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Tingalls Blog - Marketing Tips & Tricks

An Easy Way to Incorporate Social Media

Too many people shy away from using social media as a business marketing tool because they feel it’s too difficult or it will take too much time. We think that social media should be an important part of your marketing plan and will be even more important in the future, so we’ve come up with a quick and easy way to check your social media marketing regularly without wasting a lot of time. Facebook Add a post about your company, a link to your blog, breaking industry news, a consumer tip, a contest, sale announcement – anything that readers will be interested in and might encourage participation. If you belong […]

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tips

What is Google +1

Google +1 is different than Google Plus, although they both were rolled out at roughly the same time. The +1 is a way to “like” or recommend a website or business to others while Google Plus is a new social media outlet that is designed to function in a manner similar to Facebook. If you have a Google account, typically this is an email or Gmail account, then you can begin recommending your favorite websites and businesses. Do a simple Google search, of the results that appear you’ll see a small box with a +1 in it to the right of the company name. This is where you click to […]

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Posted in Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tips

Are your PDFs SEO Friendly?

Some people shy away from using PDFs on their websites because they’re afraid that this format cannot be scanned by search engines. But rest assured, your PDF can and will be included in search engine rankings. This means that each and every PDF you use on your website should be optimized to take advantage of the content and to boost your rankings. So how do you make a PDF SEO friendly? Text Based PDF Search engines can crawl through content on text based PDFs, not on image based ones so you need to create your PDFs with text editing software, like MS Word, and not in image editing software, like […]

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Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Tips, Website Design

10 SEO Tips for Small Businesses

1)    DON’T Get Banned – It seems weird to start a list of things to do with a “don’t” but betting banned from a search engine is the number one thing you do NOT want to happen. Learn the difference between legitimate keyword placement and link usage and the stuffing that spammers use to “trick” search engines to rank them highly. Search engines are cracking down on this and banning repeated violators so it’s key to use SEO techniques as a tool and not to abuse them. 2)    Blog! – There is a catchphrase you’ll constantly hear when talking about websites and search engines and that is “content is king” […]

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tips

Google Analytics: The Next Step

Once you’ve installed Google Analytics and played around with the basic features you can see how it can become a little addicting. Everyone loves feedback and Google is willing to give you tons of it. If you can devote the time to learn how to gather it and then turn it into working information you can gain some really valuable marketing data. Analytics Intelligence Monitor trends in your customer’s viewing habits to see what is driving their visits to your website. Maximize this information by tailoring the reports to suit your company image and marketing efforts to see what’s working for you. Advanced Segmentation With advanced segmentation you can pull […]

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Posted in Copywriting & Blogging, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tips

The Most Important SEO Component

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is really a complex field that changes almost daily so if you’re a little confused, don’t worry almost everyone else is too. The key thing to remember is that SEO is crucial in today’s computer driven world, and here’s why. The three big search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) are where most commercial traffic finds websites. If these search engines cannot find your website then almost no one else can find you as well. By optimizing your site to “play nice” with the major search engines you’re more likely to get found by them and by potential customers. In a nutshell, that’s why SEO is important. Why […]

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Networking, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Tips

Social Media Networking

Everyone has heard the adage that it’s not what you know but who you know.  Now, while what you know is important, it is true that in business who you know is critical. You could be the best hair stylist around, but if no one knows you and what you do, how will you ever get any business. Networking with other professionals and people in the community not only gets your company name out there, it creates a personal connection that is more appealing to people than simply a listing in a telephone book or on the internet. Today we’re in the midst of a networking revolution with the rapid […]

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Posted in Networking, Social Media Marketing, Tips

Tips for Small Companies to Increase Business

Being a small business, you don’t have the resources your bigger competition does but you do have the advantage of being more directly connected to your clients so how do you turn this into your biggest asset and use it to increase business? Give Them More than They Expect If you promise a client the moon and the stars and fall short of your promises you’re going to look bad and the client may never return. But if you promise them a reasonable and adequate job for a fair price and then end up giving them the moon and the stars that client is not only going to come back […]

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Posted in Marketing, Networking, Tips

Create Your Own QR Code

Below are instructions on creating your own QR Code: 1. Visit a QR code-generating website, i.e. Delivr 2. Add your website address, text message, calendar event, facebook link, etc. using the fields provided and voila! 3.  Download the file and add it to your marketing or promotional items. We also found a really neat website that allows you to watch  a QR Code as it’s being built. Check it out – www.qrstuff.com

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Posted in Tips

Networking Tips

(Excerpts taken from presentation by Todd Kent from Action Coach) We’ve all heard how networking can help grow your business, but do you know how to make your networking effective? Here’s a review of the networking tips Todd Kent of Action Coach offered at this morning’s Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce breakfast event. 1) Make it about them – When starting a conversation with someone new, ask questions and make the discussion about them. Folks would rather talk about themselves than hear about your company’s product/service. “Leave the ego at the door,” Todd says. 2) Know you want to meet – Make a goal of meeting “the marketing person of ABC […]

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Posted in Networking, Tips

Website Management: 3 Simple Organization Tips

By Gregg Murray, Website Blueprint When starting or revamping your small business website, there is one word that will save you the most time, money, and headaches. The word? Organization. Ready to take a simple, but giant leap toward making your business life a whole lot more efficient for yourself (and whoever you’re paying to help with your website)? Tip 1: Create a Special Folder in “My Documents” Your website information needs to have a single, designated folder on your computer. Go into your “My Documents” folder and create a new folder called “Website Stuff” or any other name you choose. Everything that has to do with your website, be […]

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Posted in Marketing, Tips, Website Design

Busy customers will appreciate website built for mobile devices

Article from The Capital Region Business Journal – June 2011 By Jonny Buroker, Internet Marketing Consultant, WSI – We Simplify the Internet The use of mobile devices to access the Web is growing exponentially and by 2015, many predict that Internet usage on mobile devices will surpass traditional desktops. That has companies everywhere scrambling to build mobile versions of their websites. Have you looked at your website using a mobile device? I mean, really looked at it? How well does the navigation work? Can you see the entire width of the page or do you have to scroll over in order to see the right side? Are the links easy […]

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Posted in Tips, Website Design

Is your blog actually hurting your website's SEO?

When it comes to search engine optimization, I’m sure you’ve heard the adage “content is king.” And, what better way to add continual content than by using a blog.  We agreed! So we set up our own free blog at WordPress and posted weekly tips and news. All was going fine until we found out that our blog was actually ranking higher than our website… On no! What we decided to do is move all the tools and administrative ease that WordPress offers into our website in a section called “tips”: www.tingalls.com/tips/ The results? All the blog articles that we write now enhance our search engine optimization instead of hurting […]

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Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Tips, Website Design

Is Word-of-mouth really a Successful Form of Advertising?

How many of you say that word of mouth advertising is your main form of business growth? Yeah, we did too. Contrary to popular thought, word-of-mouth isn’t a magical phenomenon that happens without any effort, as Tara and I were reminded Friday at a seminar given by Matt Hackett of the San Francisco advertising agency Hackett and Tate. Let’s start here. What company comes to mind when I give you the following industries? – Local car dealer? – Furniture store? – Fast food restaurant? I bet you could name one company for each category instantly (mine just in case you were curious – Smart Motors, Don’s Home Furniture, McDonald’s). This […]

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Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Tips

The Easy Way to Make SEO Affordable

If there are two things nearly every business owner looks for in the search engine optimization process, it’s a way to make it faster and more affordable. Faster we’ll cover another day; when it comes to more affordable, there’s a right way and a wrong way to look at things. The wrong way is trying to save money by going with a low-cost provider, or even one that’s doing business overseas. Why is this such a bad idea? Because more often than not, you aren’t going to get quality search engine work – you’re going to get a set of articles and pages that reflect a poor understanding of what […]

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Posted in Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tips

Are You Unintentionally Holding Back Your Online Marketing?

Have you heard people talk about marketing online and off-line (i.e. print ads) as if they were completely different animals? This might have been more common even just a few years ago, but now, of course, we know that the two can be connected, especially with the rise of social media and next-generation smart phones. Even though they might recognize this evolution on a conscious level, some business owners continue to treat their online and off-line promotions separately. This isn’t the biggest blunder in the world, but it is one that can hinder either marketing strategy from working to grow your business as effectively as they could. Here are three […]

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Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Print & Package Design, Social Media Marketing, Tips, Website Design

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