A survey of business owners and marketing professionals conducted by HubSpot has revealed some useful information about inbound marketing for small business owners:

• Among the survey’s respondents, social media and blogs account for 8 percent of sales leads generated — the same amount as trade shows.
• The top sources of inbound lead generation are search engine optimization at 16 percent, followed by email marketing and PPC at 13 percent and 14 percent respectively.
• While outbound marketing methods, such as PR and traditional online and print advertising, account for 25 percent of leads, the cost per lead is almost three times the cost of inbound methods ($84 per lead for inbound marketing compared to $220 per lead for outbound marketing).

If you haven’t experimented with inbound marketing methods, such as SEO, PPC, blogging, and social media, you’re missing out on the most cost effective way to generate sales leads. With all of the social media options currently available, now is a great time to get started.

For more facts and figures, check out the full survey results at HubSpot or this data breakdown at Media Post News.

It seems like everyone’s starting a blog these days – with good reason. Blogging is one of the best ways to reach your audience, boost search engine rankings, and establish yourself as an expert in your industry.

Before you rush out and start a blog, though, there are several steps to make sure you’re doing it right. Blogging is effective, but if you do it wrong it can be a waste of time at best and a PR disaster at worst.

Here’s how to get started and stay on the right track:

Slow down

As a self-proclaimed blogaholic, I know how exciting starting a new blog can be. I’ve done it myself about 50 times. The problem is, when you start a blog without planning, organizing your thoughts, and researching, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Too many blogs start out with five posts a day and dwindle to a post a week before they eventually stop updating at all. Don’t let that happen to your business blog.

Research

Start by reading as many blogs in your industry as possible. Add them to a blog reader (I like Google Reader) by clicking the “subscribe” button. Stay up to date with what others in your industry are writing, and be familiar with how they maintain their blogs.

Plan

After spending some time reading industry blogs, sit down and make a serious plan for yours. It’s not enough to know your industry. You have to plan a purpose for your blog. Do you want to share information or expertise? Who is your audience, customers or other businesses? This information will dictate how and what you write. Be sure you know the answers before you start.

Personalize

Don’t run your business blog from a free blogging platform (like www.domain.blogspot.com) or from a separate domain. Add it to your current domain in a subfolder (www.yourdomain.com/blog). WordPress is probably the most popular blogging platform because it’s free and relatively easy to use, but there are a ton of other options such as Moveable Type, TypePad and Drupal. Setup can be pretty technical. If you’re not comfortable setting it up yourself, may I suggest a professional?

Design

Don’t just use the default design template. Your blog is an extension of your web site and your company; it should look professional. Blogging platforms are built for customization. Play with different designs to make your blog look professional and fit with the design of your web site. You don’t want visitors to feel like your blog is a separate site.

Post

The more you post, the better. Keep reading other industry blogs, actively seek out post ideas, and make notes of interesting things that come to you throughout the day. This can be easier if you get several people in your company involved. You’re immersed in your business all day every day; now is your chance to share all of your ideas.

Edit

This is the most common mistake I see in business blogs. Your blog should be maintained and edited by a writer. If several people contribute, designate one person with writing and editing skills as editor to maintain consistency, grammar and spelling, and overall message. Content is the most important aspect of any blog, and yours should be professional and well written. It’s not enough to post frequently — quality outweighs quantity, grammar and spelling count, and consistency is essential.

Participate

Remember all of those industry blogs you read to get started? Don’t stop reading them now! Network with other bloggers in your industry, seek inspiration from their ideas (but don’t use their ideas without linking back to them and NEVER copy and paste their posts into your own blog), and participate in the conversation. Comment on interesting posts. Not only will this get your name out into the community, but your comment will include a link back to your blog and increase your traffic.

Now that we’ve established that social media isn’t going anywhere, you’re probably wondering how you can harness the power of social media for your business. You don’t have to be the President to make it work.

But first, a word on social media marketing: If you want to make the most of your social media campaign, it is essential that you get involved. An Internet marketing consultant can help you set up your campaign and teach you how to use it, but in the end its success or failure depends on you.

Social media requires that you put a face on your business, whether it’s yours or someone within the company to whom you designate that responsibility.

And that’s only the beginning. Social media also requires constant participation and maintenance. It can be a lot of work.

It’s also no use if you don’t contribute to the community in a meaningful way. Social media can be a powerful marketing tool, but if all you do is market then you’ll be ignored. You have to offer something useful to the other users, and most of them crave personal interaction. You have to mix your marketing messages with valuable participation.

But don’t let that scare you. It’s also a fun, targeted way to reach your audience on a personal level with wide range of great results for marketing, search engine rankings, and traffic. And it’s free!

Here are my favorite social media sites with some tips on how to use them:

Facebook

Facebook has surpassed MySpace, which used to be the top social networking site. Facebook also offers a PPC platform, which in my experience hasn’t offered great results. The power of Facebook lies in its networking capabilities.

While Facebook does not allow businesses to build personal profiles, you have two options for promoting your business: building a business profile page and creating a group for your business. I suggest both. Use the page as a central hub for information about your business on Facebook, and use the group as a forum where fans and friends can interact with you and each other.

Facebook is people oriented. The only way it’s going to work is if you’re willing to get involved in the conversation. You’ll need to build a personal profile, seek out friends in your target audience, and participate in groups related to your industry.

Twitter

Twitter has quickly grown to become one of the most powerful social networking tools on the Web. It’s also the social networking tool that many novices have the hardest time getting into. Twitter allows users to broadcast short, 140-word messages to other users who “follow” them.

It’s no fun, and no use, if your target demographic isn’t using it. I suggest you do some research to determine if you can reach your audience through Twitter. If so, start following them and they’ll follow you back. Use it to share useful industry information, personal messages, and news about your business. If you have a blog, link it to your Twitter account so your followers will be automatically notified of new posts.

Oh, and be sure to follow me (@KGSams) and Amanda (@AmandaKRue) for news on Sage Island, marketing, and Internet marketing.

Social bookmarking

Sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, and StumbleUpon allow users to bookmark certain pages. Some have a voting system that ranks sites based on popularity. Others simply track how many times a page has been bookmarked to let you know what content is most popular on your site or allow users to find your site if it matches their interests.

If you blog, frequently update your inventory, or offer information or tools on your site that are useful to your industry, you might try adding a social bookmarking tool (like AddThis or AddtoAny). Be mindful, though — these sites work best with great content that’s constantly being updated. If you add social bookmarking to a page and bookmark it yourself, it’s unlikely to gain any traction if it’s not useful to users.

This is by no means a complete list of social media sites that can help promote business. There are hundreds of other sites and social networking tools. These are just the popular ones I’ve found most effective. But social media marketing is like any other marketing: different tactics work for different businesses. Spend some time exploring and consult with an Internet marketing professional, and you’re sure to find a social media strategy that works for you.

In November, Google announced a new way for users to personalize search results pages. This blend of social media, bookmarking, and search is a new way to tailor search engines to your needs.

Once you sign into your Google account, you’re able to remove, rearrange, and comment on search results. While you can save and share these notes, they do not affect the way that Google ranks pages for other users … yet.

But this is only the beginning for interactive search. It shows that search engines are noticing the popularity and usability of social bookmarking sites like Digg, and may indicate a shift in the search world from shadowy algorithm-based rankings to a format that resembles social bookmarking  in the near future.

This afternoon within minutes after President Barack Obama was officially sworn into office, a seamless transition took place at the official website of the presidency. WhiteHouse.gov transformed into a sleek, modern new design with an interactive interface to represent the new president’s 21st Century agenda.

Similar to the administration’s transition website, Change.gov, the new White House website features extensive use of social media. From a new White House blog to weekly video addresses (which will also be posted at the President’s official YouTube page), the new administration promises to offer “communication, transparency, and participation” for Americans through its social media efforts.

According to the first blog post, written by the administration’s Director of New Media Macon Phillips, the site “will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world.”

For the first time, the official website of the President has become a point of connection and community rather than a static portal for information. “Like the transition website and the campaign’s before that, this online community will continue to be a work in progress as we develop new features and content for you,” Phillips writes.

I’m looking forward to seeing what social media can do for the Office of the Presidency, but I’m also excited about what President Obama’s use of social media can do for social media marketing. Utilizing social media in a campaign is old news — after all, how else can a candidate reach “the youth vote”? But no candidate has ever used it as seriously or as successfully as President Obama did.

Adding social media to the administration’s official website has proven once and for all that social media is no longer “for kids.” From the official White House blog to the Presidential YouTube page to the White House twitter page (@thewhitehouse), President Obama has cemented what social media marketers already knew — it’s time to take this crazy social media stuff seriously.

In my opinion, this change is long overdue. Better late than never, though.

Whether you’re new to search engine optimization or looking to update your SEO with a fresh approach, these tips will ensure that your site is search engine friendly, user friendly, and up to date.

Add quality, text-based content.

Graphics may look pretty, but search engines prefer good, keyword-rich copy. Make sure your site has at least 250 words of text on each page.

Break text up with headers.

HTML headers (denoted with an H1, H2, H3, etc.) make pages easier to read. They also carry extra keyword weight for search engines. Use keywords in your headers to let search engines and users know the most important themes of each page.

Use keywords for anchor text in links.

Anchor text is the actual text users see on your links. Instead of using words like “click here,” use keywords that are relevant to what users will see when they click the link.

Blog.

Blogging adds a constant stream of fresh content to your site, which makes both users and search engines happy. It also offers a personal voice and an interactive element to your website.

Put your customers before the search engines.

The bottom line is quality, user-friendly content drives traffic. Keep search engine optimization tactics in mind, but never sacrifice content quality for SEO.

Sage Island’s work on Florblanca.com was recently honored with the Silver Award for the best tourism website in the 2008 Davey Awards competition. Designed using Adobe Flash and stunning photography, the award-winning website transports visitors to the tranquil, relaxing surroundings at the Florblanca resort.

We’re so proud of this honor.