Happy Veterans Day to our nation’s heroes
Today is Veterans Day and OurSeniors.net Magazine would like to honor our team members and readers who are veterans.
As many of us may know, Veterans Day was when World War I ended and fighting ceased with an armistice between Allied nations and Germany. It happened on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Although it initially was meant to honor those veterans of World War I, it turned into an observance day for all those who have fought toward the effort of peace during war.
OurSeniors.net has found it important throughout the years to ensure our veterans are always honored and taken care of. What we like to do is team up with organizations that focus on veterans’ services so our senior veterans know what benefits can be provided to them.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your photo representing Army, Navy and Air Force and thank you for your service!
Empathy
“Empathy” may sound like an unlikely term to use in an internet marketing agency blog, but for Axiom, it is not. It is part of our branding strategy as a specialist in marketing to seniors. Like other internet marketing agencies, we do our share of SEO techniques and finding digital marketing solutions of all kinds, but it is in marketing to seniors that we excel.
Part of the reason is the empathy we have for seniors. A big part of our activity is to act as the technical arm of the OurSeniors Family, a group of organizations that exists to serve the needs of seniors. We do not simply put up websites or publish blogs and leave it at that. As part of the OurSeniors Family, we go out and mix it up with the people we are trying to influence. We try to appreciate their needs and their tastes. In short, we empathize, trying to understand what will help seniors and what will help us to influence their decisions.
That is why we say we are better at reaching the Silver Consumer! Consider the resources we can bring to bear in helping you or your business reach out to seniors:
- OurSeniors.net
- OurSeniors.net Magazine, the printed version of our flagship publication.
- OurSeniors.net Magazine Online.
- The OurSeniorsDiscounts.net pullout section in each of the printed copies.
- OurSeniors.net online
- The OurSeniors.net Brunch and Learn Events
- Our Social Media Pages and Outreach, serving the growing senior and 55+ audience for the web, internet and online marketing
If you are trying to reach the 55+ and senior market, the Silver Consumers, let Axiom show you how. Our team can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising (still a powerful way to reach senior consumers) with printed magazine promotion and professional digital marketing solutions. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
What Are Seniors Doing Online?
An important part of marketing success is simply “knowing your market.” What do your targeted customers do when they shop, look for entertainment or recreation, make a buying decision or use the internet?
Because of our customer base and location (Axiom is based in Florida’s east coast), we have a special interest in marketing to seniors and “boomers.” The central part of Florida’s east coast is home to one of the highest concentrations of seniors in the United States. It is a vital concern to us to know what our seniors are doing, both on and off line.
Pew Research Center provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It also conducts public opinion polling, demographic research and media content analysis. Pew is a resource for accurate information about social trends of all kinds, and we have cited their findings several times. If you, or your marketing people,think that seniors are not on line, Pew Research says that you are wrong! In a recent survey, they found 87% of adults aged 50 to 64 are online.
The misimpression that seniors and boomers are not active in social media and the internet may stem from the attitude of the very oldest of the senior group. People aged 80 or more are, in fact, very small users of internet technology. However, if you want to reach the 80+ prospects, don’t forget to target their adult children; they are online and reachable.
Pew Research Center says that 82% of those aged 65 to 69 and three quarters of 70to 74-year-olds are online; about three-quarters of internet-using seniors say they go online daily. Seniors and boomers may be acting more like teenagers than you, your marketing and branding strategies give them credit for. In fact, Google research has indicated that search engines are the number one way in which boomers and seniors gather information. If they are looking for your business, it must be online and have a senior-friendly SEO strategy.
Your branding strategies need to include strong SEO techniques aimed at seniors and search engine optimization services that ensure you’re being seen by your prospects. Do not think that video content and social media are effective only when targeting adolescents or young adults. However, research has shown that mature viewers are more skeptical and analytical about what they see on social media. Your social media branding strategies should aim to inspire and educate seniors, not just to sell them.
Whenever possible, award them special offers and or invitations. Axiom helps one of its clients, Ourseniors.net, do this often. The OurSeniors.net organization is dedicated to serving the needs of seniors and “boomers” in all ways possible. One of the ways OurSeniors.net accomplishes this is through its frequent “Brunch and Learn” programs. These programs provide east coast seniors with an opportunity to meet and socialize with their contemporaries and to be educated at the same time.
These programs have addressed senior-interest subjects like estate and tax planning,choosing an adult community and picking the best Medicare supplement plan. The education and service function is an important part of the OurSeniors.net branding strategy. It is combined with video presentations on social media sites like YouTube (see the OurSeniors.net YouTube Channel) and Facebook (OurSeniors.net on Facebook).
Axiom Administrative Services knows that seniors and boomers use search engines, the internet and social media in ever increasing numbers. Axiom has channeled that use into productive digital marketing solutions for OurSeniors.net. Let us do the same for you! Axiom is more than an internet marketing agency. Axiom Administrative Services has the professional skill and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves. We can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Visited by A Bot
If you have a website, even a personal page on Facebook or Google+, you have certainly been visited by a Bot. “Bots,” short for robots, are also known as “crawlers” or “web spiders,” and they are simply software programs that do repetitive tasks over and over. Day and night, every day of the year, millions of bots crawl the internet looking for bits of information, and transmitting it back to their creators. Bot activity is so great that it accounts for about one half of all web traffic.
Many people think that all bots are malevolent invaders looking for passwords, personal data or private messages. Indeed, some are, but bots also perform functions that are essential to the internet. Without them, navigating the billions of webpages on the web would be a hopeless task. They are the explorers, sent to search out information critical to anyone who is trying to find your webpage (or a similar one).
The best-known creator of these web crawlers is Google. ‘Googlebots’ originate in one of numerous locations and thousands of computers all around the world; they use an algorithm (a secret algorithm) to determine what websites to examine, how often, what material to look for and how many pages to look at. Some large websites may contain thousands of pages. This kind of information allows Google, Bing and other indexers to classify and rank the site. That is what is important to the website owner; they want as much favorable attention from these bots and their ranking algorithms as possible.
As the bot examines each website or URL, it looks for information like page titles, location data, graphic image titles, refresh dates and links (or broken links – see our 3/26/18 Blog Article, “Broken Links, Lost Opportunities”). Googlebots, Bing bots and others are like bees, buzzing around the internet and bringing back nectar for the queen bee to process. That queen bee is the ranking algorithm that determines your page ranking.
To extend the buzzing bee analogy, the HTML code elements on a webpage are like flowers trying to attract the attention of friendly bots. They are saying. “Rank me, rank me, please rank me high.” Search engine optimization (SEO) services, the workers in internet marketing agencies and the designers of SEO strategy all devote their talents and efforts to getting that attention. Branding strategies, local SEO services and even entire business plans are built around these efforts.
How active are these bots? If you have a website, even a static, unmaintained site it is likely that a bot from one of the major indexers will visit at least once a day just to see if anything has changed. Some types of websites, like breaking news or financial data pages will be visited literally every few seconds. They must do so in order to keep results from search terms like “Amazon price” current.
For the typical webpage owner, the world of HTML code, page titles, linking and back-linking are far removed from their core interests. Cheap web design without proper attention to SEO techniques will not get the ranking they want and deserve. A professionally designed SEO strategy implemented by a solid search engine optimization company, and combined with traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising will achieve the results you need. If you are searching for a digital marketing solution that works and a branding strategy that gets your business to the top, turn to Axiom. Your business deserves more than a cheap web design.
Axiom Administrative Services has the professional small business SEO skills needed to attract the favorable attention of those buzzing bots. Please visit Axiom’s small business services page or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Dominating Local Searches
A lot of attention is paid to national and worldwide search results. The internet is big news these days, and that attention is natural. But to a local small business, a service provider or a professional practice, the race between Facebook, Amazon and YouTube may seem irrelevant. If you are a dentist practicing in Port Orange, the important thing to you is search results for a query like, “Dentists in Port Orange, Florida.”
Search engine optimization services and internet marketing agencies must pay close attention to local SEO services. As a business owner, there a number of things you can do to make dominating local search results easier.
Start by pretending that you are a local customer searching for a provider of your product or service. What are the key words that you would use in looking for that subject? Make a list of the words that occur to you and ask several other people to do the same. Be imaginative and think of broader categories; if you are in the carpet cleaning business, include keywords and phrases like “home maintenance,” “house cleaning,” “cleaning services” and “carpet cleaning.”
Make a list of essential information that should be on your website, such as business name, address, phone number, business hours, web address and contact information.
Gather images like your business site, examples of your service, satisfied customers and your business logo. Your business logo is very important; if you do not already have a logo, consider a professional logo design service.
Claim a spot in local business service listings at sites like Google’s business.google.com, Facebook’s facebook.com/business/products/pages or Yelp’s biz.yelp.com.
Get professional help to optimize your website. The days when a cheap web design would do the job are gone. An effective website must now be fast and mobile-friendly, key words must not only be present, they must be in the right places. There should be simple navigation and there should be no technical problems with the web design. A good internet marketing agency should provide local SEO services and SEO link building as well as a branding strategy that links your business to your city, town or even zip code.
Some of these steps are possible on your own, especially things like gathering information and claiming spots in business service listings. Others are beyond the technical abilities and outside the time constraints of most people. If this applies to you, digital marketing solutions that work and branding strategies that make your business stand out can still be had. Turn to Axiom, an internet marketing agency with the professional and small business SEO skills needed to get your web presence the ranking it deserves. Axiom Administrative Services can combine traditional marketing tools like direct mail advertising with local SEO services to build your branding strategy.
Please visit Axiom’s small business services page by clicking this LINK or call Axiom at 800-888-6348.
Everyone welcome Janae Corrado, the newest Member to the “A” Team
Janae Corrado serves as the Director for Creative Design for Axiom Administrative Services. Her primary responsibility is to design visual promotional materials for clients of OurSeniors.net Resource Directory Magazine.
When Janae isn’t designing with Axiom, she serves as adjunct professor overseeing online instruction of Art and Design courses at Daytona State College and painting in her home studio.
How Does 3D Printing Affect Marketing?
Internet marketing may have taken the world by storm, but marketing off-the-grid is slowly catching up as well. With the advent of 3-dimensional printing, regular marketing has reached greater heights in Anchorage. With 3D printing, a plastic model of a product can easily be presented to buyers.
