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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 is right around the corner!
Mar
22
Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines
A web developer knows how to build a website and how to create a web page that interacts effectively with visitors. Web developers can often organize information and design web sites with great visual appeal.
Generally speaking however, web developers are neither experienced Internet marketers nor skilled copywriters. They specialize in following, tweaking and implementing the specifications provided to them by small business owners and corporate marketing departments. A web developer is a technician skilled at converting a set of instructions into an interactive web site.
Launching and promoting a web site and building an Internet presence require more than a development effort. Here are eight other elements that will likely figure into your online presence:
- Your niche and perhaps micro-niche - What specific need or needs will your products or services fill?
- Positioning and branding - What distinguishes you from your competition? How can you position your brand so that it’s at the top of it’s own category?
- Targeting - Who will use your brand and how can you connect with them online and offline?
- Your keywords - What terms are people searching for that are relevant to your brand and which are the best ones to compete for?
- Content - What do you say on your site? How do you communicate your ideas, and how do you weave in the keywords indicated by your keyword research?
- Contextual linking - Creating meaningful hyperlinks within your site content that help the reader and the search engines.
- Link building - Getting the best sites to link back to you and other SEO strategies to attract search visitors and drive referrals to your website. Listing your site in appropriate directories. Submitting your site and content to social bookmarking sites, and writing press releases and articles that will also link back to you.
- Web promotion and list building - Leveraging video sites, social networking sites, e-zines and PPC ads to drive even more people to visit and register at your website or your blog.
To build a successful web presence requires a team of marketing, design and development professionals to tend to each aspect of your online campaign. In many organizations, some people will assume several roles.
If you’re a small business owner, I recommend that you let a marketing consultant bring together and manage the expertise and skill sets that will be required.
If you have more time to invest than money, Site Build It! is an inexpensive option. You learn each phase as you go and are guided step-by-step through your project.
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Tags: branding, Internet marketing, Internet presence, keyword research, Marketing, Search Engines, SEO, Site Build IT!, Social Media, web development, Web Marketing
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Hey Larry,
You hit the nail right on the head with this article. Web developers are just that and most don’t know squat about social media. They are very smart and probably could learn pretty quick but that is not their specialty so lets let them build sites and we will work with the social media
Bruce
Now that I’ve got my blog in pretty good shape, I’ll be working on my website again next. I’ve let it slide in favor of being more active daily on my blog. I’ll keep your tips in mind.
Morgan Mandel
morganmandel.blogspot.com
@morganmandel on Twitter
Yeah it’s funny how one “hat” may seem like it automatically would give you an edge in another area of expertise, but it really doesn’t work that way does it.
Copy writing is the perfect example for me - I’m getting to where writing pretty decent sales letters is second nature, yet blogging has become torturous.
And have for sure gotten to a place where, even though I can “do” graphics - it’s far more effective to have someone who does great artwork ‘get her done’ than to try and be all the parts.
Take you for example - far better for the likes of me to partner with you and let you do all this social stuff that you do best - at a minimum it’s better (for me anyway - lol) to let you keep tabs on it all and then check in for my dose of “how to” as needed.
Your information has been indispensable Larry.
Thanks for all that you do!
Andrea
I am so curious, what caused your mind to venture here? I would never have thought of it. Kudos Larry for opening my mind and others to things we might take for granted.
I am a computer programmer and I agree 100% that I am not a marketer. It took me a while…about four years to figure out what copy writing is and why people do what they do.
I am still learning, but your eight points are the action steps that must be followed by any person interested in making money on the Internet.
Social media marketing is the way to go, and many companies are adapting their marketing strategies to fit this new development! Thanks for the info and tips.
Thank you everybody for your comments.
LaTease, I write a lot about social media and online social networking, but I do so from a marketing perspective.
Most of the articles on this blog relate to marketing or critical success factors.
These days I’m much more a social media and marketing consultant than I am a business analyst.
Hi Larry! Thanks for the eight point online presence run down. It’s a very helpful list for those of us trying to accomplish it ourselves! I must agree, it’s better to have the experts in their field take over but when resources are limited you have to do it yourself. Deb
The hub for all of this is Page Rank. Without a PR of 5 or higher, you are just spinning your wheels. Plain and simple fact. Many waste time linking and networking with PR 3 and lower.
The Internet is a cruel place ! … Ha haaaaa
I like your ideas here. Hello from SpeedyCat
I agree Eric that Page Rank is important but don’t agree that it’s all-important.
It’s a matter of degree, and in any case, not every niche is so highly competitive as to mandate a top Page Rank.
Good post.
It actually is funny to see that sometimes it happens also the other way around.
I think both marketers and developers have to understand each other (speaking a common language) and most importantly understand what they are working on (project’s aim/objectives).
Andrea
This is a very good post. Great pointers on how to make your site pave its way to the online market.
Thank you for sharing such brilliant ideas.
Very good article, I totally agree. Web developers are normally very good at developing websites but that is normally about their limits. Although a web developer could create a better website than me, I enjoy being able to do the complete package. As I work for myself I have to know about every aspect of web design, SEO, promotion, social media, link building, etc. Rather than having to keep up with one specific niche there is the need to keep on top of every area.
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