Here we go with our 4th post on marketing your business with Instagram. Have you tried any of our suggestions yet? One of the hardest things to do when you are marketing with a new technique is to just get started so, if you haven’t done anything yet, do it now. What do you have to lose?
Let’s talk about how Instagram can help with your search engine rankings and bring more traffic to your website.
If you know even a small bit about SEO you know that these days SEO is not enough without adding social media into the marketing plan. And it’s not just about the search engines but about building followers and gaining exposure for your business.
Social media is very powerful if used correctly. And not using it can be catastrophic these days. With the changes in the Google algorithm these days, it’s very difficult to be sure where you stand with them. And if something happens and Google slaps your website you are in big trouble if all of your traffic is coming from Google alone. And you might not have done anything wrong to make this happen. There are a lot of things that can cause problems with your Google rankings.
It’s best to use a variety of methods to bring traffic to your site.
One thing that many people don’t realize is that words are not the only way that people can find their website. Visitors can come from from all types of places including other websites, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other places. Google images is also a great way to get visitors to your site.
And This is where Instagram comes into play.
Many party rental company owners don’t realize how images effect their search engine rankings and they rarely take the time to properly name and tag their images. When in fact, images attract attention faster than almost any other type of media. By tagging, we actually mean using keywords that might help the phrases get found. Although Google images is a great way to build traffic, search engines can’t actually see images. So it’s VERY important when you are doing any marketing online that the search engines can tell what your image is all about and this is why you tag.
Here’s a good example: You have a great photo of a client on your mechanical bull. You post your photo (on your website or anywhere online) but you don’t add any words. So when the search engines see your photo they may see something like image024.jpg. That’s NOT going to help you. Your photo needs to be tagged with something descriptive like “Mechanical Bull Riding in Orlando” or something like that.
SEO professionals and marketing experts understand this and are all using Instagram, because they know that the huge amount of traffic this powerful network receives every day won’t go
unnoticed by the search engine and they are trying to cash in by posting relevant keyword targeted images that not only increase their search engine rankings but will also drive traffic towards their business.
As we have mentioned earlier Instagram can be a very strong tool when it comes building followers for your brand. With the constant algorithm changes from Google and other search engines it has become much harder to keep your website ranked high in the search engine results.
And we’re going to say it again….DON’T count on just one place to drive traffic to your business. This can absolutely kill your business if you ever run into a problem with a specific search engine.
And of course content is still king, but it has never been more important to consider photos when optimizing the content to help you rank well in search engines. With Instagram to drive traffic it’s most important to use good quality images that captures the attention of your audience. But don’t ever neglect to use Instagram at it’s full potential by tagging the photos.
When you start posting your images consider what you are selling and make sure your photos show what you have to offer. Remember that any type of sales is always to fill a need of your prospective client. So in the case of party rentals, you are all about fun and your images should reflect this fact.
You want to use creative, funny, intriguing and maybe sometimes controversial (be careful with this though) images. Then watch closely to see how followers react. You will need to monitor things carefully in the beginning until you find out what works best for your best. I assume by now you are following your competitors to see what’s working for them. Following your competitors is important….it’s the best way to market your product better than they do.
Be consistent with your postings.
You always want to post on a regular basis. Consistency is a very basic tool In any type of online marketing. Have you ever gone to a FB page and found the last post to be 6 months ago? These days, to hold interest of new clients you have to have a social media presence that is up to date.
Make sure to use hashtags
The symbol # is called a hashtag and it is what you use to add keywords or topics to your images. Hashtags are what makes your photos visible and they also make it easier for people to find your content.
Don’t forget to link it up.
And by that we mean link your instagram account with your Facebook page. This way your Facebook fans have the opportunity to like and comment on your photos. This easily gets you more marketability out of each image upload.
And as we said before, you have the knowledge, now put it to work for you and your business. We have one last lesson coming soon. In the meantime, get out there and use the best tools to build your business.
