Two of the most important factors for any growing online business are SEO and social media marketing. But is one more important than the other? Should you put more time and energy into one and not the other? Which can make a bigger difference on your bottom line?

Let’s explore some of these questions.

SEO Is More Important for Raw Traffic

SEO will get you more traffic up front than social media will. Though social media is gaining more and more traction every day, they still don’t come close to what a number one ranking can do for your site in terms of raw traffic.

On the other hand, top search rankings are hard to achieve. They can often take months, even years. They take a lot of time investment and often a lot of monetary investment as well.

SEO is a longer-term strategy than social media. You might get more traffic overall than social media, but it takes more effort and has a randomness factor as well. You don’t know if it’ll actually work.

Social Media is More Important for Reputation

On the other hand, social media is free. It’s easy to manage and doesn’t take months before you see results. That said, you won’t see the same kind of traffic that you’d get from a number one ranking search listing.

Social media has a lot of side benefits that go beyond the raw traffic stats. Prominent social media figures build a strong reputation in a space, which often increases their conversion rates because of their reputation. Likewise, they’re more likely to get invited to speaking engagements, where many profitable business deals can be made.

The key to good social media marketing is to provide something your users want, consistently. If that’s a weekly how-to video, then make sure you provide that video every week, without fail.

The Two Are Merging

Most SEO experts agree that search engines are taking many social media factors into account when ranking pages. In other words, instead of just looking at backlinks and PageRank, the search engines now look at your Facebook likes and reposts as well to help determine rankings.

When it comes down to it, the secret to successful SEO and social media are really the same. Provide good content, consistently. It’s what people tend to pass on and it’s what the search engines are looking for.

One may be more or less effective for specific businesses, but if you focus 90% of your efforts on creating a great user experience and 10% on marketing techniques, you’ll have a great chance of succeeding with both.

Is one more important than the other? “Yes,” in the sense that one may work better than the other for your business in the short term. “No,” in the sense that in the long run, they’re more or less the same.

Starting a blog is easy – keeping a blog interesting and fresh is a whole other matter. While many marketers have no trouble beginning a blog, the sheer number of abandoned blogs around the ‘net speaks to the fact that many marketers don’t know what to do to keep a blog going. According to blogging experts, the key to keeping a blog going is to post frequently. This means that you’re going to need a ever present stream of content coming into your blog.

You may be intimidated by the thought of having to come up with lots of topic ideas. Finding topics for your blog posts are easy if you use the following ideas.

1. Captions

Your blog should be timely and there’s no better way to attract attention on your blog than to tap into some ongoing news. No matter what your niche is you can find news stories and breaking information that will help fuel timely blog posts. Look for captions, or headlines, to stay on top of thing. Sign up for Google Alerts (it’s free) and set up alerts on important words in your niche. This way you’ll be able to see the news in your niche and blog about current topics.

2. Comments

The comments section in your blog can be a great source of writing inspiration. Let’s say you have a post on your marketing blog about keyword research. Within the comments section, a few people start asking about how to use keywords in articles for article marketing. Voila! You have your next blog post. Look through your comments section to identify topics that you can write about or questions you can answer in the form of a blog post.

3. Companions

Are there some websites or other resources that your niche needs to know about? Write a few resource list posts. Resource lists posts are very easy to write and they provide maximum value to your readers because they can get the information that they need easily. When you can’t think of anything else to write about you can pull together a helpful list for your readers.

4. Community

Keep your finger on the pulse of your niche. Watch other blogs in your niche and see what they are writing about. You can take a different angle on the same topic, or cover an area of the topic that the original author missed. If you disagree with the author, feel free to go ahead and express you opinion on your blog. Other bloggers can be a great source of information so be sure to get involved in the community.

5. Collection

Start collecting a list of quick tips you’d like to share with your niche. These can be inspired by your personal experience with the niche, from other blog posts you’ve read or from other products in your niche. When you find yourself stuck for blog post ideas, you can write a quick tips post.

These tips just scratch the surface of where you can find ideas for blog posts to populate your blog. Start keeping a notepad file with blog post ideas and you’ll never be at a loss for material.

There’s no doubt about it, having a team of affiliates working for you is a sure-fire way to grow your business. However, finding the right affiliates could mean the difference in profits and performance. Here’s how to recruit affiliates:

Market to your list. Your list is made up of people who are interested in you and your products or services already. They may be the ideal people to work as affiliates because they’re already familiar with your business. And presumably they like you – that helps. You can send out occasional “Promote our Products” type of email message and you can include an affiliate sign-up link in the footer of your email.

Make sure you have a link on your website. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A simple “Partner with us” link that redirects them to an information page will do the trick.

Get listed in an affiliate directory. That way affiliate marketers who are looking for your type of product or service can find you easily.

Advertise on relevant websites, forums and blogs.

Get noticed! Your blog and social networking interactions can drive traffic to your website. If you’re a force to be reckoned with, people will want to join you. They’ll want to become part of your success.

Network offline too. Attend seminars and workshops. Get out and make friends. Partnerships are often forged during the coffee breaks at seminars and conferences.

Make sure your affiliate offer is worth noticing. In addition to a nice chunk of the profits, make sure you’re giving your potential affiliates all the incentives they need to sign up. Bonus downloads, freebie marketing materials, and frequent pay outs are just a few perks.

Research your market. It’s often pretty easy to see what affiliate marketers are marketing to your industry. Once you’ve identified a few key affiliate marketers, contact them personally and make your pitch.

Be sure to promise a lot and then over-deliver. One of the best ways to recruit affiliates is to have other affiliates rave about you. Word of mouth is a great seller. The best way to accomplish that is to promise a lot and then to over-deliver.

Create the best products or services and deliver. One of the best ways to recruit great affiliates is to have a great product or service for them to promote. Good products and services are easy to promote and therefore easier to profit from. And they get to feel good about promoting you.

Affiliates can really take your business to the next level. If you’re ready to start an affiliate program, take the time to plan it well. Decide how you’re going to pay and reward your affiliates and then make it happen. Spread the word through all of your current marketing channels and don’t be afraid to try a few new ones.

I’m so excited – today is the day…book launch day for How the Fierce Handle Fear. One of my favorite clients ever is Janet Slack of Solopreneur.biz and she is one of the co-authors of this fabulous book!

In addition to Janet Slack, you will get the wisdom of:

Andrea J. Lee
Donald Trump
Sandie Glass
Sophfronia Scott
Howard Kay
and many others

You’ve probably heard from me already about How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times, I’ve written blog posts and tweets about how it’s helped my life. The best part is if you purchase the book within the next 24 hours, you’ll get a powerful free bonus. (And did I tell you that the proceeds from the book go to charity?)

These are challenging times and I really believe that your ability to handle fear is one of the most important skills you can master. This book of the best ideas of 22 amazing experts will help with exactly that whether the issue is little scary moments or the big, mind-numbing fearful events.

http://www.HowtheFierceHandleFear.com

Now, here’s the offer good for today only:

If you buy your copy of How the Fierce Handle Fear from Amazon.com within the next 24 hours you’ll also get exclusive access to the complete audio collection of the groundbreaking “Fearless Fridays Telesummit”. This was the recent event featuring over 30 amazing speakers offering their best tips on handling fear.

Just go to http://www.HowtheFierceHandleFear.com for details on how to get the recordings and other bonuses.

The proceeds from the book sales will go to Frank McKinney’s Caring House Project Fund which provides needed help to the desperately poor and homeless throughout the world.

I would love for you to share this link with your family and friends. Getting a grip on fear will help us all to move out of these challenging times and on to the better ones ahead.

http://www.HowtheFierceHandleFear.com

Build Trust: Give Something Away for Free

Your relationship with your client is one of both necessity and pleasure. You need clients to stay in business. And hopefully, you enjoy connecting with your clients. To build a good rapport and maintain trust, it takes a plan and ongoing strategies for success. Here are a few ideas you can use to build and maintain a positive relationship with your clients.

Communicate with them often. Now maybe you already do this. Maybe your customers receive regular emails from you. However, what you say in these emails is important. If each and every email you send is a promotion or asking for a sale then they’re going to stop reading your emails pretty darn quickly. They’re going to lose trust in you.

On the other hand, if your email communications are chock full of valuable information, value, and benefit then you’re building trust. Customers will look forward to our information.

The same goes for social networking. You can communicate with your customers on a regular basis. Instead of posting promo link after promo link, post real, human interactions.

Prove you’re worth trusting. If you are a service provider then it’s imperative to post samples of your work on your website. And if you’re a service provider, retailer or even an information marketer or affiliate marketer you can provide case studies to demonstrate the value of your products or services. This provides credibility and it makes it easier to trust you as a provider and business owner.

Give away things for free. Free can be used as a marketing and relationship building tactic on many levels. For new prospects you build trust by providing valuable information and free downloadable information. For current customers, they love freebies too. You can give away reports, videos, and ebooks . You can even take it a step further and give current customers a coupon or freebie.

For example, current customers can be offered a free report as a loyalty thank you. You can even start a loyalty program that awards customers with points or dollars they can use toward future purchases.

Be Transparent. Transparency is a word that’s thrown around a lot lately. It essentially means that you don’t hide any of your polices or procedures. You’re 100% up front about who you are and what you’re about. This may mean making sure you have a double opt in for your email signup, a privacy statement that’s easy to find, contact information and even a FAQ page. Transparency helps customers and clients trust you.

Show gratitude. Depending on the size of your client base and the nature of your business, ending clients and customers a personal message is a great way to build rapport. Send cards and gifts during the holidays if it fits your budget. Or just send a note now and again with some helpful information.

There are many ways to build rapport and trust with your clients. Begin by taking a look at y our clients and what you can do for them. Then set about to create an ongoing plan to connect and build trust. A little planning and action can go a long way to creating a business that is successful today and ten years from now.

Goggle Buzz is one of the newer social networking sites today, and it’s rapidly becoming more popular all the time. One reason, of course, is the Google name that is attached to it. However, it’s not just popular because of this. There is plenty of substance to back it up.

How do you access it?

It’s entirely located within your Gmail account, and it’s free. All you need is a Gmail account.

Who would benefit from using it?

Anybody just looking to catch up with friends could use it. However, it’s especially effective for businesses.

It is inspired by Facebook, Twitter and other popular social sites, as it takes on aspects of each. For instance, it enables you to upload pictures and videos. And you can easily have a conversation with other users. All of this enables you to give your business personality.

So how can your business benefit from it? Here are five reasons you might want to start using it:

Post wherever you are

One of the strengths of Google Buzz is that it works great with mobile devices. This allows you to post wherever you want, quickly and easily.

It even has a feature that enables you to speak into the phone, and it will automatically convert your words into a post. In other words, you don’t even have to write. This only works with certain applications, but it can be very convenient.

And you can let others know where you are posting from, if you want. This could be useful if you want to give your posts more personality.

Convenient

It links with the more established social sites. Therefore, you can see other people’s activity on Facebook and Twitter without even having to leave Google Buzz. This means you can view other people’s tweets right from the Buzz platform.

Segment your posts

One of the unique features about Google Buzz is that you can choose who you are posting to. For instance, you can just post to a certain group of contacts, or the entire Buzz network. It all depends on who you want to see your post.

This is especially useful for businesses. For instance, if you have a list of proven customers, you can do a post only they can see. And you can then write a message for those who haven’t bought from you yet. Therefore, you can tailor your posts to your audience, much like segmenting an email list.

Blog compatible

You can link your Buzz account to your blog. Therefore, whenever you update your blog, it will update your Buzz account. If you have a lot of followers, this could translate into a lot of money provided you have good blog content.

Filter

If you are subscribing to others’ RSS feeds, the Buzz has a filter that eliminates posts that wouldn’t be of interest to you. You just tell it what to block. This saves you time, because you don’t have to sort through hundreds of posts you don’t care about.

The bottom line is, you would be smart to use the Google Buzz, because it gives your business personality. While it will require time and effort, the Buzz can be very profitable for you.

Are you ready to give Google Buzz a go? If so, Follow Me on Google Buzz

It’s no secret that getting younger customers is critical. It’s important, because you could potentially have a client for life if you handle the relationship correctly.

So how do you attract them? Here are few tips to make it happen:

Know where young consumers hang out

One of the obvious places they go to is social media sites. The biggest age group using the popular social networking sites is the eighteen to twenty-four bracket. YouTube, Twitter, and MySpace are all examples of social sites that offer a huge amount of profit opportunity.

Know who your customer is

Trying to target all young people is not going to work because it’s not specific enough. You will want to narrow it down to a certain age and gender to be more effective. This will enable you to speak exactly to your customer, instead of trying to design some generic advertising that appeals to everyone.

Get in a conversation

More and more, young people are doing business with companies they trust. Trust is one of the most important words today for business.

How do you build trust?

You have to show you care about their needs, and can help them. If you ram one advertising message after another down their throats, they will know you just want the money.

So you first have to identify their needs, and show that you have a solution for them. You want to engage your target market in a conversation and answer their questions.

This will establish you as an expert. So you first have to give them a lot of great free information. If your free information isn’t that good, they will assume that what you are selling isn’t that valuable either.

Ask them questions. This will show them you care about what they want. After you’ve done this, you can explain how your product would meet their needs.

Use video

As mentioned above, video social networking sites are really taking off. Video is one of the best ways to engage your customer. This is because people can comment on them, much like a blog.

From the comments, you will be able to see the needs that your customers have. Then you can design you product to better meet those needs.

Emphasize benefits

More than ever, young people don’t care about how long you’ve been in business. They are interested in what you can do for them. Your credentials aren’t as critical as the benefits you provide to them.

So don’t talk about yourself, talk about what you can do for your customer. It might be useful to mention you are an expert, but the main focus should be on the benefits.

Remember, you are in the business of helping people. That’s the only way to make money. So engaging your customers, finding out their needs, and meeting those needs is how to attract younger customers.

How do you keep your current clients? This is a huge problem with most businesses. They go to all the trouble of finding a new client, only to lose them.

Don’t let this happen. When you carefully cultivate a relationship with your clients, you can potentially have a customer for life. And most importantly, they will refer their friends to you, which will get you free business.

Referral advertising is one of the most effective there is, because people are always more likely to believe what their friends say about a business than the company themselves. Here are four tips to help you keep your customers happy.

Great customer service

This is easily one of the most important aspects of retaining clients. If they call you, don’t wait days to get back to them. Contact them immediately. And make sure the people you hire to handle the phone calls are extremely knowledgeable about your business.

Get feedback

For instance, if you sell a product on how to get and attract affiliates, you might want to ask clients what their biggest affiliate management challenges are. Also, ask them for feedback on what you can do to improve your product and/or service. These gestures just show them you care about their opinion.

Apologize profusely for errors

If you are ever in the wrong, don’t simply apologize and forget about it. And definitely do not blame it on the client! Instead, at the minimum give let them know you were wrong and go above and beyond to make it right.

Over-deliver

Many businesses build unrealistic expectations with lofty claims, and then the client is disappointed in the final product. Instead, make sure you always deliver more than they expect. You do this by under-promising and then delivering more than they anticipate. It’s no more complex than that.

For instance, if you are setting up an affiliate program, be realistic about when you can get the finished product to them. Then attempt to get it quicker than you said. Saying you will get it to them by a certain date and then failing to do this always leaves a bad taste.

Another great method to over-deliver is to provide unannounced bonuses with your product. This is done all the time in the information product world, but it can easily be incorporated to physical goods as well.

For instance, if you set up an affiliate program, you might include an extensive written overview of the program for free. Just think of related times your customers will want down the road, and include them as a surprise bonus.

If you implement just a few of these strategies, you will be amazed at how many of your current clients keep buying from you. And don’t forget that they will also refer you new business as well. Take time to carefully manage your customer relationships, and you could be profitable beyond your wildest dreams.

When you started your business you had a plan, a business plan. It no doubt mentioned something about future expansion. Now is the time to put those plans in place.

The best time to think about expanding your business is before it actually happens. Then, you can put your plan into action much more quickly and seamlessly. Part of expanding is outsourcing.

Are you ready for a multi-VA team?

It was a team of one, but now you are happily getting too big for a one-person show. To keep moving upward, you’ll need others to make it happen.

Choosing your team

The team will be comprised mostly of other virtual assistants. These aren’t just any virtual assistants – they think like you do and have a similar work ethic. Just like your clients did with you, you’ll want to do some research and interviewing to find just the right people.

You may have already thought about what jobs you will outsource. Keeping it simple is a good way to start until you get a feel for how the team will work together. Interviewing is only the first step. Keep in mind that you may want to outsource more delicate matters later. Look for a variety of skills in the people that you choose for your team. The more skills that they have, the more useful they will turn out to be to you.

Starting off on the right foot

Get all of your ducks in a row from the beginning. This includes contracts, agreements and instructions. Each virtual assistant will need a contract that spells out, but is not limited to: pay per hour, pay schedule, process portfolio, etc. Agreements between you and your subcontracting VAs stipulating confidentiality and non-compete clauses are essential.

Written instructions about how to do what you ask avoids as many mistakes as possible later. Even though your subcontractors know how to say, write a report, they don’t know how you write reports for your clients. Pleasing your clients is the important part here.

Crossing all the Ts

One “T” in particular is taxes. You are not just responsible for yourself but others who work for you. Hiring subcontractors is considered freelancing. This is another area that needs to be specified in any contracts with your team. As a subcontractor, they will be responsible for their own taxes and insurance. What you will provide (for US workers) is a 1099-MISC form for them that specify what you pay them so that they can use it to file their taxes.

The cost of subcontracting will figure into your hourly or per project rate for your clients.

Planning ahead for business growth will make you healthy, wealthy and wise.