significant keywords in the titles as well as in the tags. YouTube uses tags to organize the website’s content. The tag word system is used as people search for content. Also, the video’s thumbnail should show the main focus of the video. In addition, encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel. If viewers subscribe to your company’s channel, your videos will be prominently displayed to them. They will see comments you make on others’ videos, so it is beneficial to remain active on the website by frequently posting videos and comments.

Sharing videos

Your YouTube video can be shared on other websites. To share the video, add your video to your company’s Facebook page, tweet a link to your video on company’s Twitter, talk about it in your company’s blog, put in on our company’s website, add it to your company’s Pinterest account, etc. It is always a good idea to intertwine your social media networks, so be sure to post your video on as many different social networks as your can, and try and change up the way you post the video. In YouTube’s account settings, you can select to automatically upload your video to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Following YouTube Analytics

YouTube Analytics allows your company to access metrics about your content that is shared on the website. This information includes how many views and comments that your videos have received and demographics.

YouTube for small businesses is a great way to encourage more traffic to your website. People are very visual creatures and videos provide interesting content for them to see, comment on and share with their own networks. While photos and images are a great way to add visually pleasing content to your website, adding videos on YouTube is a more unique way to engage your readers via a different type of media. Get creative and have fun with it! Any industry can benefit by utilizing YouTube for small businesses.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Social Media for Hotels-- Where to Start

Hotels that leverage social media channels are using social media as way of communication and interaction. As a result, these hotels tend to have more bookings because they are leverage the power of social media to build loyalty and to promote their brand.

Hotels that use social media can see great return on their investment not only with loyalty and branding, but also though influencing the booking behaviors of customers especially as the internet is becoming more localized and reliant on social media for its relevancy.

Social media for hotels does take some time and there are many channels out there. Here is our recommendation of the social media channels that you must communicate through at minimum:

Facebook

This is the leading social media platform. Use Facebook to continually have a dialog with your leads and customers about the hotel, what customers have said about your hotel and post lots of relevant images. For example, does your hotel allow dog guests? If so, make sure that you photograph your canine friends and say something about them.

Google+

This relatively new platform is quickly becoming a dominant player. Whatever that is posted to Google+ is indexed seconds, adding to the localized relevancy of the site. Make sure that whatever event is going on in the local community is posted on your Google+ hotel account. Then, when a last minute booking lead is searching for a hotel, your localized content will often create a booking.

Pinterest

Pintrest can be time consuming but it can have the most impact as a visual social channel. Consider the demographic that is your most valuable booking. Is it the busy Mom who is looking for a getaway, spa-weekend package? If so, you should definitely promote relevant, soothing images on Pintrest.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is used primarily by  professional who are networking. If your hotel is booked mainly by business people, you may want to create a company LinkedIn page for your hotel and follow the relevant groups for businesses where you get most of your bookings. For example, if you are serving military contractors, you may wish to join a group so you can follow topics that are being discussed by that group. You can never know too much about your customers.

Foursquare

Foursquare asks mobile users to check in to your hotel or business. Frequent check ins at your hotel can earn badges, rewards and points. Since their friends may see the check ins on their friends social media (like Facebook) this can become an organic referral for you.

hotel social mediaFinally, there is no shame in asking your customers to share using their social media channels or yours about your hotel. Be polite and ask your frequent visitors to promote your hotel and say what they like about your hotel. You may want to reward and reinforce social sharing by running a contest (free night, dinner in the restaurant, etc.) or by offering them a discount.

If in the past you’ve thought that social media for hotels was not worth the effort, consider that all of the major search engines are starting to use the content that is already in various search engine channels (Twitter, Facebook, Google+) to decide the relevancy of a website. As we move into 2013, we will continually see ranking and social media become intertwined.  If it all seems too much, look for help. There are lots of professional, inbound marketing firms that can help you approach social media to help you grow your business.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Innovative Church Website Design- A Friend to All

No matter the size of your church, the positive effects of creative church website design trickles down to many. WordPress is a method of managing content online.  While state-of-the-art, this user-friendly platform provides even those without substantial training to edit sites whenever the mood strikes.  Custom designs, photos, tools, multiple pages and more can be integrated to such sites.  All of these features provide information to both church family members as well as those looking for new houses of worship.  Include call to action language encouraging users to register, contact and attend to increase membership.  Set your church apart by serving the needs of your current and future members, putting your organization in a whole new light.  

One of the main reasons for creating a church website is to give back to loyal members.  Even when they’re not in the sanctuary, faithful churchgoers can stay connected with a one-stop resource website.  Members can dive into ministries they may have heard about during services.  They can sign up for classes and programs to deepen their spiritual relationships.  Post what’s new in the church or with those in the church family through blogs, videos, photo galleries and news pages.  Devote a page to a specific project so members can follow the status of any new building under construction.  Alert the congregation about volunteer opportunities so interested parties can sign up online.  Even tithing can be done through a church website.

A church can never have too many active members; a WordPress website is an optimal vehicle to get your take on the Good Book out into the world.  Visitors can read about your history, founding principles and beliefs.  They can learn about your vision, goals and mission.  They can also read profiles that describe the pastoral staff to find out what they bring to the table.  Calendars show what services take place, when to bring the kids and where to meet.  The call to action technique can be particularly effective for future members; they are asked to join in, check out activities and told how to become a part of this church family.

 

Your congregation will appreciate being able to get all the information they need through a convenient website. Not only that, but potential visitors will be able to search for your church on the internet and research your church and its services to better decide if the church is a good fit for them. A well-designed church website provides your congregation and potential visitors with virtually all of the information that they will need about your church. The information is easy to update with WordPress, and the content should all be timely and up to date for your readers. When you add social media buttons on your website, you can also encourage interaction between members and potential visitors. Try and start conversations via your website as well as on the blog, as well as on social media to engage and pique the interest of visitors and potential members alike.

The beauty of having a low-maintenance website is that it is a cost-effective way for churches to promote themselves.  Instead of having to continually hire pricey Web professionals, most maintenance can be done in-house.  The ease of WordPress allows personnel and/or volunteers to update the church website as often as they choose, keeping everyone up to speed with the latest happenings.  Post blog entries, press releases, mission details, event announcements, relevant articles and tips for living with grace.  Don’t leave anyone in the dark!  Be the bright shining light with an inspired church website design, and invite others to worship with you.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

What is E-Commerce Web Design?

Over the past few years, companies of all industries have turned to e-commerce web design strategies and best practices to create new purchasing options for customers while expanding into alternative markets. The recent economic downturn may have halted efforts to open physical storefronts in various regions, but it has not hindered the rapid adoption of online stores and ecommerce internet marketing strategies by businesses of varying sizes. But what is eCommerce?
Paveya makes ecommerce easy!

As small business owners or marketing managers are not typically well-versed in the best of breed architectural requirement to create a successful e-commerce website design, most companies opt to work with professional digital service providers. While third party experts have the skills and experience to lead an e-commerce web design project, it is still important for business owners to understand the essential components to an online store and digital payment gateway so they are as comfortable with online business transactions as they would be with in-store activities.

Focus on Feel

Business owners working with e-commerce website design professionals should relay not only what the company offers to consumers, but who the target audience is. E-commerce website design strategies must take into account the characteristics of an ideal shopper to appeal to certain online purchasing behaviors, as well as create a strong image for the company on the internet. If the e-commerce web design comes off as professional and sophisticated, creating an easy and enjoyable experience for the shopper, consumers are more likely to make repeat purchases with the company in the future.
Once the basic feel of the e-commerce website design has been translated to third party providers, business owners or marketing teams can start discussing what type of layout and templates should be used throughout all the pages. It is important for e-commerce web design projects to create a consistent experience throughout the stages of an online purchase for the customer. The templates selected by the business should not vary from page to page too much, or else the shopper may get confused and potentially abandon a shopping cart.

Keep your search bar in plain view for customers who want to easily be able to find a specific product. Most people come to an ecommerce website with a product already in mind. Don’t keep them searching through pages and pages of content when they know what they want! Also, make sure that when customers are browsing, let them define and re-define their options to keep their search customized to them. If certain products are out of stock, keep your customer in the know! Nothing is worse than having a customer order a product, only to find that it is out of stock. You will be dealing with an angry customer when you have to contact them with the bad news.

When customers come to your site, they do not want to wait forever for pages with a large amount of heavy content to load. Your pages should be quick to load and simple for buyers to read. Keep them engaged!

For a good quality web design you will want to use only the best quality photos! Shopping on the internet is extremely convenient for shoppers, but this loses its appeal when they cannot distinguish what a certain product looks like. Keep your web design professional and high quality.

Consistent templates also allow for easy navigation between pages to enhance the customer experience and satisfaction level. As ecommerce transactions are designed to offer optimal convenience for the customer, it is only natural that the navigation tools be simple and comprehensive as well for an effortless and fluid process from start to finish.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Advice goes Nationwide-- Inbound Marketing Tips for Small Business

Recently, our very own Claiborne Yarbrough was interviewed on ResourceNation.com. In this informative Q&A, Yarbrough, who is the business development manager for the Paveya team, doles out expert advice on how to perfect your internet marketing as a business. Here at Paveya, an inbound marketing agency for small business, we promote these same fine-tuned methods among ourselves and our clients. We use them because they work. Yarbrough, one of the Paveya masterminds, has implemented her own tips when helping our clients. Read on to see how we have helped some of our own clients using some of Yarbrough's best tips.

When ResourceNation.com asked about best practices for small business internet marketing, Yarbrough answered: “Build a strong foundation for continued growth by working with a professional marketing agency that will understand your goals for your business — that tells you how to construct the website.”

The inbound marketing for small business professionals at Paveya kept this in mind when working with Crew Cutters.  The professional landscaping and lawn care service based in the Outer Banks wanted to differentiate themselves from other landscaping companies in a competitive vacation rental market. To do this they had to analyze their previous website to decide if it was working as best as possible for their ideal customers. Then, with a professionally designed logo and clean website design their internet marketing stage was set.

Yarbrough also notes that including a blog and being realistic are two best practices when building an effective website for small business. We took this top notch advice when mapping out a plan for Crew Cutters. After applying ongoing SEO and blogs and videos, they have since enjoyed top search engine ranking in their market. This has increased their leads and customers, including lucrative government contracts.

Another Paveya client, Buy Local Currituck, has followed best practices when blogging. According to Yarbrough, “You must write the blog. If you are passionate to start a small business then you have a great story that makes you different from everyone else.” Currituck County knows that it’s important to continually bring focus to their Buy Local Initiative. A key element of this is a blog with updated content about their local merchants, the latest on contests that reward local spending and other key information. They also realize that over time the blog’s content will be a resource for both local residents and the thousands of visitors that pass through the county each year.

Kelly’s Restaurant and Tavern took our business developer’s advice on social networking: “Make sure you leverage your social channels to drive leads and traffic to your website.” A beloved dining and nightclub institution on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for 28 years, Kelly’s wanted to make sure that ongoing branding and community building was on their social media menu. With additional channels added (Pinterest for food and recipes is a must), Kelly’s has started to have fun with contests that drive ongoing engagement and referrals. It all adds up to a great business practice.

From the success of our clients, you can see that the professionals here at Paveya practice what they preach. We are an inbound marketing agency for small business with long standing experience in real estate, vacation rentals, hospitality, financial services and retail businesses. Our professionals help businesses implement best practices when it comes to inbound marketing for small business. For more advice from our business development manager, Claiborne Yarbrough, check out her interview on ResourceNation.com here.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Optimize Website for Mobile

The world of business is quickly going mobile, and that means you have to consider making the switch as well. However, converting your retail website to be accessible on mobile devices can seem a daunting task. However, with the right tools, you can easily make your site mobile-friendly, increasing your exposure to customers and potential for increased sales.

How to optimize website for mobile?

Site Plugins

While there are a variety of mobile options now available to you, simply adding plugins to your existing site is the easiest and cheapest way to out your site on the mobile device radar.

Mobilize by Mippin and other “app factories” can quickly and easily convert your site to a mobile app.  Follow step-by-step instructions to convert your site without the use of code or other programming languages.

Additional add-ons can add flair to your mobile site. For example, apps that utilize near field communications (NFC) technology enable customers to make purchases on the go.

Whatever option you choose, make sure that your mobile site displays your products in an organized, easy-to-understand way. Catalog form is a popular format that simplifies browsing for potential customers.

Site Conversion Tools

Downloadable tools give you a wider range of options for converting your site to mobile format. These tools often come with a small monthly fee to maintain the mobile site.

If you’re looking for an option that requires minimal effort on your part, you can use downloadable tools like bMobilized to convert your retail site to a mobile-accessible format.

For a larger, retail-heavy site, look into creating a brand new domain name for your mobile site and with resources that help you convert your online website – which may contain thousands of pages and links - into mobile format.

Remember: the faster your site loads, the more likely mobile users will stay on page to access it. Avoid adding unnecessary object and java script which can delay load times and interfere with call reception.
Outsourcing

Sometimes the best option for creating a mobile site is to outsource it to a company that specializes in mobile web design. These services can vary in cost, but can guarantee a professional mobile site tailored to your exact specifications and needs.

Make sure the company you’re working with has experience in designing sites specifically for product-heavy retail. These companies will know how to optimize your site to ensure fast load times, increased traffic, and successful sales.

Always check references and testimonials before choosing a company. View and explore other mobile sites that they have developed. Make sure that the services they offer are on par with your current business needs and goals.

No matter what kind of mobile option you choose, be sure to set up your mobile site with analytics software to help you track traffic and purchases and further optimize your site for mobile online marketing. Choose the option that best suits your company’s budget, time constraints, and online needs in order to best take advantage of the markets opened up through a mobile-ready site.

Megan Webb-Morgan is a web content writer for Resource Nation. She writes about small business, focusing on topics such as web design. Find Resource Nation on Facebook, too!

Mobile marketing strategies are constantly evolving. Because the mobile market is relatively new, businesses are struggling to stay up to date with the latest technologies. Mobile marketing is so important because over half of cell phone users own a smart phone in this day and age. Need some help on how to optimize website for mobile?

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Paveya Provides Internet Marketing Services

Internet marketing services are important forms of advertising. Internet marketing services include web design, social media management, and search engine optimization strategies. The proper Internet marketing strategies can help your company and its website in ways such as gaining traffic and promoting the company. Paveya provides a variety of Internet marketing services, and our Internet marketing experts are prepared to help your business with web design, social media management, SEO, search engine marketing, and other forms of Internet marketing services.

Paveya provides many internet marketingservices for your company's inbound marketing needs, including web design and development. Paveya's web design experts can help your company with a new or updated website and web design. We will help you create goals for your website and web design, and we will help you meet those website and web design goals. The web design will be customized for your business and for your company's web design goals, and the web design will be effective. Our team of experts will create a professional website and high-quality web design. Our web design strategies will help you with developing and promoting your business. Web design is an important factor of website strategies, and our experts will make sure your web design is effective for you and your consumers. Paveya's web design strategies will benefit your website and company goals. We want to help your company have a successful web design and website.

SEO is important for gaining traffic, and SEO helps your company's online presence. SEO is a common strategy for websites, and Paveya provides a SEO service. SEO can benefit your company's presence on the Internet. SEO can make your website more successful, and SEO can improve your ranking in major search engines. Our team of experienced SEO experts can help your website gain traffic and have a better conversion rate through SEO. Our SEO specialists can assist you with SEO content factors including keyword density, keyword research, the proper creation of HTML page titles and meta tags, and the names of links. Our SEO professionals will make sure your website has the proper characteristics to let it rank high in the search engines through SEO. SEO and SEM are both significant for Internet marketing and for gaining traffic to your website, and Paveya can provide your company with SEO and SEM services.

Social media management is also important for your company's online presence. Social media management allows you to effectively communicate with customers. Our team of social media management specialists can also help your company with social media strategies and social media management. Social media management and social networks are significant sources of marketing for your company. Social media management is a significant part of developing a social media presence. From Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to Pinterest, LinkedIn, and blogs, Paveya can help your company with social media management. A social media presence and social media management will be beneficial to your company and your advertising. Our team of social media and social media management experts can create social media accounts and help you with the social media management of your networks. While you have a social media presence, you can help your company grow, and you can promote your brand to current and potential customers through social media management. Social media presence and social media management are key components of Internet marketing, and Paveya's social media management specialists can help your company with social media networks and social media management.

Other internet marketing services that Paveya provides include personalized URLs and pay-per-click advertising. Personalized URLs can add customization to your website for individual visitors. The experience of viewing your website will be customized and improved. Paveya can help your company with pay-per-click advertising strategies to increase website traffic and to develop your company. In addition to web design, SEO, and social media management services, personalized URLs and pay-per-click advertising are types of internet marketing services that will benefit and promote your company.

Paveya provides excellent strategies for services like web design, SEO, and social media management. Our experienced professionals will produce high-quality methods for your company and its Internet marketing. Our experts can provide your company with excellent web design, SEO, and social media management services. Contact Paveya today if you would like to receive help with our professional Internet marketing services such as web design, SEO, and social media management services.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How to Avoid Real Estate Internet Marketing Disasters

Good real estate website design can give agents credibility online. Using a professional real estate website design company like Paveya can go far in showing potential home buyers what you have to offer. Good real estate website design will give these potential buyers the resources they need to make an informed decision about your homes and services before they contact you, saving them time. However one small misstep in your real estate internet marketing plan can completely erase any good will brought on by professional real estate website design.

real estate internet marketingPreparing a real estate internet marketing plan that includes dealing with disasters will go far in helping you build credibility among potential home buyers.

Don’t Manage Your Professional and Personal Social Media on the Same Browser

When you hear about a company that sends a partisan political Tweet, or posts a less-than-professional picture, it is probably because someone intended those Tweets or posts for their personal pages and accidentally posted on the company’s social media page instead.

How to Deal with Unhappy Client Reviews

A good rule for real estate internet marketing is to keep your personal separate from your professional. One easy way to avoid this is to only have your personal social media pages on a browser separate from the one you use for your professional pages. This will force you to look at what you are posting. Real estate internet marketing plans should always avoid upsetting a potential home-buyer. While the policies and decisions of some governmental officials could impact your sales, it is never a good idea to talk about it professionally. Even if you know you are right, a potential home buyer can become turned off if they don’t see things your way. If you are struggling to manage your real estate internet marketing, the professionals at Paveya can develop a real estate web design package that will help you avoid these potential mistakes.

Review websites can be real estate internet marketing gold or disaster if not constantly monitored. Understanding what to do when an unhappy client posts something bad about your services is key. First, take ownership of your review sites. Gaining access to real estate internet marketing sites like Yelp, Zillow, or other sites that allow reviews is simple and will help you monitor what people are saying about you. Simple real estate website design tools can even allow you to embed the reviews on your website.

Second approach a negative review like an opportunity. Simply deleting negative reviews is not a good real estate internet marketing strategy because people researching your services online don’t expect to see a perfect rating. In fact, a perfect rating will make you look suspicious. Instead respond to a negative comment with diplomacy and use it as a chance to show others how you are able to deal with problems. This will give your real estate internet marketing strategy credibility and show potential clients you know how to keep your cool in stressful situations. It’s also important to remember to use these same strategies for private messages someone may send. Never assume anything on the internet is private.

Answer All Questions & Inquiries

While we’re at it, it’s important to note that all questions and comments posted on social media sites should be answered by you. Real estate internet marketing plans need to include customer service elements. More and more people are using Twitter and other social media sites for customer service and it is your job to answer potential home buyers’ questions and concerns. Spending a few moments interacting with people on social media sites will help your internet marketing plan by making you and your services appear approachable. You will also stand out because most other agents ignore this crucial step. If you are “too busy” for potential home buyers, utilizing real estate internet marketing services provided by Paveya can save you time and allow you to make new connections.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Getting the Most from Social Media for Real Estate

The economic crunch has pushed many real estate agents into learning new ways to survive, and one of the best is doing smart social media real estate marketing on the internet. To augment those face-to-face skills that are so essential to any real estate agent, many have learned to add on some internet marketing skills to their repertoire.

But it isn't enough to just slap a Facebook page up and open a Twitter account, there is a certain savvy needed to navigate these internet marketing waters. Here are a few tips for anyone in real estate considering dipping their toes in the social media for real estate stream.

The Basics - Buying and Selling

This is one of the earliest internet marketing options that opened up the field for many. When it comes to social media for real estate there plenty of industry internet marketing sites such as Zillow, Trulia and WellcomeMat along with the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Of course, places like CraigsList have pretty much replaced newspapers when it comes to local listings and YouTube has become the place for any kind of videos. Another internet marketing site that is becoming popular for real estate professionals is Meetup, an online organizer for meeting others locally in person. When it comes to this social media for real estate, pros will find everything from investment clubs to teaching locals how to get into the real estate market, plus of course a wealth of internet marketing networking for real estate professionals can be found at Meetup. Of course, your goal is to attract buyers looking for homes and sellers needing to list.

Being available through your Facebook page, with links to Twitter listings of recent homes and YouTube walk-throughs can make you more visible. Using internet marketing and their social network, real estate companies have been so successful with Twitter that they have had to create secondary accounts for just their new listings on Twitter, in addition to their regular Twitter account for local real estate and industry news.  Adding internet marketing accounts at sites like Foursquare that pinpoints local offerings such as business or homes for sale and Pinterest to show off style can give you more eyeballs in more locations. When planning your social media, real estate pros need to remember that each internet marketing site has its own demographics, so the more diverse a group you are in the better.

The Video Revolution

Now that we have introduced interactive social media for real estate, pros know that using internet marketing video to show off their listings is the key to higher sales. Those agents who take the time to do a professional video, with a walk through and discussion of features find they are getting multiple bids as opposed to seeing good properties languish.

WellcomeMat is the leading internet marketing site for this, with a vast community of agents and other real estate professionals along with brokerages and filmmakers contributing to the site. Don't have an internet marketing production team for your video listings? No problem, because they have over 3,000 production teams in local areas ready to go.

Balance Sales with Information

The key to all these internet marketing opportunities is balance. Blog posts and Facebook pages filled with listings that say Buy Me are not in your best interest. The golden rule of any social media for real estate is to include is one post out of four can be about selling; the rest should be good interesting information that your visitors want to see. Promote your expertise, show off what you know about your area, educate them with interesting statistics.

You know more than you are aware of, share it with your visitors and the internet marketing listings will be more accepted. Include links to your IDX page for those who are looking for listings. Not everyone needs to see the latest and greatest that just came into your hands. And don't forget to check out the Trulia Voices and Zillow Advice pages to answer home buyer's questions. Internet marketing through honest forum communication is one of the best ways to build a strong reputation and create trust. And we know that trust is one of the most important commodities a real estate professional can trade in today.

 
Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Why a Small Business Needs an Affordable Web Design

In tough economic times affordable web design can be difficult to find for small businesses. Paveya understands the needs of small business owners with tight budgets and we can help with our small business web design special! For only $999 Paveya can create use our small business web design skills to create a website for a small business in a week! Including a website in your business plan is essential for survival for any small business and offers small business the chance to expand to a new demographic.

Small business web design

A smart and sleek website design is so important for virtually any business belonging to any industry. Customers and clients often begin their research of a company online before buying their products and services. When customers come to your website, you want them to be impressed by your professional web design.

Often, businesses lose customers before they’ve even left the house. If a buyer comes to your website and quickly becomes frustrated with text that is hard to read, information that is clearly not up to date, or large images that take forever to load, they may simply begin their search elsewhere. You can still find an affordable web design within your budget that will promote your business in a quality way. You want to invest in a web design that is clean and simple, as well as professional and visually pleasing. When your customers come to your website to find contact information, photos or reviews, you want them to be impressed by your design, not frustrated. The importance of a sleek web design is even more important with more and more people (over half of cell phone uses) owning smart phones. Impress your potential customers, don’t drive them away!

Small business web design offered by Paveya allows small businesses to have an online presence. A popular term emerging out of consumer studies is ROBO, short for people who “research online before buying offline.” Almost 90% of potential consumers research a product or service before making a purchase (either online or in store). Using a professional affordable web design service like Paveya allows a small business to be able to be found by people who are doing research about a product or service online before making a purchase. In 2012 it is simply impossible to have a successful business of any size if you are invisible online. Using affordable web design and SEO services will keep a small business competing.

Using professional small business web design services like Paveya to set up your website allows a small business to thrive because it takes care of the two major concerns for business: time and budget. Most small business owners do not have the time to invest in a brand new custom website, nor do they have the resources to hire someone to manage the kind of professional website needed to give their product or service a competitive edge. That is why Paveya is offering affordable web design for small business owners looking to save time and money.

Paveya Offers Affordable Web Design for Small Business

The experts at Paveya know small business web design and what it takes to make sure potential customers can find all they need to know about a business’ product or service.

Paveya is dedicated to provide affordable web design and we can work within your budget. If our $999 yearly fee is too steep for small business web design Paveya also offers a monthly payment option. Paveya is proud to do whatever we can to offer affordable web design to small businesses. Visit our website for terms and conditions and to fill out our questionnaire and we will start immediate on your small business web design so you can take your business to the next level!

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

How Social Media Can Grow Your Business

If you have a business chances are you have been struggling with the idea of just how social media can grow your business. Although the buzz right now is using the various platforms to reach out and connect with your client base, for most of us the very concept of moving beyond the daily work of our business is mind-boggling.

The choices of what to use and how to use social media can be overwhelming and so we usually end up just not doing anything at all. Even if you plan to have someone else do the heavy lifting of daily updates, the idea of making a choice can be the big stumbling block. But it doesn't have to be. Here are some examples from other business of how to use social media to expand your reach and grow even in a slow economy.

Interaction is Crucial

Many small businesses think that if they have a Facebook page they have mastered how to use social media, but it needs to go beyond this. A good example is Smashburger, a small regional chain that began with three locations in Denver back in 2007 and grew its clientele until today it has 150 outlets across the nation. They decided on how to use social media networks to grow by building their presence on Facebook with coupons and contests.

These are great, especially when they are user-generated concepts. They added Twitter to the mix and their Facebook page grew to 67,000 followers. They also did an on-going reach-out campaign to food bloggers inviting them to guest on their sites when they opened up new outlets in their area. This is a great example of using multiple platforms of social media networks to gain traction for increasing your sales.

Set Goals and Stick to Them

Another example of how to use social media successfully is by setting goals when you make the decision to add social media networks to your marketing campaign. It can be as simple as saying you are going to try to increase sales by 15% through a coupon campaign and give-away contest. A good example of how to use social media networks is inviting your customer's to sell your product to others by having them contribute to the Facebook page.

Brian Henry and his wife make and sell a specialty cheese spread. When they started off, they simply showed the cheese on the site and although sales were okay, it wasn't really catching on the way they wanted it to. They decided to really up the ante and gave themselves two years to build a community around their product. They began posting customer recipes, giving away T-shirts, running cheese trivia contests and created an area on their Facebook page to answer questions about buying, storing and serving cheese. This is when their site began to catch fire. Sales went from a little over 500,000 in 2009 when they stated their campaign to 2.1 million in 2011. The key is they had built a community that loved cheese and wanted to share their stories about it, and they did it within their deadline.

Social Media Networks Include Blogs

For many business owners, blogs are the forgotten part of the social media network and yet blogs are an essential ingredient in that marketing plan. But a haphazard blog can often do more harm than good. Just as you should have a goal in mind with your Facebook page, decide how to use social media with what you want for your blog. This is the perfect vehicle to really reach out and gain the trust of your site visitors, but to do it you have to earn it.

Don't always talk about business on your blog, add some personal touches. Are you a real estate agent who loves to garden? Talk about this in your blog. Remember that only one out of four posts should even be about selling or your business product directly. The others are information of value to your visitors, personal stories to connect and tidbits or helpful hints that are related to your business.

Restaurants post recipes, but if you are an Italian Restaurant and your family is from Italy, why not share that with your site visitors? Use a blog to connect to your potential customers, and post as often as possible. Post every day if you can, this gives them a reason to keep coming back. And repost those posts on Facebook and Twitter.

As you can see this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to finding out how to use social media to build your business. The basic building blocks continue to be your business blog, Facebook and Twitter, but don't leave out Pinterest if you have a business that will focuses on the visual such as a real estate agent, dress store or a home decorator. There are social media networks that follow niches such as Zillow and ActiveRain for real estate or how about a site like GirlSense about fashion if you have a women's retail store? Get creative, there are so many ways to reach out to a potential client out there on the web. Be brave, and they will find you.

 
Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

A Guide to Understanding Social Media for Small Business

For anyone who has a business, the struggle has become how to stay current with all the new ways to reach out to your potential audience. Unless you live under a rock, by now you have heard the phrase "social media" and know it includes such things as Facebook and Twitter. The challenge is to understand how to get the most out of social media for small business.

The Basics

Social media builds communities of people who engage in conversations with you about your business. It is these conversations that make loyal customers. That is why anything you do in social media for small business requires a commitment to keep that conversation going. Let's say your customers go on Facebook to ask how to add a door hinge that they bought at your hardware store. Why not make a YouTube video that shows how to do this and post it on Facebook and let them know about it on Twitter? One of the keys to social media for small business is integration, meaning, you have to be able to post content through a variety of social platforms and link to it from other social networks. If you're thinking you don't understand social media, think again. You make a connection every time you help a client at your business. Social media is just an online extension of that. Using social media can be a fun and rewarding way to interact with potential customers.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Once you have made the move to get your company some visibility by setting up a few accounts for social media for small business, the next thing you need to consider is your social media marketing strategies. Start by making sure that your off-line promotions name your social media sites, including any specials you are offering through them. As we saw earlier, social media helps to build communities, and these communities build brand awareness. When figuring out which social media sites will benefit your industry the most, it all depends on how you will utilize them. Are you going to be mostly posting copy, photos or video for your users? You should be using as many as possible, but do experiment with different networks and analyze their benefits before you decide to concentrate on a select few networks.

Remember that each medium, from Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr has a different environment, so each need to be approached a different way. But it is the differences that make it so valuable to have your message in as many places as possible. They will help you to connect in different ways. Some find the short message format of Twitter annoying; others love its brevity and ability to get down to business. Get your message in as many forums, websites, blogs and social media for small business as possible.

Local Social Media How To Rules

And don't forget local connections while planning your social media for small business marketing strategies. Local business directories, Google Maps, couponing and blogs should be all be linked to local searches. Incorporating photos and YouTube links with local map searches will increase your visibility as well. When it comes to social media, how to make the best use of the tools you have will depend on integrating them together. The best way to do this is to have a marketing plan that incorporates social media and off line promotions together.

Social media isn't that new of a concept; it is just the way it is being delivered that is new. Offering discounts through Groupon, supporting customer's needs on Facebook and demonstrating the value of your products through YouTube videos are simply new tools for old fashion things like customer service. As any good business person knows, good customer service will never go out of style. Utilize those social media for small business today to make and maintain relationships with your customers.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Improve Your Online Presence with a Small Business SEO Company

Hiring a small business SEO company can help you design a website that will be easier for your customers to find. Up and coming businesses need to take every advantage available to start growing their exposure. Today, most people look for businesses they need online. You will want to focus your advertising efforts on increasing your online exposure so it is easy for customers to find you. Creating great website content is where you need to start.

How SEO Advertising Works           

If you hire a small business SEO company there are a number of things they specialize in to promote your business. A true inbound marketing firm is going to be very focused on helping you create high quality content that contains keywords to draw in customers organically from search engines. If you work in an area that has several similar businesses, you need to show your customers why you can provide superior support compared to the others. For example, a nationwide dumpster rental company worked with an SEO creator to enhance the quality of the information on their website and saw their business double in a matter of weeks. The quality keyword placement made it easier for customers to contact their business and provided a greatMake your presence known!  deal of high quality information that convinced customers to make a sale once they reached the webpage.

Reaching out to Customers

Working with a small business SEO company will revolve around enhancing your webpage, but the work should not stop here. Professional inbound marketing agencies will help you understand the impact of social media on your Search Engine ranking.

Small businesses should commit their marketing time and dollars to using social media. These accounts are free to make and maintain, but also give you the opportunity to purchase advertisements to increase your reach. A small business SEO company can help you learn how to create posts that will draw in customers and convince others to follow your company online. This is a great way to put your spin on current events that might be relevant to your business. A fashion website in Portland, Oregon started a blog to discuss the latest trends on the runway and in fashion catalogues. Within months the owner had branded her company as she had a regular following that counted on her expertise to interpret the latest fashion trends. Her fashion sales have increased and she is making thousands off of advertisements on her blog each month.

When you blog, you should be concentrating not only on educating and entertaining your readers, but you should also be thinking about how your blog will work for you in terms of SEO. For each new blog post, you should select a long tail keyword to base your content and images around. That way, when search engines crawl your site, they will know what your content is about and will display your website in relevant searches. Make sure that you are using your keyword in an interesting and natural way. Do not “stuff” your content with keywords. You should also be consistent with your postings; make sure that you tend to your blog often. New, fresh content will attract more readers.

The key to working with a small business SEO company is personalizing the content to match your business. You want to allow customers to create a relationship with your company so they will trust you to take care of their needs in the future. Creating a webpage will give you a chance to let your customers get to know you before they even walk in the door.
Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Five Social Media for Real Estate

Some people think social media companies were made for real estate, others think the sites are useless and real estate agents should stick to the tried and true. I have found the ones that don't like the real estate social media sites are the ones that don't know how to use them. If you work in real estate you should be complimenting your site with social media for real estate tricks to keep in touch with potential buyers. Here are a few tricks of the trade for the five top social media applications that really make sense when it comes to the real estate business.

Social Media for Real Estate - Facebook

Social media companies have gotten smarter about helping businesses promote their business and last year Facebook put together the Real Estate Agent Directory to help potential homebuyers and real estate agents hook up online. This real estate social media directory has an app for a consumer's phone and the directory not only lists agents but also searches for agents by location, expertise and credentials. The directory is now listed with over 125 realtor associations and thousands of realtor Facebook pages. According to Nielson 80% of all real estate agents use Facebook to promote their business. You can find out more about N-Play, the company that launched the real estate social media application on Facebook here and then simply head out to Facebook to get yourself listed. It's free for both agents and consumers so what have you got to lose?

Social Media Companies for Connecting - Twitter

For real estate social media companies, Twitter rocks for real estate updates. But setting up your profile right is vital. Use keywords denoting your specialty and to help search engines. Get a conversation going with questions about followers experiences in home searching; don't make your posts all about you. Sprinkle in some useful information from other sources to show your authority. Answer tweets within 24 hours and always follow back anyone who is following you. This is just good Twitter and real estate social media etiquette. And don't forget to publicize your tweets as all your posts need to be public to gain followers to find that one serious buyer.

Social Media Companies for Visuals – Pinterest

Pinterest is the social media companies darling right now. A business having great success with it is real estate, when using this social media site correctly. As a real estate social media site Pinterest is all about the visual, but it is also personal. So putting up boards that are just promos for listings will get you ignored or worst yet booted out. Pinterest is about people's passions, so think about this and group accordingly. Some of the best real estate social media Pinterest boards focus on the geographical area or group photos by rooms.  Include a few listings (no prices) and some that are from other boards. As in all social media companies, everything should link back to your site. How about Dream Gardens or Favorite Bedrooms? Get creative, because this is the real estate social media site to really indulge that side of you to entice others to check out all your boards.

Social Media Companies for Updating – Your Blogs

Keeping up a real estate social media blog can be hard, it's work to do daily posts about real estate. Lucky for you there is such a thing as curating content from social media companies through search engines. Set up Google Alerts using keywords that reflect your focus, and post to your real estate social media blog, Facebook or Twitter.  No exact reposting this information, it will lose you followers. Blogs are best when visually interesting and informative. Want that repurposed blog post from another site to help? Tag the content source through their Facebook page or Twitter account and you will start to see reposts from the source.

Social Media Companies for Listings - YouTube

Just as Pinterest has caught the attention of the web, videos are the ultimate real estate social media to grab potential clients. The no-brainer is videos of all your current listings but if you can do walk through videos instead of slide shows, all the better. Post videos on your real estate social media blog posts (you do have a blog – right?) with guest speakers about related topics. YouTube has many great videos from various social media companies you can post and let your twitter followers know what you just posted. It's a visual world so make it work for you.

These just scratch the surface of what social media for real estate can do for your business to make it more visible. If you are feeling overwhelmed, try one of the new social media companies for a month until you are comfortable with it, then move on to the next one. You will find that they all interrelate so that after a while you will be online, pinning new photos to your Pinterest board and adding interesting posts from other people's blogs to your Facebook page.

 
Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.
 

Secret Tips on Real Estate Web Design

Having a website today is an essential part of any real estate business. Just as it is important to know if that house you are planning to list has a solid foundation, any real estate web design needs a basic set of rules to fulfill its job. Real estate is changing and today realtors looking to succeed know that a web design for real estate specifically can be a boost to their visibility, if done right.

Make Your Site Memorable

There many companies doing real estate web design these days, and many use cookie-cutter concepts or templates. It takes more time and effort, but if your web design for real estate is custom for your business you will stand out from that crowd of look-alike real estate websites. With web design for real estate there are enough options that a good designer can deliver something unique without being over the top crazy.

Basics always need to be covered but a creative designer can present innovative solutions with a web design for real estate listings that show off your expertise and reflect your personality. The lifeblood of real estate rests on personal relationships with clients, and your website should reflect you as much as it does the properties you represent.

Make Your Content Work

Beyond the visuals of your real estate web design, for real estate sites the content will be what keeps people there. It offers real information without overwhelming the visitor, and is easy to find. Keywords are terms people use in a search engine when they are looking for information. They should also be the words on your site that draw them to you. Discuss with your web designer what your keywords will be to ensure that what they research reflects what you know your prospective clients are looking for.

Don't forget compelling photos for web design, for real estate web design need these to entice visitors to stay and browse. Videos that walk them through, photos that show off the best features and anything that shows you know the neighborhood helps. Every picture should contribute to keeping visitors looking, clicking and contacting for appointments to see that property soon.

Pricing Can Be Essential

Pictures may make a visitor stop and look at your site, but pricing what they are looking at is essential to converting a browser into a buyer. Nothing is more irritating in web design for real estate sites than a great looking site that doesn't let visitors know if any of those wonderful houses are in their price range. It is one of the first things a website visitor will look for, so don't leave this vital information out.
Web Design for Real Estate Sites Should Be Welcoming

It can get lost in the shuffle of cool visuals and information, but for a designer good site navigation is essential. When you look at that design, is there a clear path from landing page to navigating to listings and how to contact you? You want visitors to send you questions with ease, so you can get back to them quickly. This is easy to check, but ask someone who was not involved in the development of the site to test it first.

Keep Your Site Up to Date

It is easy for websites to get out of date, but for web design for real estate listings it is death. If possible, the website platform should allow you to update new listings and weekly local information. If you aren't comfortable doing this, talk to your web developer about assigning updates to someone at a reasonable price. This includes blogs, newsletters or any other marketing material that connects to your site.

Insist on Good Real Estate Web Design

Of course, these are all elements of good web design for real estate sites that any web designer worth hiring should know already. With these five points in mind, you can work with your web designer to get the best possible web design. For real estate is a personal business that should be informed by your knowledge as well as their design.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.


We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

Keys for Successful Attorney SEO & Website Design

Attorneys are well known for billboard ads and late night television commercials, but the key today for a successful practice is good attorney SEO practices. Building a website is never enough to have a successful online presence. It is important for attorneys to understand the value of creating a custom website that helps increase clients through interaction and building trust.

The primary key to successful attorney SEO is understanding how potential clients are trying to find you online. At Paveya, we are trained in searching for the best possible keywords and incorporate them in our attorney website design, ensuring that your practice will outrank your competition. We can take the time to find out if people in your community are more likely to search for “attorney” vs “lawyer” or any combination of keywords that your specific demographic and geographical local may use. Knowing these small differences improves attorney SEO by allowing your website to appear higher in search engine rankings than the competition. But ranking alone isn’t enough for proper attorney website design.

One of the best tips for high quality attorney website design is offering a free service on the site. The most popular way to increase attorney SEO is to include a blog, or a way for potential clients to reach out to you. Studies have shown that 49% of potential clients would consult a lawyer that allows questions to be posted on their website. Setting up a basic blog that allows comments or using a message board on your website is not only effective attorney SEO, but good customer service. The web design experts at Paveya can help guide you through this process so you can easily interact with people who have legal questions.

A professional custom website is essential for building trust online. There are news reports all over the country about fake legal websites, so ensuring your attorney website design is high quality is very important. Creative, custom and well managed attorney website design will make your practice look credible online, increasing attorney SEO and the chance that you will be contacted by someone in need.

At Paveya we understand that spending the time to research and implement all the necessary steps for attorney website design may be too taxing and time-consuming for a busy attorney on the go. We have a team of experts dedicated to assisting attorneys with the tools they need to take their practice to the next level. Contact Paveya and we will help your attorney SEO and help your practice achieve its full potential.

Paveya is your full-service inbound marketing and social media marketing agency. Call Paveya at 855-372-8392 and we can assist your company with social media marketing, content, and campaigns.

We look forward to helping our customers CREATE leads, CONNECT with customers, and GROW their businesses.

The Advantages of Inbound Marketing for Vacation Rentals

Inbound marketing refers to a specific kind of marketing strategy – one that earns the attention of users to encourage customer interaction, voluntary sharing, and word-of-mouth dissemination. In contrast, outbound marketing is traditional advertising from the company to the consumer, outward, like cold-calling, email blasts, and pop-up ads.

Traditionalists tend to rely heavily on outbound marketing practices, spending heavily on advertising, telemarketing, and purchased email lists. These practices are tried and true; however, customers are becoming increasingly selective over what they want to be exposed to. With new technologies like spam filters and caller ID, coupled with a more and more sophisticated and informed consumer, these practices are becoming less effective.

Inbound marketing for vacation rentals allows potential customers to choose to opt in to your content and brand. The idea is that good content—written, photographed, or videoed—will attract customers who are already shopping around for vacation rentals and are open to being educated by you. Organic practices that are part of a strategic vacation rental SEO campaign facilitate inbound marketing. Think of it this way, it is more cost-effective to be found by customers who are interested in your product and have done some self-education and are ready to book.

In the hospitality industry, customers often feel an emotional investment in where they stay; make them feel at home, and they will gladly recommend your vacation rentals to both close friends as well as to the larger audience of review sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp. This is the essence of inbound marketing; your property, service, and web presence will earn the love of your customers, who in turn provide you with the most effective marketing tool of all: a personal recommendation.

Rather than spending thousands of dollars on creating ads, and thousands more on placing them in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will be intrigued enough to bite… let your customers come to you. This way you can focus all your energies on targeted customers who will actually book your vacation rental. It is a revolution in marketing, an investment that can continue on its own momentum as opposed to an ongoing expense year after year. 

The Power of Social Media for Hotels

Social media is in a state of constant evolution. Or more correctly, our understanding of social media continues to evolve and change in light of how it can benefit businesses. In the early days of Web 2.0, when early adopters began to hop on the social media bandwagon, there was a lot of talk of “free advertising” and “promotional opportunities”, but our understanding of the medium has grown to include much more than that.

In social media, the end user holds the reins. Each user decides what they like and what they’ll follow; they can hide content streams or seek out specific ones, liking and sharing only what appeals to them. This creates a community based on a shared interest.

Build Community. Build a community around your hotel social media profile by creating and sharing content that has its own momentum, content that people will voluntarily share and like. Avoid the temptation to simply post deals, advertisements, or promotions. Thinking of social media simply as “free advertising” will not inspire you to post compelling content, and no one will share it. It has to be interesting; no one opts in for spam. This means, too, that it can be very valuable to Like and Share content from other hotels and businesses you respect. While some will balk at the idea of even mentioning their competitors, users are following your feed for one reason: is to find great content. Sharing a funny post from another hotel or related brand gives your feed some credibility and a more rounded-point-of-view. Your followers will enjoy reading your feed, they will associate your informative feed with your brand, and in this way they’ll actually be listening when you do post promotions and advertisements.

User generated content. Travel photos and stories are the most popular content on social media sites. More than ever, your guests are sharing their own pictures of your hotel rooms and everything you provide. While this removes some control from the hands of the hotelier, user-generated content provides you with opportunities to be memorable or to make an impression. Your efforts in creating a great hotel will not go unrecorded as everyone with a camera (which is everyone these days) will share all those details you painstakingly thought of. Also, it’s free content that has the potential to go viral. Users will more likely see and share content created by their friends, and a hotel social media profile gives them the space to do it.

Viral content. As the term suggests, viral content spreads exponentially on its own. One person who likes a video may share it with everyone they know, and their friends in turn share it with everyone they know. The value here is that even through multiple degrees of separation, everyone who shares your content will see that it is branded with your name, and they will associate this great content with your brand.  Keep the user interested and on your hotel social media profile and they will share everything for you, raising the potential for your content to become viral.

Paveya employs experts in social media marketing to most effectively leverage the opportunities and tools provided by your hotel social media profiles. Want to know how? We think of the whole concept of inbound marketing and how your attract your bookings.  Let’s talk about how we can help you grow your business, contact Claiborne at cyarbrough@paveya.com or 855.372.8392.

How to Avoid Real Estate Internet Marketing Disasters

Good real estate website design can give agents credibility online. Using a professional real estate website design company like Paveya can go far in showing potential home buyers what you have to offer. Good real estate website design will give these potential buyers the resources they need to make an informed decision about your homes and services before they contact you, saving them time. However one small misstep in your real estate internet marketing plan can completely erase any good will brought on by professional real estate website design. Preparing a real estate internet marketing plan that includes dealing with disasters will go far in helping you build credibility among potential home buyers.

Don’t Manage Your Professional and Personal Social Media on the Same Browser

When you hear about a company that sends a partisan political Tweet, or posts a less-than-professional picture, it is probably because someone intended those Tweets or posts for their personal pages and accidentally posted on the company’s social media page instead. A good rule for real estate internet marketing is to keep your personal separate from your professional. One easy way to avoid this is to only have your personal social media pages on a browser separate from the one you use for your professional pages. This will force you to look at what you are posting. Real estate internet marketing plans should always avoid upsetting a potential home-buyer. While the policies and decisions of some governmental officials could impact your sales, it is never a good idea to talk about it professionally. Even if you know you are right, a potential home buyer can become turned off if they don’t see things your way. If you are struggling to manage your real estate internet marketing, the professionals at Paveya can develop a real estate web design package that will help you avoid these potential mistakes.

How to Deal with Unhappy Client Reviews

Review websites can be real estate internet marketing gold or disaster if not constantly monitored. Understanding what to do when an unhappy client posts something bad about your services is key. First, take ownership of your review sites. Gaining access to real estate internet marketing sites like Yelp, Zillow, or other sites that allow reviews is simple and will help you monitor what people are saying about you. Simple real estate website design tools can even allow you to embed the reviews on your website.

Second approach a negative review like an opportunity. Simply deleting negative reviews is not a good real estate internet marketing strategy because people researching your services online don’t expect to see a perfect rating. In fact, a perfect rating will make you look suspicious. Instead respond to a negative comment with diplomacy and use it as a chance to show others how you are able to deal with problems. This will give your real estate internet marketing strategy credibility and show potential clients you know how to keep your cool in stressful situations. It’s also important to remember to use these same strategies for private messages someone may send. Never assume anything on the internet is private.

Answer All Questions & Inquiries

While we’re at it, it’s important to note that all questions and comments posted on social media sites should be answered by you. Real estate internet marketing plans need to include customer service elements. More and more people are using Twitter and other social media sites for customer service and it is your job to answer potential home buyers’ questions and concerns. Spending a few moments interacting with people on social media sites will help your internet marketing plan by making you and your services appear approachable. You will also stand out because most other agents ignore this crucial step. If you are “too busy” for potential home buyers, utilizing real estate internet marketing services provided by Paveya can save you time and allow you to make new connections.

Secret Tips on Real Estate Web Design

Having a website today is an essential part of any real estate business. Just as it is important to know if that house you are planning to list has a solid foundation, any real estate website design needs a basic set of rules to fulfill its job. Real estate is changing and today realtors looking to succeed know that a real estate website design specifically can be a boost to their visibility, if done right.

Make Your Site Memorable

There many companies doing real estate website design these days, and many use cookie-cutter concepts or templates. It takes more time and effort, but if your real estate website design is custom for your business you will stand out from that crowd of look-alike real estate websites. With real estate website design there are enough options that a good designer can deliver unique real estate agent websites without being over the top crazy.

Basics always need to be covered but a creative designer can present innovative solutions with a real estate website design listings that show off your expertise and reflect your personality. The lifeblood of real estate agent websites rests on personal relationships with clients, and your website should reflect you as much as it does the properties you represent.

Make Your Content Work

Beyond the visuals of your real estate website design is ensuring the content will be what keeps people there. It offers real information without overwhelming the visitor, and is easy to find. Keywords are terms people use in a search engine when they are looking for information. They should also be the words on your site that draw them to you. Discuss with your web designer what your keywords will be to ensure that what they research reflects what you know your prospective clients are looking for.

Don’t forget compelling photos for web design, for real estate sites need these to entice visitors to stay and browse. Videos that walk them through, photos that show off the best features and anything that shows you know the neighborhood helps. Every picture should contribute to keeping visitors looking, clicking and contacting for appointments to see that property soon.

Pricing Can Be Essential

Pictures may make a visitor stop and look at your site, but pricing what they are looking at is essential to real estate agent websites converting a browser into a buyer. Nothing is more irritating in real estate website design sites than a great looking site that doesn’t let visitors know if any of those wonderful houses are in their price range. It is one of the first things a website visitor will look for, so don’t leave this vital information out.

Real estate website design Sites Should Be Welcoming

It can get lost in the shuffle of cool visuals and information, but for a designer good site navigation is essential. When you look at that design, is there a clear path from landing page to navigating to listings and how to contact you? You want visitors to send you questions with ease, so you can get back to them quickly. This is easy to check, but ask someone who was not involved in the development of the site to test it first.

Keep Your Site Up to Date

It is easy for websites to get out of date, but for real estate website design listings it is death. If possible, the website platform should allow you to update new listings and weekly local information. If you aren’t comfortable doing this, talk to your web developer about assigning updates to someone at a reasonable price. This includes blogs, newsletters or any other marketing material that connects to your site.

Insist on Good Real Estate Agent Website

Of course, these are all elements of good real estate website design sites that any web designer worth hiring should know already. With these five points in mind, you can work with your web designer to get the best possible web design. For real estate is a personal business that should be informed by your knowledge as well as their design.

Paveya Takes Real Estate to the Next Level with Innovative Web Design For Real Estate

Paveya is pleased to announce the launch of its new website which is focused on helping our real estate customers leverage cutting edge real estate social media strategies in strategic national markets. Paveya’s technical expertise is combined with a management team that has vast business experience in some of the most competitive industries out there… including real estate, vacation rentals, hotels, financial and retail. real estate, vacation rentals, hotels, FINANCIAL, and RETAIL. We know what businesses of all sizes need when it comes to growing business using the massive potential of the web.

Paveya has packaged the most relevant and innovative new internet marketing services for Real Estate social media. Paveya offers affordable pricing for real estate social media and web design for real estate. Paveya even offers subscription pricing so that you can economically make the marketing investment to grow your business. Paveya will show you how our web design for real estate and real estate social media programs maximize customer acquisition, improve conversion rates and increase customer retention. Paveya will show you how internet marketing and web design for real estate provides you with up to the minute analytics so you can immediately evaluate your return on investment.

Paveya is a full service internet marketing agency that offers everything from brand development to web design for real estate that creates a user friendly website with content management, real estate social media campaigns, mobile marketing and SEO. Most prospective customers rarely look past the first search page while researching a product or service so although you may have a great website, without SEO your prospects can’t find you and your online business will suffer significantly. Paveya’s top of the line Search Engine Optimization and web design for real estate packages have the ability to get your website to its highest rankings in search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Through well planned real estate social media strategies and timely web design for real estate goals, companies can generate huge volumes of traffic from their business’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn pages, to their website through real estate social media marketing.  Paveya understands real estate social media can be used in different ways and we are here to guide our customers in the ever changing marketing platform.

To celebrate the launch of our website, Paveya is offering any business 15% off all new custom web design and development projects for one month ending October 25^th, 2012. To find out more about Paveya’s new offerings and our expertise, please contact Claiborne Yarbrough, Business Development Manager, at cyarbrough@paveya.com or 252.491.8350.

Paveya’s newly designed website can be found at www.paveya.com.

Find Out Why Paveya Is Your E-Commerce Specialist

Powells Point, N.C.  July 29, 2012 - Today’s world of commerce on the web is fast paced and always demanding. Having an e-commerce web design specialist in your hip pocket like Paveya can make the change from a so-so site to a spectacular site. Whether you are looking for a totally new e-commerce web design for your business or simply want to add on an e-commerce web design elements to your existing website, Paveya is the authority when it comes to creating e-commerce designs that deliver.

The Basics of e-Commerce Web Design

Visitors spend no more than ten seconds on a page when they land on it. That is all the time you have to capture their attention, and their dollars. The best way to do this is by making sure that your e-commerce web design is fully integrated with the rest of your site and is quick and easy to use.

There are three basic elements that all e-commerce web designs need to be successful. To give your e-commerce web design the conversion rate you need, all three of these elements need to be present:

1.       Shopping Carts – Paveya knows that your shopping cart must be user friendly, Google compliant and interactive so that it is fast and easy to complete that buy. We specialize in X-Cart because it has the best features but can install any shopping cart program you prefer.

2.       Convenient – As your e-commerce specialist Paveya will ensure that in today’s whirlwind economy your customers find your e-commerce page intuitive and easy to navigate. By providing essentials like one-page check-outs, security with log-ins and the most advanced payment options Paveya delivers a higher conversion rate.

3.       Keeping Current – Technology changes constantly and so does e-commerce web design. We stay on top of all the current trends and updates so you don’t have to. Paveya can provide timely updates to your e-commerce web design and make sure your site is never losing opportunities for sales by being behind the times.

Combining SEO and e-Commerce

One of the advantages of bringing in a web specialist like Paveya is that we are not a one trick pony; we know websites from basic design and SEO to e-commerce web design and beyond. This means that our e-commerce web designs will be search engine friendly, easy to navigate, and convert to sales at a high rate.

When it comes to e-commerce web design it takes a specialist to really deliver what a business needs. In today’s lightning-fast world of ten second pages and here today gone tomorrow e-commerce solutions, having a reputable authority on what your customers need from your e-commerce web design just lets you get back to the business at hand.

Paveya is a web design and Internet marketing company that works with small to medium-sized businesses, specializing in real estate. They focus on search engine optimization, social media management, and web development services to help companies build the very best Internet presence.

Paveya - The Real Estate SEO Experts

In real estate you need advantagesover your competition, including how you manage your website.  At Paveya, our web design for real estate experts offer several tools to help your real estate internet marketing plan.  Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to allow others to find your company’s website. SEO for real estate involves developing a website to make it coincide with search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, and with their search results. Search engines use algorithms to calculate the ranking of websites for certain words. When the proper strategies are used, SEO can help your website rank high in the search results. At Paveya, our team of professionals are specifically trained in real estate SEO, and  web design for real estate companies,  and can help you sell your homes faster than the competition!

How We Can Help - Web Design For Real Estate

Keywords

Websites should consist of keywords, which are searches that lead to results that coincide with the topic. Keywords should be located in titles, content, URLs, the titles of images, etc. Use the right number of keywords. Avoid using a small amount or an excess amount of keywords. The keyword density for a webpage should range from 3 to 5 percent of all of the texts and links. Paveya's web design for real estate team uses proper real estate seo tools to make sure the keywords are used properly and in the correct context.

On-Page Real Estate SEO

On-page real estate SEO refers to the optimizing of a website based on the text and the other content of the website. The content should be of high quality. It should also be informative, updated, unique, and interesting to read. Find the keywords that people could potentially search to find your content and include those keywords throughout your website. Choose about one main keyword per page. Make sure the tags, such as the title tags and the description tags, and headlines consist of keywords and content that informs others of what your website is about.  Real estate SEO can be specific. The title tags are very important for search engine optimization; make sure they are clear and concise.

Off-Page Real Estate SEO

Off-page real estate SEO is a part of web design for real estate associated with the optimization of text and links of other websites that can lead to your website. The other websites need to be credible and professional. Those websites should contain the keywords that people could use to find them. They should be a form of authority and have a good history. Your website and your content should be shared throughout social networks by professionals. Off-page SEO includes inbound links, which are links from other websites that lead to your website. Natural inbound links are beneficial to your website. Allow professional websites to link to your website. Other link building techniques include writing posts for other blog sites and sending your website to directories on the Internet.

Summary - Paveya and Real Estate Internet Marketing

If your real estate internet marketing plan includes the proper real estate SEO techniques, it could be very effective and rank high in the search engines. The search engine algorithms change on a normal basis, so you must keep your website updated with the different SEO strategies. SEO can be very beneficial for your business and its website, so consider using Paveya and our web design real estate experts for all your real estate SEO techniques.