Marina Pecorino
Managing Editor of Content & Statistics

It’s been a while since I have had the chance to browse the internet for piercing shop websites in my spare time; it’s actually fairly intriguing to me. The design of marketing materials has a lot to say about how each shop is choosing to present itself to (potential) clients.

In Issue 73, I shared some tips and tricks for taking portfolio photographs. In this issue, I’m going to get down to business (excuse the pun #sorrynotsorry) talking about online marketing. These days, it’s so easy to get sucked into the glowing screen in front of you without putting it to use as a powerful marketing tool. I’m hoping this article will help make the time you spend online for business more efficient and effective, so you can get back to posting pictures of cats.

For the sake of “print” space, I’m going to assume that most readers already have a basic grasp of marketing on social media. For those of you that feel there’s more to learn, many social media platforms offer a convenient business resource guide: Facebook Business, Instagram Business, Pinterest Business, and Tumblr Business. Some of them also offer forums and communities where business users can discuss their experiences and ask questions. If you have a question about using a particular feature, there are lots of articles available directed at businesses with how-to guides like this beginner’s guide to hashtags.

Like anything else on the internet, a quick search for terms like “Tumblr marketing strategies” or “social media tips for small businesses” will yield innumerable articles with a mix of good and not-so-good information. Here is a small list of my favorite Dos and Don’ts:

• Humanity—Have a sense of humor and try not to sound mechanical. Clients are less likely to be drawn in by a robotic message. When the media has a personality, clients are more likely to become engaged in the content. Think of those days in the studio when your personality is shining through and your clients are eating it up; the same applies to social media.
• Diversity—Use a mix of images, videos, and text to share all aspects of your shop with potential and returning clientele. Don’t limit yourself solely to one type of post or one social media platform. Variety in advertising will allow more chances to strike a chord with viewers. Although there is a lot to be said about automation in regards to time management, be careful about repeating the same posts over all your social media platforms. Try to cater the content to the audience and mechanics of the different platforms you’re utilizing.
• Frequency—Post, share, and interact consistently. It is a valid use of your time to be online at work as long as you are making sure to focus your attention on the business at hand. Dedicate a few minutes of your work day to posting and responding to clients. With certain platforms, like Facebook, you may also choose to dedicate some time to plan and schedule posts for the upcoming week(s), spending an hour or two “in the groove” getting it all out of the way at once.
• Engagement—Certain types of posts are more likely to get a wider spread of reactions from your audience. Posts with at least one image are more likely to be shared than posts without images. People are more inclined to interact with content that evokes certain emotional responses; awe, laughter, and amusement are the most likely to be shared. Unless you intend to be the epicenter of debate, it is best to stay away from controversial topics, but a well placed poll question or invitation to share a particular post can spread like wildfire. Here are a few bites of food for thought: infographics (graphic depictions of information) and listicles (those clickbait numbered lists everyone loves to hate) are the most widely shared post types. Tuesday is overall the best day to post content.

Hopefully, after reading the points above you have discovered something about social media marketing that you weren’t aware of previously. That means it’s as good a time as any to discuss websites and search engine optimization.

Although websites have the disadvantage of associated cost (web design and development, hosting, domain registration), they have some serious advantages that aren’t as feasible with their no-cost social media counterparts. The main advantage: total control over style and the inner workings. The overall appearance is certainly important if you’re particular about aesthetics, and let’s face it, we’re in the body modification industry; how things look is pretty much our business. More importantly though, total control includes using the elements of web development to make your website easy to find for the clients seeking your services and products; this is essentially the basics of search engine optimization (SEO).

The total number of websites currently on the World Wide Web is mind boggling, and new sites are being added every day. For this reason, search engines need a way to keep track of and catalog what’s available. To do so, search engines send out web crawlers (also known as bots or spiders) to methodically index websites and return information to the search engines about what text and images were found on each website and where those elements were located in the coding. Search engines use this information along with complex algorithms to determine the relevant results for a search, even tailoring the results based on a particular user’s past search history.

Consequently, web developers have learned how to build websites to make pertinent information more available and meaningful for web crawlers, to improve the chance that their site will have a high ranking in relevant searches. Search engines often provide guides on improving SEO, but information about the algorithms used are generally kept secret to reduce exploitation by dishonest developers.

There are now more services available than ever to make web development possible for beginners. Here are a few tips to help you along the way:

• Be honest with what you’re advertising. Despite what the name would imply, SEO isn’t about catering your website to the search engines, but more about using web development tools to maximize the number of clients that find you by looking for what you’re offering. By implying a level of service or product that the client won’t find upon arrival, you’re bound to end up with frustrated visitors writing bad reviews, rather than lifelong clientele. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to be honest on your site about what your business has to offer; phrase and brand your web presence for the clients you want, but be realistic.
• Text is important. With the exception of intentionally hidden content (credential information, duplicate content, etc.), all text on a website is indexed by crawlers. Some of this text is seen by viewers, but sites also contain a lot of text that is only visible when looking at the source code. These elements only visible when looking at the coding—like meta tags, keywords, alt text on images—are important tools for developers to provide additional information to be crawled. There are numerous tools online to help you choose text that will attract a broad audience, like this free keyword tool with daily approximations of data, broken down by search engine and demographic information. These types of tools take some of the guesswork out of choosing what text is best to draw the most appropriate audience.
• Images have become more powerful than ever before. Search engines have evolved to the point that images are now being indexed, allowing users to do a search for particular type of picture, much like searching for a specific set of words or answer to a question. When your smartphone or digital camera creates an image, it assigns the image a generic filename like “IMGfivebazllion.jpg”. Renaming photos with something more descriptive and enticing like “Opal-Rose-Gold-Philtrum-Piercing.jpg” will assist web crawlers in identifying the photograph. Just make sure that the filename you choose accurately describes the image. Web developers also have the ability to add alt text, also known as alternative text, in case the image can’t be loaded. Using descriptive terms in the filename and alt text will improve the chance of your image showing up in a relevant search, but it also allows users to get an idea of the subject matter in the image in cases when the image isn’t visible.
• Make your site as easy to navigate as possible. A sitemap is essentially a blueprint of your website (generally set up in a hierarchical format), showing where certain types of information are housed on the site. It is common for web developers to make their sitemap—much like a writer composes an outline—before generating site content. Deciding the format and organization ahead of time allows a developer to determine the best layout for a website, so that similar content is together and that important information is easy to find. Once a sitemap is set up, developers essentially have a cheat sheet of which individual pages of a site will need to be built (portfolio, pricing information, aftercare, etc.) and how those individual pages will relate to one another. Properly utilizing internal links, breadcrumbs, and sitemaps will assist search engines in understanding your site’s navigation and help your viewers find what they’re looking for.
• Duplicate information will bog down viewers and bots. The proper and consistent use of internal links throughout a website can make a huge impact on the user’s experience and ability to navigate the site. Web developers use anchor text (this article is full of anchor text) to link text between pages or to reference outside sources rather than duplicating information. It’s best to use single words or short phrases for anchor text; these words or phrases should provide a preview (or keyword) of what the link will contain. As an example, if a shop wants to include a link to a blank copy of their piercing waiver, it would be best to use the words “piercing waiver” as the anchor text. Avoid using ambiguous anchor text in sentences like “a copy of our piercing waiver can be found here” with the anchor text being “here”.

As I mentioned before, search engines use complex algorithms to take all of the elements (included the ones listed above) of a website and determine how relevant it is to a user’s search. Unfortunately, there are dishonest web developers who know these tricks and will manipulate them to increase the ranking of their sites, even with searches that may not be relevant. This is precisely why search engine penalties are used to counteract potential misuse. One of these penalties, particularly common for beginners, is known as keyword stuffing. This is when a web developer crams as many keywords into an element as possible. This isn’t generally done maliciously, but in an attempt to reach all possible audiences; I have to admit that I was guilty of this early on. Instead of using “gauge”, “plug” and “stretched lobe jewelry” as keywords for the same entry, it’s best to choose one term that is likely to reach a wide audience, while encouraging appropriate language. It’s also a great idea to diversify terms where possible, only reusing the most important. If a particular site is especially spammy or dishonest, it can even be de-indexed, meaning that it no longer appears in search results. Avoid these penalties by being conscientious during development and do research throughout the process.

The topic of online marketing is certainly not a simple one and is not something that can be learned from a single article. I have tried to provide you with a quick overview, but there is much more to learn, even on the topics introduced here. Throughout this article, I have provided additional resources, but there is far more information available, like this basic website term glossary. We have the advantage of infinite access to instructional websites and tutorials available to explain the basics and more advanced techniques involved in online marketing and web development. Instructional websites like these are where I have collected my knowledge over many years. If all this talk of tutorials has you excited and ready to learn, here’s a great resource of free web dev tutorials. I encourage you to dive in and enjoy the adventure. The greatest feature of a website is that it can be developed over time, starting off simple and small, and building into something full of information, images, and content to make your clients excited to come visit your shop.