Ten years ago, businesses could put together a nice-looking website that basically acted as a digital brochure, and feel confident that they had built a web presence. On today's information superhighway, that type of website design is destined to become roadkill.
Facebook can be a powerful marketing tool for businesses, but in order to wield that tool effectively, you need to understand what its strengths are, and how to use the myriad of metrics provided to determine what's working and what's not. Many business owners are under the mistaken impression that Facebook page likes are the most important statistic for their accounts. Page likes are important to a point, but in the end, they don't directly equate to leads or sales, and counting them doesn't even tell half the story.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) have become critical issues for any business with an online presence. The Internet is full of advice on how businesses can improve traffic, conversions, and sales by using better SEO and SEM techniques. If your business doesn't depend on customers coming to your physical location, a generalized tune-up of your SEO and SEM practices may yield adequate results, but if you rely on local customers being able to find your business, you need a more specialized approach for local lead generation.