How To Get Clients Online From Online Networking Events

How To Get Clients Online From Online Networking Events

by | Sep 18, 2021 | Business, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Networking, Networking Event

I went for a drink with my 80 year old uncle over the weekend in a village pub about 10 miles outside Mullingar in Westmeath in Ireland. When he asked me a question. How do you make money from your computer?

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So first I explained what I do for a living and you know it’s amazing how many elderly members of my family don’t know what I do. Whenever I explain it to them their eyes glaze over and just to shut me up they say “ah, yeah, you work in computers!”

Then I explained to him how I get my clients by saying that I get my clients mostly from people typing in search terms in Google and by attending online networking meetings.

I told him all about Google explaining that Gleeson Digital appears high up in the listings for most digital marketing, web design, videography search terms in Mullingar and for the county too.

Then I explained to him how online networking works in a really easy-to-understand way. That I also want to share with you.

Imagine online networking like a pub.

If you were to walk into a pub for the very first time and you ordered a drink and you forgot your money and you explained this to the barman. Well, the chances would be that he wouldn’t give you the drink and nobody sitting around the bar would buy it for you either.

But if you were a regular in that pub the barman would say something like, pay me next time you’re in or someone else sitting at the bar would just pay for it knowing that you would buy them a drink back the next time that you were there.

Why?

Because they know, like and trust you.

It is the same in business and networking too.

There is no better way to build up your know like and trust factors than getting to know people at online networking events.

Let’s be honest, how effective is posting for free on social media and can you really get to know someone there?

Now my go-to networking organisation is called Network Central.

Keeping to the pub theme here it’s a bit like a chain of pubs that has different types of “pubs” so there really is something for everyone.

There are 3 different networking organisations within Network Central:

1N

This is a single-seat networking organisation with 20+ different meetings running mostly at 8am, 10am and 12pm Monday to Friday. With new ones forming all the time.

I belong to a really good group called Team 1Ncredible that meets every Friday at 12.30pm for 90 minutes.

It is a little bit like a members club where the same people meet every week and visitors can come along to check it out before joining.

I love this type of networking as there is a genuine bond between us because we have really got to know each other and want to help each other too.

As an added bonus you can attend other new 1N meetings when they are in launch phase for free.

3N

This is speed networking that lasts 90 minutes.

You get to meet 10 businesses in 3 minute 121s in Zoom break-out rooms.

Plus, you get the opportunity to do your elevator pitch in front of everyone.

This is a great way to build up a lot of connections fast and it is pay as you go so there is no membership fee.

4N

This is also for 90 minutes where everyone has a 40 second elevator pitch, there is a guest speaker for 20 minutes and you get to have three 10 minute 121s with random attendees.

Back to the pub analogy.

The meetings are like pubs with each one having a different vibe that caters to various interests and niches.

The great thing about it is you can go on a “pub crawl” if you want by attending loads of meetings or you can stick to your “local,” the choice is yours.

Then you can guest speak at these networking events which is a bit like being on stage as a singer.

You showcase your knowledge and then people may want to buy from you, not necessarily there and then but when they are looking for the products or services that you sell at some point in the future.

Then you have the “bar staff” that are the team running the meeting that may be involved as a team member in another “pub” or “drink in other pubs” too.

The people that do really well at networking know that the secret to networking is building up relationships and not trying to sell to someone the first time that you meet them.

Is it worth going to networking events?

It is like anything in life, you get out of it what you put in.

If you are too salsey or pushy it won’t work.

I have been attending online networking events for a year now and I am getting work on a regular basis.

For September I have a special offer, 50% deposit followed by 5 interest-free monthly installments and it is looking like I will have at least 2, maybe 3 new clients from this. All from networking meetings.

Because I attend these online networking events regularly I have built up my know like and trust factors to land these new clients.

So does it work? Yes, it does.

But only if you do it right.

If it doesn’t work for you it means that you are doing it wrong.

You don’t have to figure out how to do this all on your own as Network Central has a monthly 1-hour live event explaining how to get the best out of networking.

I can also recommend you a networking coach who will get you there quickly as trying to work it out yourself will take time and cost you money in lost earnings.

How do you get invited to networking events?

Get in touch with me and I can get you a free meeting so that you can try it for yourself to see if it is for you.

Final Thoughts

I made the choice a year ago to either go all-in on social media or online networking and I am delighted that I made the right choice.

I live in a sleepy village in the middle of Ireland and I get clients from the UK from attending online networking events.

Now if I can do it, so can you!

Get in touch and you can try it yourself for free.

– Gary

gary gleeson digital web design

Gary Gleeson

I am a professional website designer and a certified digital marketer with the Digital Marketing Institute since 2017

I have been building websites since 2010 and I hold a 2019 BSc Degree in Digital Technology & Design with Distinction from Technological University Dublin

Why You Need a Good Content Marketing Strategy

Why You Need a Good Content Marketing Strategy

by | Dec 4, 2019 | Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing Tips, Marketing

Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of online material such as videos, blog posts and social media posts, to entertain, educate or inspire your target audience. It does not explicitly promote or advertise your brand but it is intended to stimulate interest in your products or services.

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If you want to win in today’s digital world, your success is going to rely on quality content that meets user intent. With every Google algorithm update, Google has stressed the importance of relevant content and improving content quality is the number 1 piece of advice.

To establish what relevant content means to your brand, you’ll need to know who your audience is and what queries they are typing into search engines. Based on the gaps in your existing content and that of your competitors you’ll need to develop content campaigns that are specifically designed to achieve your marketing goals.

Content marketing is a very measurable discipline that is essential in making your online presence generate the right results for your business.

What is the Difference Between Content Marketing & Sales Copy?

If you want to make the most of your content marketing, you’ll need to understand the difference between content and sales copy because all forms of written text aren’t equal. Industry experts, journalists and bloggers are less likely to share your content if it is too heavily branded that it is obvious that you are trying to sell your products or services as it wicome across as looking a bit spammy.

Sales copy is created for advertising and marketing purposes, and its aim is to sell. It is written to persuade potential customers of the value of your offering and convert them into leads. Sales copy may detail product specifications, calls to actions and unique selling points.

Content extends far beyond sales copy: it can tell a story, educate, help, inspire or entertain your target audience. Content isn’t just text, it can also be videos, infographics, images, graphics and many other digital assets.

The difference between sales copy & content is that sales copy aims to sell your products and persuade people to convert, whereas content aims to engage your audience and build brand awareness.

The Benefits of Content Marketing

So if sales copy sells and content marketing engages and builds brand awareness, surely sales copy is the more important of the two? Not necessarily, because good content marketing can increase your organisation’s expertise, authority and trust factors. It actually establishes your brand as an authority in your industry.

Solid content strategy can also win backlinks – improving your website’s SEO, domain authority and driving traffic to your website. However, unlike other strands of digital marketing, content helps you reach your audience in a non-salesy organic way.

Choosing Your Content Marketing Metrics

There are various metrics out there that can help you measure whether your content strategy is proving effective.

Try measuring on your website’s unique page views, the average time spent on the site and the number of social shares that your blog post have received assuming that you have a social share plugin on your website, if not we can install one for you.

To find out whether it helped your website’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), you should monitor how your content ranks, how much organic traffic it receives and how visible it is in search engines. The number and quality of backlinks to your content page can tell you how well your content was picked up by your target audience, the press, bloggers and industry experts.

We can set-up Google Analytics for you if you don’t already have it installed on your website. We can then tell you whether your visitors performed any actions after engaging with your content such as visited other pages, what pages they viewed and if they performed any conversions. Even if your web visitors did not convert directly, all is not lost because accurate tracking will show you whether they returned to your website at a later stage to go further down your sales funnel.

Defining Your Content Strategy

Once you have defined your content strategy goals and decided on your KPI (Key Performance Indicator) metrics, it’s time to start the content strategy process.

Your first step is the research stage, in researching and defining your primary and secondary customer personas. Followed by persona mapping, social listening and search intent modelling to gain the necessary insights into your audience and the various opportunities. Don’t forget to analyse your best-performing blog posts and that of your competitors, that can help inspire you and identify content gaps.

Then it’s time for brainstorming. By now you should be armed with the results of your research that will give you ideas for creative content ideas.

Creating Your Content Marketing Plan

By now you should have some ground-breaking content ideas so a content plan is needed.

A content roadmap is the best way to ensure that your campaigns are complementing, rather than competing against each other. The best way to do this is to put links in a blog post that have similar content. You can also space out similar topics in your content timeline too. Timing is important as you might also want to look at key seasonal dates and events throughout the year to gain more traffic.

So if you have an eCommerce website that sells products that are ideal for gifts, perhaps crating content around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or Christmas time should work for you.

Final Thoughts

Content marketing is a medium to long term strategy that is designed to build brand awareness. But you can’t bring brand awareness to the bank and cash it in whenever you want. So make sure that you have a short term strategy running side by side that will actually generate a consistent amount of leads every month for your business such as Facebook ads or YouTube video ads.

If you need any advice about content marketing strategy or a short term digital marketing strategy that generates leads for your business, get in touch with me. I am equipped to help you meet your marketing goals, no matter how ambitious they are.

– Gary

 

gary gleeson digital web design

Gary Gleeson

I am a professional website designer and a certified digital marketer with the Digital Marketing Institute since 2017

I have been building websites since 2010 and I hold a 2019 BSc Degree in Digital Technology & Design with Distinction from Technological University Dublin

3 Reasons Not to Use Stock Photography

3 Reasons Not to Use Stock Photography

by | Nov 13, 2019 | Blogging, Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing Tips, Marketing, Social Media, Website Design

I understand that most of you don’t have the time to be taking pictures for every social media or blog post so using the many free stock photography sites is such a time saver.

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But unfortunately, there is a downside to them if you use them on your website or social media accounts.

3 Disadvantages of Using Stock Images Online

1) Google states that they are looking for unique content so that means images that haven’t been used online before. The more you toe the Google line the higher up your website will appear in the search engine results pages. So if SEO is important to you, stay away from stock photography.

2) Social media news feeds have algorithms too and if they see images that have been used before they will consider your post to be spam and show it further down user’s news feeds. If your business is on social media appearing high up your follower’s news feeds is quite important, isn’t it?

3) I see stock photography used time and time again on websites and I think they have a really unauthentic feel about them because most of them look cheesy & fake. Visually, I think they are OK for blog posts, but not your main pages. If I see a website that uses stock photography I can only assume that the website has been rushed.

The Compromise

I actually use stock photography for my main images in ALL my blog posts because like everyone else I don’t have the time to be taking fresh pictures or knocking up graphics in Adobe Illustrator. So I put a filter on them at around 80% opacity in Photoshop and in most cases that does the trick.

If you reverse search an image online you will find out if this has worked. So all you have to do is:

Visit www.google.com/imghp, then click on the camera icon.

Click on the “upload an image” option.

Then click on “choose file” and upload your image.

Wait for the results and in this case, you can see that my previous blog post image has only appeared on my web page.

Originally, the first layer of the image from my previous blog post was a stock image, then I added an orange layer on top of that with an 80% opacity and the final layer was the text.

However, I do have 1 image on my home page that hasn’t passed Google unique image test, despite using a filter, but it is only temporary. Because for now, it serves a purpose because the appearance of the home page is more important than SEO. The image will be replaced in a few weeks or so when I will take a “real” photograph and use that one instead.

Final Thoughts

You have to be practical here and decide if having unique images that haven’t been seen before online is important to you or not. Perhaps you don’t have the luxury of being that pedantic with images and you aren’t that fussed about appearing higher up in social media news feeds or in Google’s rankings.

Personally, I think appearing higher up in social media feeds and higher up in Google’s search engine results pages is very important and is, in fact, what digital marketing is all about. So I will make the extra effort.

I do use stock photography on websites on a temporary basis from time to time, but at least you know the downside and you can make the decision that is right and practical for you.

Gary

gary gleeson digital web design

Gary Gleeson

I am a professional website designer and a certified digital marketer with the Digital Marketing Institute since 2017

I have been building websites since 2010 and I hold a 2019 BSc Degree in Digital Technology & Design with Distinction from Technological University Dublin

What is a Search Engine Optimisation Audit?

What is a Search Engine Optimisation Audit?

by | Oct 30, 2019 | Blogging, Business, Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing Tips, Marketing, SEO

So you have spent thousands on your website and you have just realised that your website isn’t generating that much traffic from search engines, so the chances are that your website needs an SEO overhaul.

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The best place to start is with an SEO audit that will highlight areas that can be improved upon so that your website climbs Google’s rankings.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation is the process of making a website or website pages appear higher up in search engines such as Google. The higher up they appear the more likely that users will click on these search engine’s links to your website.

The 7 key stages of SEO are:

SEO Audit

The great thing about digital marketing is that there aren’t many grey areas regarding how successful any type of campaign is and search engine optimisation is a typical example of this because everything is measurable.

The purpose of a website audit is to identify as many issues affecting organic search performance as possible such as:

  • Technical SEO problems
  • Website structure problems
  • On-page SEO problems
  • Current website domain authority 
  • User experience problems
  • Content gaps and opportunities
  • Website loading speed

So in addition to spotting current website issues, the audit also serves as a starting point where initial statistics can be compared to the statistic in the coming months or years to follow that will show how effective the search engine optimisation campaign has been.

Keyword Research

One of the first things that we do before we even design or build a website is keyword research. 

Keywords are terms or phrases that are typed into search engines which should be strategically placed in the website multiple times so that the website appears higher up in the search engine results pages. But please note that if this is overdone, which is known as keyword stuffing, Google will penalise your website for this as it sees this as spam and an underhanded way of trying to beat the algorithm. 

Using the right keywords is one of the most important components of search engine optimisation. 

On-Page SEO

Now that we know what your target market is searching for on search engines, it’s time to dive into on-page SEO which is the practice of creating web pages that answer searcher’s questions. 

Once we have the keywords or keyword phrases that search engine users are using we can amend the website accordingly to make it “Google-friendly.” We do this by updating strategically placing the keywords into the website such as amended content or text, updating page titles, changing the titles and alt tags of images; to name a few.

Technical SEO

Now that we have created valuable content based on our keyword research, it’s important to make sure it’s not only readable by humans, but by search engines too.

So as the name suggests this is the technical part. If I can compare on-page and technical SEO in an analogy, the on-page would be how a car looks and the technical search engine optimisation is all about the engine.

I will keep this section brief but careful attention is needed in the following areas for search engines:

  • Increase the loading time of a website & it’s individual pages
  • Optimise images so that they load quicker
  • Instruct search engines which website pages to index
  • Inform Google what the pages are about using schema markup & the canonical tag
  • Ensure the website is mobile-friendly

Blogging Using Keywords

This is admittedly similar to the on-page SEO that I mentioned earlier but blogging should be an ongoing part of your digital marketing & search engine optimisation strategies.

Blogging has 3 main advantages for SEO:

  • It can increase your domain authority
  • Google gives extra juice to websites that blog consistently
  • Your blog posts can reach a wider audience if it is done properly

A great tip is to keep the important content above the fold for desktop users so that they are encouraged to read the article. Above the fold means in the top part of a page before scrolling down.

This is harder to do for mobile as you have fewer characters to play with so make sure that the first couple of sentences are interesting enough to keep your viewer’s attention. 

Link Building & Establishing Domain Authority 

So we have created content that potential new customers are searching for, that answers their questions and that search engines can understand, but those qualities alone don’t mean that your website or website pages will rank. 

To appear high in the search engines results pages you have to establish authority. That can be accomplished by earning links from authoritative websites, building your brand and nurturing an audience who will help amplify your content by sharing it on their social media accounts and by commenting in the comments section of your blog posts.

Google confirmed that links and quality content are two of the three most important ranking factors for search engine optimisation. Authority websites tend to link to other trustworthy sites and spammy sites tend to link to other spammy sites.

Measuring & Tracking Results

If you can’t measure something how are you expected to improve it?

It’s no different in SEO. We track everything from rankings and conversions to domain authority scores to help prove the value of SEO. Measuring the impact of our work and ongoing refinement is critical to your business’s SEO success.

While it’s common to have several SEO goals, establishing one specific primary end goal is essential. Then we can work towards that.

Final Thoughts on SEO

SEO should play an important part in your digital marketing strategy because it is a great way to generate the right traffic to your site. But don’t get hung up on the number of website visitors from search engines because quality traffic is much more important.

I tried not to get too technical in this blog post as some of the SEO jargon can take some explaining, but if you need any advice on improving your business’s SEO to grow, get in touch.

gary gleeson digital web design

Gary Gleeson

I am a professional website designer and a certified digital marketer with the Digital Marketing Institute since 2017

I have been building websites since 2010 and I hold a 2019 BSc Degree in Digital Technology & Design with Distinction from Technological University Dublin

Digital Marketing Hacks to Grow Your Business

Digital Marketing Hacks to Grow Your Business

by | Oct 16, 2019 | Digital Marketing, Digital Marketing Tips, Marketing

If your business is really good at either selling a service or a product and it isn’t growing, there is a reason for this, your marketing isn’t effective!

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Digital Marketing channels are constantly evolving and if you are using the same marketing methods that you did a few years ago, they may well not be as effective anymore. With all the new digital marketing platforms popping up and trying to keep up to date with the ongoing algorithm changes is very time-consuming, isn’t it? It’s not just Google but the social media platform are tweaking their algorithms too.

I read somewhere online last week that the average small business owner only spends around 2 hours per week marketing their business. I’d hazard a guess that most of this time is spent on social media marketing.

As a startup myself, I intend on spending 6-8 hours of marketing per week. This may well sound excessive but I really need to get my name out there. I plan on doing this every week for the first year and I will schedule time to carry out this in my diary. If I don’t schedule the time it will just get pushed back to the weekends or even worse…ending up on the bottom of my to-do list.

My main marketing method is content marketing which is designed to drive traffic to my website.

Here are some suggestions to market your business, in no particular order:

Video Marketing

Promotional videos are such a great way to market any business as they can be promoted many times across several digital platforms. Video content reaches more of your followers than image-based content in your social media newsfeeds. Plus they make great header videos on Facebook, but they can’t be any longer than 90 seconds.

They are also great to embed on your website and send out in digital email newsletters too.

Plus the audio can be used as the content for your podcasts.

Podcasting

Podcasting is one of the newer Digital Marketing channels where your followers can listen to you. It’s like having your own radio show but listeners can listen to you whenever they want.

Podcasting is growing in America and high net worth individuals prefer to take in content this way.

It is a great way to get to people that don’t use social media that much as they still want relevant content but they can absorb it in a different way. More and more people are taking to listening to podcasts whilst doing other things like running, driving, commuting and even the ironing!

You can set up a free account with Sound Cloud, but I will blog about how to set up a podcast account in the next month or so.

Email Marketing

With the explosion in social media in the last several years or so, email marketing often doesn’t get a look in and isn’t as popular as it once was. Also, after GDPR came into force on 25th May 2018 most business owners saw a dramatic cut in their subscribers and just thought that building the subscriber list back up wasn’t worth the hassle. The average open rate generally is currently only 20% which is way down from the 90s that had open rates of 80%+. But that 20% who open and read the email newsletters may well convert into customers, which really makes it all worthwhile.

I use and highly recommend MailChimp which is probably the most well-known email service provider where you can send out emails to up to 2,000 subscribers for free. I will be making a MailChimp Tutorial on YouTube in the next 2 or 3 months.

Social Media Advertising

Facebook is going towards a “play to pay” policy for business pages, so it looks like the “free lunch” with them is coming to an end. Yes, you can still post on there for free but less and less of your followers are seeing your posts. I see this a good thing because some of your competitors won’t pay, so you now have a better chance to target their customers!

Instagram, that is owned by Facebook, will be following suit. It’s not a matter of if, it’s more a matter of when.

So advertising on Facebook and Instagram where you can advertise to your target audience is a very effective way to market your business.

Social Media Marketing – Organic

Organic Social Media Marketing is predominantly the free posting on the likes of Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter & YouTube. Yes, YouTube is often thought of a video platform but it is, in fact, a social media channel. Don’t forget that it is also a search engine too where people are searching for a visual answer rather than a typed one. That’s why Google bought YouTube back in November 2016 for $1.65B and if it was an independent stock today, it would value at approximately $75B.

It is not as effective as it once was so you need to be adding other marketing methods to your marketing strategy.

Networking

Networking is often not given enough credit in this digital age, but it still remains as effective as ever. Some people prefer businesses that are highly recommended from their own network rather than spending time researching for a suitable business.

So joining business groups and industry-related attending talks are always a great way to meet potential new leads.

Speaking Live at Events

Having a captive audience is a great way to show your knowledge and in turn, pick up some new leads that may well convert to customers. But you have to give your audience value and information that they want or need, rather than a sales pitch.

This isn’t for everyone, but it is something worth considering.

Google Ads

Using Google as the first port of call to search for something is still popular with many of us. For example, If someone is looking for a Digital Marketing Agency or Website Design Agency in Mullingar there is a good chance that they will ask Google.

I read on Gavin Duffy’s Twitter account about a year ago that he thinks that word of mouth is being replaced by Google.

SEO

So many businesses use social media marketing as their main form of marketing, but the smart money is investing in SEO. Yes, SEO isn’t an expense it is, in my opinion, an investment.

Search Engine Optimisation, which is getting your business to appear on the first page of Google, is essential for service-based industries.

Conclusion

Hopefully, I have given you 1 or 2 ideas that you hadn’t thought about before.

Online Marketing is a necessity for businesses that are serious about growing but don’t just take my word for it. Try this.

If you know someone that has scaled up a business, ask them how they feel about marketing and see what they say. Then ask a small business owner that hasn’t grown for a number of years what they think of marketing and I bet you will get a totally different answer!

Gary

gary gleeson digital web design

Gary Gleeson

I am a professional website designer and a certified digital marketer with the Digital Marketing Institute since 2017

I have been building websites since 2010 and I hold a 2019 BSc Degree in Digital Technology & Design with Distinction from Technological University Dublin

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