Just think if you could do market research, organize focus groups and build your customer base all without spending a dime? Thanks to social media and great internet tools, you can. Small businesses are acquiring loyal customers, gaining valuable insight and boosting their business by harnessing these tools. Learn the top tricks and tools in a changing internet environment to boost sales and your brand without needing an army.

1. The Internets: A Series of Tubes!
Navigating the Tube
Mike Dunca n
Sage Island CEO

2. Know your Customer

6. Know their Langauge

7. Keyword Research
Keyword Selection is Key
Careful keyword selection is the heart of the SEO campaign.
Research Keywords
Create a robust keyword portfolio of relevant keyword phrases that are
searched on by potential customers. You’ll begin with your input on what your
most important keywords are, then expand that list by cross-checking the list
against the search engines’ databases of actual keyword searches. This will
help target the right words - the ones that will actually deliver customers to your
website.
www.keyworddiscovery.com
www.wordtracker.com
www.overture.com
Google Adwords Keyword Tool
www.seobook.com
www.seomoz.org

8. Open for Business
-Driving Traffic-

11. SEO
Have a Strategy for your site and
optimize your content
• Use keyword research to determine how customers search
• Inject keywords into body copy, titles, and images
• Be sure that your site is user friendly and search engine
friendly. Your marketing efforts won’t help you if your
website makes it difficult for users to find the information
they want.
Ranking factors:
www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

13. On Page Optimization
Optimize Website Meta
<TITLE>Skateboards - Warehouse Skateboards offers Complete Skateboards,
Skateboard Decks, Trucks, Wheels & Much More!</TITLE>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Biggest selection of skateboards,
skateboard decks, complete skateboards, skateboard wheels, skateboard trucks,
skateboards delivered right to your door!">
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="skateboards,skateboard,complete
skateboards,skateboard decks,skateboard wheels,skateboard trucks,skate
decks,warehouse skateboards">

14. Sitemap Submission
Google WebMaster Tools - www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Bing (MSN) WebMaster Tools - www.bing.com/webmasters
Yahoo! Site Explorer - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Create Sitemaps
www.gsitecrawler.com
Create a Robots.txt file and place in the root directory
www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow: /my-dirty-photos
Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

15. How does your site rank for SEO?
www.websitegrader.com

16. Driving Relevant Traffic
Links

17. Link Building
Quality links is what you are after.
What is a Quality link?
Good Page Rank and relevant

19. Driving Relevant Traffic
Paid Search

20. Invest in a Paid Search
(pay-per-click) Campaign
• Paid search is a fast, cost effective, extremely targeted way to
increase visibility on the search engines.
• Even a small budget can be very effective if you use extremely
targeted keywords to avoid spending money on unqualified clicks.
• Write compelling ads targeted to your demographic to get attention.

21. Driving Relevant Traffic
Shopping Networks

24. Driving Relevant Traffic
Social Networks

25. “There are now at least 1.6 billion of us connected
via computer and 3 billion mobile devices that
touch the Internet. The rise of "social" technologies -
such as wikis, blogs, Twitter, SMS and social
networks - means that the barriers to participation
across the planet (in terms of the cost, access and
skills required) are rapidly approaching zero”
Joshua-Michele Ross on O’Reilly Insights – March 2009

26. What is Social Media Marketing
Many marketers think that doing a sponsorship on
MySpace or posting a one-off campaign channel on
YouTube is social media marketing
Not true.
Social Media is About Socializing!
It is about:
Weaving your content and messages into the social web
Joining the customer conversation
Making friends
Communicating with those friends
Listening to those friends
Measuring impact

27. Blog

31. Blog Dos
• Pay attention to headlines. Many people scan blog posts in a feed
reader like Google Reader. If the headline isn’t interesting, they
won’t click through.
• Link to other blogs in your industry to get their attention and
encourage them to link back to you.
• Keep blog posts under 500 words and break up large chunks of text
with photos, headlines, and bullets for easier reading.
• Focus on quality content, but keep SEO in mind by favoring high
traffic keywords over lower traffic phrases.
• Solicit feedback from your readers. Ask questions, include polls,
and encourage community building through comments and
participation.

32. Blog Don’ts
• Never copy and paste content from other websites to fill your
blog posts. This creates duplicate content problems and
violates copyright law.
• Avoid keyword stuffing. Your primary concern is quality
content that interests readers. SEO should always be
secondary. Use keywords only when appropriate and only if
it doesn’t compromise good writing.
• Don’t expect feedback on every post. For every commenter
there are nine “lurkers” who read without participating. Keep
soliciting feedback and trying new ways to engage those
readers, but don’t give up.

33. Wordpress Plugins
http://weblogs.about.com/od/wordpressplugins/tp/55BestWordpressPlugins.htm
http://wphacks.com/wordpress-plugins
http://www.ghacks.net/2009/08/15/best-wordpress-plugins
http://rooteto.com/best-wordpress/30-wordpress-plugins

35. Social Tagging

36. Viral Marketing & Social Tagging
Add social bookmarking buttons for sites like Digg,
Del.ici.us, and Stumble to blog posts and other content
on your site to encourage users to “vote” for it.
www.addthis.com
www.twitthis.com

38. Videos

41. YouTube Optimization
• Use keyword tags to tell readers and search engines what your video is
about.
• Create a compelling headline to encourage viewers to watch your video.
• Keep videos as short and engaging as possible with the most important
messaging in the beginning. If viewers get bored, they won’t watch the
whole thing.
• Pay attention to your thumbnail image to entice viewers to click and
watch. YouTube automatically selects a thumbnail by selecting an image
from about halfway through your video.

45. Facebook / MySpace

48. Reaching your fans on FB
• Keep a constant stream of fresh content on your
wall by uploading photos, videos, and links to your
Facebook page.
• Create a community by building a group where
members can upload their own photos and videos
and discuss your brand.
• Link your Facebook page to an RSS feed for your
blog.

50. Customer Service

54. Track Everything!

57. Search Engine Optimization – Kristopher Jones
Get to the top on Google – David Viney
Landing Page Optimization – Tim Ash
Building Findable Websites – Aarron Walter
MIKE DUNCAN
mduncan@sageisland.com
twitter.com/MikeADuncan
twitter.com/sageisland
www.sageisland.com