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Consumer Behavior Driven By Mobile Apps
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 7:21 AM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The debate regarding mobile apps versus Web consumption is getting hotter and hotter – and clearer and clearer. The rate of adoption, according to Mobile analytics firm Flurry, is outpacing both the PC revolution of the 80's and the Internet boom of the 90's.
Since 2007, in fact, more than 500 million iOS and Android smartphones and tablets have been activates and by the end of 2012, Flurry estimates that the cumulative number of those devices actives will surpass 1 billion.
What's even more impressive is that roughly 40 billion applications have already been downloaded from the App Store and Android Market. In the summer of of 2011, Flurry's published a report on how the average smartphone user began spending more time in their mobile apps than they do browsing the Web. Flurry just updated its data and found that the usage gap just keeps getting bigger.
Interactive consumption has continued to change over the last 18 months between the Web and mobile native apps according to Flurry. The chart from Flurry above indicates that smartphone and tablet users now spend over 90 minutes each day using applications while time spend on the Web has shrunk. What this means is that users are replacing their website usage with applications. The growth is slowing however. The time spend in mobile apps rose 23 percent from December 2010 to June 2011 but just over 15% from June 2011 to December 2011.
More on Flurry Analytics from Website Magazine:
- Flurry's Web Analytics Tool Gets Update
- A Flurry of Analytics Data for Mobile Apps
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Directory Submission: The Key to site Promotion
Most website owners fail to differentiate between a directory and search engine, failure to do so has resulted in failure to harness the powers of Internet directory effectively.
Search engine uses the spiders – (an automated software program) to locate and collect data from web pages for inclusion in a search engine’s database and to follow links to find new pages on the World Wide Web. While directories depends on human editors, who in most cases examine every single new listing before they are added to their directory. Most major search engines these days use links from human edited directory to measure the quality of the site they index. That is why you should place emphasis on the type of website or directory you list to and how to do that effectively.
However, there are some significant differences between the two link sources, Directories have only one purpose in life and that is to provide links to other sites. Directories are an established source of authority in regard to various subject matters. Being listed in directories serves as a level of measure as to the site’s worth.
A Directory Submission Service, in my opinion, is a company that will submit your website to directories. Now, the client must be careful when selecting a company. Many I have seen say something along the lines of “We submit you to over 800,000 Search Engines and Directories”. This statement alone lets me know that they are not trustworthy. We can all fire up ANY free/shareware submitter and boast the same statement. What I LIKE to see, when checking my competition, is a listing of directories they will submit to. And, of course, no one can guarantee inclusion.
There are several ways you can submit your RSS newsfeed to directories. The first, obviously, is by hand. You can get a list of the directories (http://www.rss- software.net/rss-directories.php), then go to each website and add your feed manually. Since there are many RSS directories, this can take quite a while. To save the webmaster time, two ways of automated directory submission exist.
While the article directory submission site is growing, granted yes, they may not get as much traffic as the big guys. But that means that the visitors that they do get, are more likely to see and READ your article. This means your article can find its way to ezines that want unique and fresh new content.
Search Engine Optimization is a fuzzy art in which the rules and techniques change as quickly as the Internet changes. Nonetheless, a good SEO consulting expert will always be able to help move your website towards better search engine placement, greater visibility, and consequently higher levels of targeted traffic. When it comes to choosing any professional — a dentist, doctor, travel agent or hair stylist, it may take you a couple tries to locate the right SEO professional for your business, but it’s usually better to focus on what you do best, and hire experts who spend all their time staying informed and practicing effective website promotion.
Link Building: When Will Backlinks Show Up In Google
Many times website owners who are new to link building simply don’t know what to expect when it comes to the timeframe for registering backlinks.
Here’s a common question I get:
“I’ve just started marketing my brand new website, and I know I have backlinks coming into my site, yet when I do a check for incoming links, nothing shows up. Am I doing something wrong?”
Probably not–A backlink check will tell you how many incoming links are registered with a particular search engine, but it will not tell you how many backlinks you actually have.
Why is that? Well, it usually takes search engines months to re-evaluate incoming links, so if you do a backlink check today, there are likely links that are going into your site that haven’t yet been calculated in.
It would be nice if we could build links and then immediately have them show up in a backlink check, but that’s just not the way the internet works.
As you’re building links to your site, here are some ways to keep track of your progress and build links effectively over time:
- How To Do A Backlink Check
It’s incredibly easy to do a backlink check for your site. In Google, just type this into the search box (replacing the ‘yourwebsite.com’ part with your URL):
* link:http://www.yourwebsite.com/
The results of that search will bring up a list of sites that are linking to your website address. In the upper right hand corner of Google you’ll be able to see a total count of your registered backlinks.
An even better tool is Yahoo Site Explorer https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com which provides a list of your registered backlinks and much more detailed information. Both of these backlink checking tools are free, so you can try each one out (or do both).
- Why Are Backlinks Not Showing Up For My Site?
Let’s suppose you know that you’ve build links to your site, but nothing is showing up when you do a backlink check (frustrating, I know!).
There are some logical reasons why backlinks may not be showing up:
1) Perhaps your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google
When you launch a new site it does not automatically appear in Google–it usually takes several months for Google to realize that the site is there and to index and categorize it.
Until your site is indexed, it will not show up in any search engine searches and no backlinks will be registered. You can even do a search for your exact site name or URL and nothing will show up–that is how you know that your site has not been indexed yet.
If this is your situation, don’t fret! This waiting period is something that all website owners go through, and Google (and the other search engines) will eventually index your site.
It can take anywhere from 3-5 months for a new website to be indexed.
I remember the last time I was launching a new site it took about 5 months for the site to be indexed in Google. On that 5th month, all of the backlinks that I had been building over the preceding months finally showed up–whew!
2) Not enough time has elapsed since building the links
Even if your site is already indexed, it usually takes search engines several months (3-4) to recalculate the backlinks. So, if you have been doing article submissions for the past 2 months and you know for a fact that you have quite a few incoming links, those links will not show up in a backlink check for another month or two.
This doesn’t mean the links aren’t there–they are! The search engine just hasn’t registered them yet.
As you can see, one necessary component of any link building campaign is PATIENCE. There will be a time delay from when you build the link to when you see the fruit of your labor in Google.
Keep in mind, this time delay does not impact your marketing campaign–whether the links have started to show up or not, you should continue to market your website and submit articles. Immediate results are not the goal–you should be going for a long lasting impact on your search engine ranking for your keywords, rather than a brief shot of traffic that fades away after a day or so.
When you’re link building, you need to market your site consistently–develop an article submission schedule for yourself and stick to it, submitting articles each and every month.
You will be rewarded in the long run with an increased search engine ranking for your major keywords, which can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.
Free and Easy Link Building Tips
Okay, you’re the proud mama or papa to your brand new website. Now what? This isn’t like the movies – just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll come. The Internet is a huge limitless space with ever-growing numbers of websites. You are just one small website among millions. How will anybody ever find you? How do you become visible? Right now, you just exist out in the web, untethered. You need to become visible when someone searches for you and one way to become visible to people is to become visible to search engines. And one way to become visible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN is for your site to be tethered, or linked to other sites.
If you’ve spent any time reading Internet marketing blogs you know that link building is a huge part of a marketing campaign. Backlinks – links that point to your website – are a major factor in determining your popularity or ranking with the search engines. And of course, just like in high school, you want to be popular.
You can buy your way into links, but here we’re talking about a few free and easy ways. An obvious and natural way to build links is through content. When you start a link-building campaign for your new website, focus on attracting links that will add value for your website visitors and best represent your most important keywords too. It is invaluable to have visitors go to your site and share your content.
Here are a few easy and mostly free ways to build links for your website.
* Blog-Based Link Building
One way to get natural links back to your website is by setting up a blog for your company. Make sure you network online with other blogs that complement yours. If you share industry news and have useful and relevant content, you’ll attract links. Reference other bloggers in your content and link to other blogs in your industry.
For blogs, content is extremely important. Every time you add words to your blog or website, you are presenting yourself to a potentially huge audience. How does your blog’s content reflect your company? This content could be the page that carries your company’s name around the Internet world. Cheap content is just that – cheap. Create content that people want to read and that will make them come back again and again.
Reviewing products and services and posting those reviews on other sites is another way to build links. Your honest evaluations and smart opinions can also build your reputation as an expert in your field.
* Link Building with Social Media
Another way to build natural links to your website is through social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. These sites allow you to set up a user profile where you can add information about you and your company including a link to your website.
Some sites, Facebook for example, also have a way to promote your business with a page, ad or group. Just keep in mind that there are good ways and bad ways to promote your business on social sites and you should observe proper etiquette when you do.
* Link Building with Organizations and Directories
If your industry has professional organizations or associations that you belong to, check with them and see if they have an online directory with links to member sites. They may or may not charge a fee for this. If they do, it shouldn’t be much.
Check with your local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau. Links from sites like these can be very helpful. Check with other local businesses and organizations that have lists of businesses and request links from them, too.
Online directories are another opportunity to look into. Yahoo! Directory is a good one. If your business is in a specific geographical area, you might also find some local directories to submit to that will boost your local visibility.
* Links from Charities or Non-profits
If your company makes charitable donations to organizations and non-profits, see if they have a “donors” list on their website and ask if they will link to your website.
* Links from Press Releases
Has your business just started or have you just launched a new product? A press release is a great idea to announce your news. There are quite a few press release distribution services available and some have a free first time offer.
* Links from Partners
If your website offers information about other partner websites like business directories, you should make sure to use all your linking potential. You could have a badge that your partner could put on their site linking to you and one for your site that links to theirs.
If you have an RSS feed or a widget on your site that has good value to visitors, those can be taken from your website and displayed on another person’s website, linking back to your site.
The Internet is constantly evolving and there are thousands of ways to build links. Look around at other websites and see what they have and how they work. Look at your business, think outside the box and you might come up with other ways to develop links. If it all seems like too much, there are many online consulting companies that can help with link building, SEO optimization and brandcasting.
Who Is Your Website’s Biggest Competitor?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Link Building: Who Is Your Website’s Biggest Competitor?
* Have you ever noticed that competitive runners achieve their best race times when they are pitted against worthy competitors?
You can be an excellent sprinter, but odds are you will not run your personal best on a track by yourself–most of the time it’s the spirit of a heated race and a determined runner breathing down your neck that makes you dig down deep give it all you’ve got.
The quest for a higher search engine ranking and more website traffic is much like athletic competitions. When you’re trying to get your site ranked higher in Google, you are not operating in a vacuum–you have competitors, whether you acknowledge them or not.
Your progress is not only dependent on your own efforts at marketing your site, but the efforts of your competitors–if other website owners are more consistent, more reliable, and more focused in their marketing, there’s a good chance that they will outrank you.
With website rankings, there is a constant jockeying for position, so it is extremely helpful when you’re trying to market your site and get a higher search engine ranking if you will use your competitors to your own advantage.
Before you start your next link building campaign, take a look around the playing field and gather some intelligence about those you’re running against.
* How Can You Tell Who Your Competition Is?
It’s actually quite easy to tell who your top competitors are–just do a search for each of your keywords in Google.
- What site is at the #1 position?
Unless it’s you, that website is your top competition. Repeat this search for each one of your keywords.
When you’re starting out, you may want to limit yourself to 3 main keywords whose competitors you’re keeping track of. That way you have 3 competitors to keep track of, and that will give you a good idea of how you’re progressing and also how far you need to go to catch up to the #1 position.
- What Type Of Information Should You Keep Track Of?
Alright, now that you know who your top competitors are, it’s time to do a little investigating. Here are the main bits of info that will help you get an idea of where your site stands in relation to site holding the #1 position.
1) How many backlinks does the competing website have?
You can do a backlink check by typing the word “link:” (following by a colon) and then the competitor’s URL into the Google search box. The results will be a listing of sites that are currently linking to their site, and at the top of the page you can see a total number of backlinks.
2) What is their search engine rank for the keyword?
For the first month at least, their ranking is #1.
Another thing that will be interesting to you is to see how the site that is ranked at #1 can fall if they are outdone by another site further down in the ranking. If you are consistent with your link building campaign, you can see your site climbing up the rankings each month, until finally your #1 competitor drops from the number one position and your site takes over.
3) What is the other site’s PageRank?
PageRank (PR) is a tool Google uses to reflect the authority of a web page. The rankings go from 0-10, where 10 is the best. You’ll likely notice that a website does not need to have a PageRank of 10 in order to hold the top ranking for a keyword–many times sites with lower rankings hold the top position. Why is this?
Remember, it’s all about competition–the top ranking website may have a PR2, but the other sites who are competing for top listing for that keyword have lower authority. Of course, there are many other factors that go into determining who has the top rank in Google, and only Google knows all of their criteria for judging.
At any rate, it is helpful to know the other site’s PageRank, especially in comparison to your own. If you see that the competing site has a PR4 and your site has a PR2, you can set a goal for yourself to achieve PR4 or higher.
With all of these indicators, it’s nice to get an idea of what you’re shooting for. Being aware of your top competitor’s stats can help you strategically jump up the rankings and keep your motivation going to earn the #1 spot.
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO
Using Back Links to Improve Your Website SEO Put simply, back links are inward-bound links to a particular internet site or page. What this means is that the other site has a hyperlink “pointing” directly to your website. Regarding search engine optimisation, you want as many back links pointing to your site as you possibly can, even more so if the site is directly related to your area of interest.
As the number one goal of a website is to achieve traffic, i.e. people actually looking at the site, it follows that you must make the website visible. Generally speaking, to make your website visible, people must be able to find it when they search for keywords directly related to your product, niche, service or whatever else your website represents. Individuals tend to be seeking such information via the big search engines, whose operators have rather complicated algorithms to help them decide whether a certain website is applicable to the searcher’s request, or not.
Although they will not divulge exactly how they go about composing these algorithms, the search engine operators do assure us that relevancy, as viewed by others, is most important. If they see that you have a back link or a number of back links from other websites that have some relevancy to yours, this is a plus. In addition, if the site linking to you has a fairly high “page rank”, this helps as well. Page rank is Google’s proprietary method of allocating a number (zero being lowest and moving up to ten) indicating how important a site is within its particular niche of operations.
There are a number of ways to achieve back links for your site:
* Article Marketing
As Bill Gates once said, “content is king”. Article marketing is known as one of the most solid Internet marketing methods. By writing highly relevant and informative articles and submitting them to high profile article directories you do several things, not the least important of which is to help establish you or your site as an expert in your niche. Within your article, published in the article directory, is a resource box which contains your details – who you are and what you do, and a link back to your site, the all important Back Link.
* Social Bookmarking
There are many hundreds of social bookmarking sites, and their primary motive is basically to provide a way of informing people about the existence of content related to any niche or interest in a very manageable format. You can sign up and initiate a process of notifying social bookmarking sites about fresh content, including back links in many cases. You should note at this stage that some webmasters apply a “no follow” tag which can void the effect of a back link, as the tag instructs the search engine spider not to give you points, or what’s called “link love”.
* Social Media – Twitter
Whilst Twitter and other similar sites are becoming increasingly more powerful in marketing terms, you should know that to include links within your “tweets” or in your URL profile box is not a powerful back linking strategy, as these are all allocated the dreaded no follow tag. However, you may find that it is possible to link within a bio box and get some link love this way. Also, if you syndicate, your Twitter feeds are updated via the RSS aggregators, earning you back links.
* Blog Commenting
First of all, you will have to locate blogs or forums that are relevant to your area of expertise. This is fairly simple to accomplish as a straightforward and pertinent search will locate hosts. Once you find these blogs you can sign up and create a profile. Often you will be allowed to create what is called a “signature”, and within that signature you incorporate your links. Note, you should check to see if there are any no follow tags, as these will appear occasionally.
Enter into the spirit of the place by interacting with other members and making entries and posting comments that are relevant, useful and educational. As well as a back link being displayed each time you post a comment, you’ll also create a potentially profitable bond with other members – and this has the potential to lead to all kinds of new possiblities.
Backlinks for Search Engine Optimization: How Important are They?
Backlinks are a key component in search engine optimization. Search engine consultants talk about the importance of backlinks for achieving higher search engine ranking. That’s because the more one-way backlinks you have leading to your website, the more important the search engines believe your page to be.
There are two types of backlinks: one-way links and reciprocal links.
One-Way Links are basically backlinks that only go one direction. Maybe it’s a link that goes from your website to another website. Or maybe it’s a link that goes from another site to yours. Either way, it’s only going one way.
Reciprocal Links are backlinks that go from one website to another, and then back to the original website.
It’s important to differentiate between one-way back links versus reciprocal links. Many search engine optimization experts believe that one-way back links are more valuable than reciprocal links because they’re much harder to earn. The thinking is that since they’re harder to earn, they must be more valuable, which means other people think very highly of your site. If people think highly of your site, it must be an important site, which means the search engines will give it a higher ranking than those sites that do not have a lot of one-way backlinks.
As search engines like Google grow and improve, they’re putting more emphasis on how popular a website is, not whether they use all the right keywords. This popularity is measured through one-way backlinks. They’re like votes to Google, and search engine ranking is more like a popularity contest: have a lot of links to your site and your site achieves a high ranking. The easiest way to find the number of backlinks that lead to your site is to visit Google or Yahoo! and type in the following command:
link:www.yourwebsite.com
You will be shown a list of all the websites that have backlinks to your own domain. If you want to see who has links back to a particular page on your site, then type in the whole URL to that individual page.
Although no one can be sure of the exact algorithm Google and Yahoo use to rank sites, it’s commonly believed that if a website has more backlinks, it will achieve a higher search engine ranking. There are other factors that go into the whole search engine ranking, but backlinks are one of the more important ones.
But it’s important you have good quality backlinks, not just links that appear on any page you can find, like a link farm or sticking a comment on a page that has nothing to do with your website at all. That is, if you sell hammers, don’t put any backlinks on a page that sells children’s shoes.
That’s because search engines like Google have started cracking down on link farms and backlinks spammers. The search engine spiders know how to tell the difference between backlinks on a link farm and links on a quality website. If you are caught spamming, you will be dropped in the rankings, or possibly even dropped completely from Google’s index.
So you need to pay attention to the quality of your backlinks, now more than ever. One way to do this is to make sure you use the proper anchor text in your backlinks. For example, do not ever hot-link the words “click here.” What you’re basically telling the search engine spiders is that the website is about Click Here. Instead, use the keywords about the site that the backlinks are leading to. If you’re creating backlinks to a site about hammers, put the word hammers in your links. “Click here” isn’t about hammers.
In short, if you want some great search engine results, be sure to include backlinks as part of your search engine optimization strategy. You’ll see it pay off with improved search engine rankings.
How Many Links Does It Take To Get To The Middle Of Google Page One?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
How Many Links Does It Take To Get To The Middle Of Google Page One?
Everyday it seems, people are asking me the optimum numbers of inbound links they need to acquire for their website in order to rank well in Google.
My answer is going to seem a little flip, but it is the honest, best answer.
Answer: You need more inbound links – of equal or higher quality – than what your competitors have.
Albert Einstein argued that any mathematical formula that required pages of calculations did not contain within it “the mind of God”.
So when Albert Einstein developed E=mc2, then Einstein had fulfilled the promise of a simple formula that could encompass the brilliance of God.
When people wonder as to how many inbound links they might need to acquire in order to rank in the Top 4 of Google’s search results or even the Top 10 of Google’s SERPs, they are generally hoping that someone will be able to give them a numeric answer, so that they know whether they can afford to undertake the process or not.
I understand the WHY of the question, but there is no canned answer that will work for everyone.
Remember, your competitor may be asking the same question and undertaking the same processes as you are, trying to accomplish the same goal.
No one can truly begin to understand the answer to this question, until one has take the time to do an Inbound Link Comparison Analysis of all of your competitors in the Top 10 spots of Google’s SERPs.
* You need to look at the Top 10 listings in Google for a particular keyword.
* You need to do backlink checks for all ten URLs in Google’s search listings, and you need to check those numbers across a variety of sources, including Google, Yahoo and any other tool you can find to do a check. (Google and Yahoo both tend to understate the actual link counts. While Yahoo will show you more than what Google does, they also show a number of “no consequence” links in their results.)
* You need to look at the quality of a few of the pages that offer links to the URLs in the search results.
This is not an easy process to undertake. I have done it before, but the best you can hope for is a “snapshot” of what is out there, and therefore, what you need to accomplish.
Note: If Wikipedia turns up in your search query, few people with small budgets will ever be able to dislodge Wikipedia in the search results. What they make up for in a small number of inbound links, they more than make up for with links from dozens or hundreds of PR4, PR5 and PR6 pages. Wikipedia is the king of Internal Linking, and they use that to a great degree to rank extraordinarily high in Google’s search listings.
Your analysis should seek to uncover how many links a page has to it.
As a general rule of thumb, Google will show you less than 1% of the existing number of links for a web page. Yahoo will sometimes show closer to 5% of the existing number of links for a web page, but they will not show you the highest quality of those links.
So, as you strive to gain a “snapshot” picture of the playing field, you want to take Google’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 100. Then you want to take Yahoo’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 20, then cut the number in half to acknowledge the number of worthless crap links they have in their database. Once you have achieved these two numbers, then I tend to call the truth “somewhere in the middle”.
With your “somewhere in the middle” number in hand, then you need to look at the quality of links to a few of those search listings, to get an idea of whether those links exist on higher quality pages or simply junk pages.
If those links are on junk pages, then the goal could be achieved by just working the numbers. But if there are a lot of high PageRank pages in the mix, then whatever number is in your hand, should be multiplied, perhaps 100-fold, to overcome the quality of pages that link to your competitors.
If you get the idea that my simple formula leads to a complicated answer, then you are right.
All of the numbers that I have included in my sample formula are based on rough speculation, as the “snapshot” offers you your best hope of understanding the challenge in front of you.
While the number of inbound links may be relatively easy to determine, the link quality is a factor that is really hard to pin down.
* If you determine that you only need 300 inbound links to rank with the big boys, you may be right.
* Your 300 inbound links number should also be quantified against the number of links that Google will count worthy, so you may need 1200 links to get 300 links that Google will deem worthy. This calculation depends more on the “quality of your content”, rather than the “quantity of your content”.
* When all is said and done and your 300 Google-worthy links have not yet put you on page one, then you know that the quality of the links pointing at your competitors is greater than the quality of the links pointing to you.
If you were hoping for an easy answer, I am sorry that I could not help you with that.
But with this explanation of the challenge, you may be better prepared to answer the big question, the question that is really on your mind:
Are my hopes of achieving good rankings in Google within my reach?
I tend to throw “worry” to the wind and just start working. I don’t worry if I can afford to do it or not. I simply start doing, and I know that in one month, one year or five, I will have built enough value in my website that my competitors are going to be the ones who are trying to figure out if they can unseat me!
Targeted Web Traffic – 5 Tips For Great Traffic
Targeted Web Traffic is the “holy grail” of webmasters who want good sales results at their sites. It’s a simple concept.
You want traffic. Otherwise your site sits unobserved and unvisited in the blackness of cyberspace.
But you don’t need just ANY type of traffic. You want, for your “rain umbrella” site, customers coming to you that typed in, ideally, “buy rain umbrellas.”
Now, one of the problems with generating targeted web traffic is the fact that there are a LOT of webmasters out there trying for the same thing. Competition, in other words.
It can appear daunting, but if you keep these 5 tips in mind, and you work at it, you can increase traffic to your site and have the happy coincidence of “better quality” traffic from what we call in the business, “buyer keywords.”
1. Know thy target!
You need to know certain things about your typical buyer, but the one most important thing to know is “Which keywords do they use to search for what you are selling.” Right there is an “aha!” moment.
And don’t neglect putting content on your site that is highly relevant to your targeted audience so that they will find your site informative and interesting and return to your site in the future.
2. Writing Articles
A good strategy for making articles work for your site, and thereby pushing the site up in the rankings for certain keywords, is to write an article that… a. Interests your target and… b. targets your keywords.
Here is the “aha!” moment for the prospective article marketer.
There’s a “resource box” at the bottom of the article and in that box you are to put links back to your site! But here’s the nugget, those links are to be “keyword text links” wherein “your keyword here” is the clickable link. Google loves keyword links and you WANT Google to like you.
3. Links – One Way And Only One Way
One of the surest ways to get your site ranked high on your specific keyword is to get “one way links” from high PR sites that are relevant to yours. Google loves this. Google sees the one way link as a “vote” for your site for that keyword.
You’ll accomplish building one way links with the article strategy above, but you need a variety of links, and many sites that are relevant to your target will NEVER publish your article.
An awful lot of the article sites are of low page rank (PR). There are many hundreds of article submission sites and out of all of them all there probably isn’t 50 with good PR. Those are the ones you want!
I highly recommend Ezinearticles and Goarticles and especially Sitepronews. A mass submission company like Submit Your Article can be a real help, too!
A blog comment works too. Find a high PR relevant blog and make a comment! Easy. You can get a link back to your site on the comment. Make sure it’s a good, meaningful, well written comment with relevant copy.
So, backlinks count. And from higher page rank sites…all the better. Pass the link juice, please. Targeted web traffic can be right around the corner.
4. Optimizing Your Website
Search engine marketers are looking for targeted traffic and they insist on having the basics of search engine optimization in place on their site. This is made up of good and relevant content in the form of articles and posts.
This, and your link building efforts can put your page at the top of page one, resulting in a great flow of targeted web traffic.
5. Building A List
A list is typically made up of people that decided to get onto your list because they were interested in what you have! You can’t get much better “targeted” than that. So build one. It’s a grand experience and can be very profitable, too!
One of the things we all like about targeted web traffic from the search engines is that it generates a higher quality prospect AND it’s free! You really can’t beat it.
Tips On How To Promote Your Site
If you’ve got your own web-based business, you might be asking yourself how you can market your site. There are lots of ways to make this happen, and this article talks about all the demonstrated strategies that would make you have favorable outcomes in this particular field.
The traditional way of promoting a business venture would be to pay for want ad space in your local newspapers. This would let everybody know about your website, but carrying this out regularly would make your overhead costs go up.
A lot of people utilise the web to obtain details, plus the constant progression of the internet means that there will always be many different strategies to market your webpage. Among the choices that you could utilize is pay per click advertising, wherein you will spend money in order to put your ad on the results pages of search engines. While this is a proven way to market your site, it can get costly if you are bidding for keywords that are popular. One other way to publicise your webpage is by making use of weblogs. Crafting blog entries about your products or services and also placing the right amount of information in your weblog would draw in potential customers.
But the fastest method to publicize your site is to write content pieces and also submit them to many different article publication sites. The reason why this strategy gives the most results is due to backlinks: if your content is posted, you’ll be required to include a backlink. This particular link will let your readers visit your site if they want more information about your services and products, and you will acquire more page views.
You need to create articles that are short and educational, and you have to come up with lots of articles so that you’ll be seen as a specialist in your chosen field. Article directory websites will always be in need of new and also excellent content since this would help them receive better search engine rankings, and people will always be on the lookout for specialized information for their own webpages. When your content piece is published in an online directory and that specific article directory website acquires a high page ranking, that result could be achieved by your webpage as well since you will lead your readers to your site through your posted write-ups. In other words, everybody wins in this scenario.
But there are a few vital things to bear in mind when composing content pieces. You have to make an effort to compose around three to five articles every day, as well as restrict your write-up to 300 to 500 words; people will not read through content pieces that go past that restriction. Also, originality is of high importance. Never ever reproduce a posted content piece online or in publications and call it yours. Plagiarism isn’t accepted in any industry, plus your write-ups wouldn’t be posted if you’re caught. You can borrow an idea from another article and extend it, but remember to cite your sources.
If you do not have the time or ability to craft your own articles, you can employ freelance content writers or maybe content creation services to make your content pieces for you. Aside from offering you extra time to pay attention to various other aspects of your internet business, outsourcing this endeavor would mean getting a lot more write-ups for you to send for publication.
The main ideas guiding this specific site publicity tactic would be to provide valuable material and compel your audience to take a look at your site to obtain more details on your products and services. The secret is to make them desire more of what you are offering.
Quick Link Building Tips
Link building is the most dreaded task of all serious SEO’s. Here are five quick and easy backlink building tips that you can apply today!
* Link Building Tip #1 – Get Active in Your Community
I’m not talking about joining the local country club here (although that would be fun…), but rather about joining forums that are relevant to your niche. You want to find a forum (or forums) that is active and well ranked, and place your link in your “signature” section. This way, whenever you contribute to the forum (i.e. say something), you’ll be building backlinks. It is vital that your posts are of informational and educational use, and that you don’t just abuse the system in order to gain links. You’ll get banned quicker than you can say “backlink” if you do this. Contributing to the community is of the essence here.
* Link Building Tip #2 – Suss Out Your Competition
Write down the website addresses of the top five results for your desired keyword. Then, using Google, type in “link:website” (replace website with the actual website address). This will show you where each site is getting their links from (well, most of them in any case) and hopefully spark some ideas for your site.
* Link Building Tip #3 – Get Writing…
Writing and submitting articles is definately one of the most popular link building tactics around. You simply write a short article (400 – 600 words) and publish it on as many article directories as possible. Each directory will allow you to place your link in the “resource box”, thus growing your number of backlinks. You might be wondering “But what do I write about?”. The answer is simple – write about your area of expertise. So if you’re a handyman, write about some basic DIY tasks that people can carry out. Write how-to’s, 101’s and the like – Just give it some thought, it’s well worth it…
* Link Building Tip #4 – Submit To Directories
Wherever there is an industry, you’ll find directories, especially on the internet. Do a search for your keyword and the word “directory”. Sign up to as many of them as possible – it’s a free link every time, and you might even find organic traffic (people) finding you on these directories (that’s what they’re there for, after all).
* Link Building Tip #5 – Get Blogging
My final tip is to get blogging, or at least commenting on other people’s blogs. Have a look for relevant blogs and post some useful comments where suitable. Each comment will earn you a free link, plus potential direct traffic if the blog is popular and well followed. A word of warning though – make sure that the blogs don’t use “nofollow” tags, as this will render your link null and void in the eyes of the search engines.
And there you have it! Five easy link building tips that you can apply today. Best off all – they’re all absolutely free… Remember, link building is an ongoing exercise, and the more you make it a habit, the easier it will become. The only cost is your time and effort.
Link Back To Your Site In Simple & Effective Ways
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Friday, June 10, 2011
Link Back To Your Site In Simple & Effective Ways
You have finally set up your own site & are eagerly waiting for your business to flourish. But have you given a thought to how users online will know a site like yours exists? Well, if no one knows your site exists how would you sell your product or get more clients? The entire e-business world relies on one simple thing to gain visibility and get more profit. Yes, search engines like Yahoo, Google and Bing determine which sites are visible and which are not. And for a search engine to place your website at the top, you need to have good backlinks.
The high page rank that you crave for is attainable only if you have done your homework and set up good backlinks. Making your site appear in the top pages of a search engine requires a great deal of backlinks which will ultimately ensure that you have traffic in your website. And the procedure is simple. There are many legal ways to create backlinks to your site. First you have to learn how to create a backlink. An anchor text is all you need. It should look something like this:
<a href=”your” website url>Your keywords here</a>
Now let’s take a look at the various ways you can create backlinks to your website:
• Submitting articles to directories:
This is one of the most trusted methods of getting great backlinks to your site. All you have to do is write an article with good content and submit it to the many online article submission directories. While you are at it here are some points to look out for:
1. Add Variety: Content is king. So make sure that you don’t just submit the same articles to every directory. Chances are there that the search engines will mark them as ‘duplicate content’ and all your hard work will prove futile. So have good content and variety in your articles.
2. Submit Manually: True time is money, but to save time don’t get lured by the many ‘automatic ‘submission software. Instead submit the articles manually and only to the relevant directories where you know the search engines will look first.
3. Always Link To Your Site: Make sure that your backlinks contain your own website URL and also throw in a keyword that which in turn links to that specific keyword related page in your site.
• Using Social Media:
Make use of social media like Facebook & Twitter to spread the word. Upload videos of your site and add them to YouTube channels. Or you can also use your articles in an innovative way by converting them to slideshows which can be submitted to many websites. Also posting to forums in communities helps spread the word. It’ll surely generate more traffic to your site.
• Posting to Blogs & Sites:
With the huge no. of blogs that are being created every minute, you can surely link back to your site by submitting the backlinks to the blog with keywords that matches with yours. Use the many blogs and websites that allow you to submit your articles too and thus give you good backlinks in return. You can even make use of Google keywords alert that will alert you whenever a new blog comes up that has keywords useful for your site.
• Link Exchange sites:
If time isn’t what you have in plenty then worry not. Many link exchange sites have now come up that assure you a higher page rank when you submit your links to them. But make sure you opt for sites that have a good PR & are relevant to your keywords. And of course you need to shell out a few bucks too for this service.
• Using Comments Effectively:
A simple yet tricky method to link back to your site is to effectively use the comments section that you find in many blogs & websites. All you have to do is give a good comment and add the anchor text to it and now you have another backlink! But be careful not to end up marked as spam. Make sure that the site or blog is closely related to your comments & link. Don’t just go about commenting on home loans when the blog is about culinary skills!
So now that you have successfully added backlinks everywhere, watch the traffic flow to your site & get a better page rank. But don’t rest for too long as you need to keep updating and adding more links to ensure the PR stays good. Keep abreast of the latest changes so you wouldn’t lag behind when it comes to popularizing your site.
Use SEO Strategies to Increase Web Traffic
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Monday, October 4, 2010
Use SEO Strategies to Increase Web Traffic
Every new technology adopted widely by society brings about a number of new opportunities. The movable type printing press created affordable print information, the telephone and radio created the concept of instantaneous communication over great distances. Today, the Internet has unified both of these concepts into the information explosion that is the digital age.
Consider this article alone – a mere forty years ago printing even fifty copies of each page would cost either a chunk of change or at least a suspicious look from the boss as you hovered over the office copier. Now the information can be sent to thousands of people within the time it takes to brew a good cup of tea.
Of course with every technology comes a system to make the best marketing use of that advancement. The radio gave rise to the modern commercial advertisement, which was refined by the television and still persists on the Web. The telephone gave us telemarketers and the first concept of communication networking. For making the most of the Internet, the strategy of the day is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is SEO, again?
In short, SEO is the presentation of a webpage in such a way that it consistently ranks highly in particular search engine results. While fads and sensations can quickly boom online from “word of mouth,” they don’t produce the same reliable success as a balanced, systematic approach.
Very few businesses, after all, want one rush of attention that leads to a website crash, followed by an equally quick slide into the various forgotten graveyards of the web. Therefore, SEO uses a combination of elements to make the site increasingly relevant to the various searches that Internet users perform, to bring it up again and again among the best results.
Key SEO Strategies
1. Set goals.
Identify what you want your SEO campaign to accomplish. While any SEO-conscious writing and page design can contribute to a site’s search engine rankings, an unfocused effort will simply waste time and money. After all, a business promoting athletic clothing and footwear may not benefit too much from showing up in searches for evening wear. Is your goal simply to increase your site’s visitor traffic? Do you want to generate more sales of a product? Is it part of an effort to promote your digital brand? Each of these goals benefits from different aspects of SEO technique.
2. Link up.
Link building is one of the cornerstones of any SEO effort. Many search engines are spider-based, meaning they use automated processes to collect and categorize information on various websites. When a large number of websites provide links back to your business, or when a particularly high-traffic site does so, the spiders take notice of it and increase the relevance of that link in searches related to those sites.
3. Get the keys.
Keyword writing is consistently stressed as a requirement when websites look for content writers. Keywords are just that, words and phrases chosen for their popularity and relevance to key searches.
There are dozens of theories about keyword writing. In the earlier days of SEO writing, it wasn’t uncommon to see pages that were nothing but long strings of repeated variations on a few keywords. This has evolved into more organic writing that fits in keywords with the article as a whole.
Whichever strategy is chosen, care must be taken to avoid the temptation to abuse keyword searches. Yes, a proper keyword density will bring up your search rankings over time. However, Google can and does ban pages from its index when they determine it to be a keyword-abusing effort. So consider your keyword choices carefully, and seamlessly integrate them into your entire strategy.
4. Be on the right page.
One aspect occasionally neglected in SEO is the architecture and design of the webpage itself. Search engines and their ranking systems (be they spider or human based) are growing more sophisticated all the time, and look at many different factors in their decisions. A site that buries its keyword-rich articles on interior pages behind dozens of subsidiary links will not perform as well as one with strategic keyword-oriented material right on the front page. Have an SEO-conscious designer look over your page, as well as your articles.
Remember that every business is a multi-faceted whole. Many failures occur when people attempt to compartmentalize too much. You can’t consider SEO as some sort of ‘event’ that you do every so often, just as a business can’t put off routine maintenance of their equipment and expect it to function properly. Integrate your efforts into the entire process, and give them the same focus as any other effort in the business, and they will return their investment much more reliably, quickly, and ideally.
The Pitfalls Of A Web Site With No Calls To Action
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Pitfalls Of A Web Site With No Calls To Action
A potential customer has just opened up your web site. They see a fancy introduction that grabs their attention. The little video sparks a laugh, and they stay on your site to find out more about your business. After getting through all the fancy animations, he or she is greeted with a beautifully-crafted home page with killer copy that keeps them reading all the way to the end. After the novelty of the menu animations and the gorgeous background wears off, your customer sits – thinking.
He or she has no idea what to do next.
They could click on the “About Us” page to learn more about your company. They could visit your blog and see the latest news and opinions from you. They could look at your portfolio or list of services. The web site design looks great and has some great catch phrases, but the marketing message is getting lost and the visitors don’t know what to do next. Now what?
The problem: no call to action. You led your customer to the water, but you did not tell him to drink. No matter how much you lead a customer, you have to make it very clear to them what they need to do next.
The following is a list of things you can do on your web site immediately to improve the conversion rate on your web site:
Make it simple. If you want the business, tell them to give you their contact information or tell them with a graphic to buy your service.
Make it valuable. Offer a free gift or consultation just for contacting you.
Make it clear. At the end of every page content, you should include a simple statement.. Call Us Today For More Information – 555-1212. This tells people they can call you immediately for more information. Calls to action are one of the most important aspects of marketing and really need to be incorporated on every single page of your web site, not just the contact page.
One simple call to action that no one really takes advantage of is your contact phone number. For whatever reason, web designers started created web sites with a phone number only listed on the contact page with a link at the bottom of the web site in extremely small font type.
Some corporate web sites don’t even list their phone number at all. When you consider how many people call companies for more information about their products and services, the fact that they don’t have a phone number blows my mind.
Statistics show that people read web sites from top to bottom left to right. The best place to put a call to action? The top left of your web site. Very few companies put their phone number in the most effective place on the web site.. the top left. If it’s not there, the next best place is the top right. Your phone number should be on every page of your web site listed very visibly.
One of the most common features of a web site is a contact form. This also happens to be one of the main standard calls to action. On the contact page of every web site, there should be a form people can fill out to get more information about your product or service. In our experience, companies that have a form located on the homepage see a lot of response from that page as well as the contact page.
Without the call to action, your customer is lost, and so is your sale. You need to find a professional web design company to discuss your corporate web design and ensure that your customer will know what to do when they visit your site.
HTML5 – The Future of the Web
Steve Jobs was recently quoted as saying “No one will be using
Flash. The world is moving to HTML5″ igniting interest in HTML5
and sparking numerous debates online in blogs and forums.
Jobs’ prediction that flash is dead invokes memories of the
famous Mark Twain quote “reports of my death are greatly
exaggerated”. While the debate rages on over the future of
Flash, HTML5′s destiny is assured.
It’s not just Apple pointing to HTML5 as an internet revolution,
Microsoft, Google, Opera, Mozilla, W3C and even Adobe themselves
agree. In fact HTML5 may become historic for that very reason.
It is arguably the only time Google, Microsoft and Apple have
ever agreed on anything.
How HTML5 evolved was largely due to a disagreement with the W3C
over Error Handling and the failure to embrace modern Internet
applications. In 1997, W3C announced it would no longer extend
HTML4 and saw XML and XHTML as the future. Draconian Error
Handling, (Draco was the Greek leader that issued death
penalties for minor offences), instructed that browsers were to
treat all errors in XML as fatal. With 99% of web pages showing
minor errors, and the lack of new features in XML, many
webmasters ignored the new standard or continued to serve their
websites as HTML, even when adopting XHTML.
In 2004, a group of developers and browser vendors including
Apple, Opera and Mozilla gave a presentation to the W3C on
evolving HTML4 to include new features for modern web
applications. The W3C rejected their proposal of extending HTML
and CSS. Those interested in evolving HTML4 rebelled and broke
away from the W3C, forming their own working group called WHATWG
(Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group). At the
core of the WHATWG beliefs was backwards compatibility and
forgiving error handling. WHATWG’s vision was to extend HTML
features including form handling while ensuring that it would
degrade gracefully in older browsers. While the W3C wanted the
world to move to a new standard XML, WHATWG planned to evolve
existing HTML to support a modern Internet.
In 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the W3C, recognized
that the rebels at WHATWG had gained momentum and announced that
the W3C would work together with WHATWG to evolve HTML. The W3C
HTML Working Group was formed, working with HTML in conjunction
with XHTML. HTML5 was officially born. In October 2009, W3C shut
down XHTML2 making HTML5 the future of the Internet. The pirates
had taken over the ship.
HTML5 marks a change in attitude from the W3C and seeks to
support the diversity of HTML rather than just enforcement of
web standards. It is an incredible achievement that HTML5 is
backward compatible, meaning most of HTML5 can be used straight
away albeit with some JavaScript hacks on semantics for IE.
Ideas from W3C, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Opera and
many other experts combine to pull the best bits out of HTML and
browsers past into an exciting upgrade of the HTML language that
promotes inclusion not exclusion.
In many ways HTML5 simplifies web pages, taking laborious tasks
such as form validation away from web authoring and into the
browser. The idea of making the browser do the work probably
stems back to IE3, where Microsoft provided the first browser to
build in CSS support. HTML5 introduces new tags for page
structure and semantics of documents.
New markets in Typography are opening up with the implementation
of “@font-face”, meaning designers at last can transfer the visual
appeal of print to the web thanks to advances in CSS and HTML5.
Large JavaScript libraries such as MooTools and JQuery can be
slimmed down as HTML5 transfers many common tasks directly into
the browser. Client side storage, session storage and client
side posting are set to change how we communicate on the web.
Web applications such as video are embedded by HTML without the
need of JavaScript. Sites will begin to move away from Flash to
deliver their video and onto HTML5, especially when current
codec concerns with Mozilla Firefox are resolved.
New HTML5 API’s, such as drag and drop, are reverse engineered
from Microsoft, ensuring that they are supported from the start
by IE. What developers of HTML5 such as Ian Hickson (Opera) have
done is to view the modern web and say, “OK that’s what people
are trying to do, how can HTML5 support that”.
Unlike previous web standards based releases such as XHTML 1.1
and the never finished XHTML 2.0, HTML5 is backward compatible
and is here to stay. With the involvement of people that have
been critical of the W3C, HTML5 brings a standard based upgrade
of HTML that is fully supported throughout the industry. HTML5
will genuinely future proof your site without the danger of your
markup depreciating in a couple of years.
HTML5 timetable for completion is in 2022, which has left many
webmasters confused as to its relevance now. However, any
website can begin using the new specification immediately by
simply changing the doc type to “<!DOCTYPE html>”, the lowest
number of characters required to trigger standards mode in IE.
Currently, only beta versions of browsers IE9, Chrome, Safari,
Firefox and Opera support advanced HTML5 elements. However,
typography “@font-face” is fully supported in current
browsers. For more information have a look at Ethan Dunham’s
“FontSquirrel.com” and Jeffrey Veen’s “Typekit.com”. Other
HTML5 features such as “Drag and Drop” and “ContentEditable”
are also currently supported. You can follow the implementation
of HTML5 in modern browsers at “HTML5Readiness.com” and
“Caniuse.com”.
Further information:
http://www.whatwg.org/
http://diveintohtml5.org/
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html
What to Expect from Web 3.0
Video: Google to provide Fastest Internet in US
The buzz is growing about Web 3.0, but as usual you have to filter out all the hype, self-serving PR, old-fashioned nonsense, newfangled marketing verbiage and other noise. You will then find a few facts that you can grab onto and try to figure out what’s going on. The first thing to remember is that, like “Web 2.0,” the term Web 3.0 is not an official term of any sort, does not represent any particular protocol or standard, belongs to no one – and is used, misused and made nearly meaningless by everybody. It is, quite simply, just an arbitrary “version number” that, at most, describes how the Internet is built and how it delivers services, at least as of the freeze-framed moment in time that represents the end of 2.0 and the start of 3.0.
Sometimes it is called the “semantic Web,” but perhaps the less-used term “everyware” is more descriptive. The new scenario is one of ubiquitous computing, the advent of cloud computing where a “thin client” (no- or low-powered PC, or even just a monitor and mouse) runs cloud-based applications using cloud-based data and services. The Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad are all examples of formerly standalone devices that were integrated into the Web, and connect people in a seamless, real-time and very simple way with – well, with everything, from libraries and department stores to other people, anywhere in the world.
From Read-Only to Interactivity
One of the Web’s true “parents” was Tim Berners-Lee, who had his own notion of how the technology and the Internet developed. The first phase of the Web had read-only capabilities. It was essentially a spectator experience until read-write functionality came along (sure, call it Web 2.0) that included services to enable contribution, collaboration, content creation and interactivity. The next step in Berners-Lee’s version vision, Web 3.0, is heralded as “new territory,” where users can assemble and run their own applications, create all sorts of cooperative and collaborative enterprises, and truly put their ideas in motion rather than simply uploading stuff to this, that or the other site.
People with money invested in other, still-useful devices – phones, PDAs, fax machines, etc. – don’t have to worry about Web 3.0 making them obsolete. In addition to letting users create their own tools, Web 3.0 is another step in the evolution of usage and interaction in which the Internet holds multiple databases and content that will be accessible to many non-browser-based devices and applications. The obvious uses will be video that streams from a PC to a TV, picture frames that receive wireless updates from an online or local photo app, and phones that display items recommended by your trusted sources – friends, review sites, experts – when you’re shopping.
From Data to Knowledge
In addition to the foregoing characteristics, Web 3.0 is also said to encompass other important advances. For one thing, all sorts of inputs are possible, which means all sorts of new combinations become possible. Content can be made even more broadly relevant when it’s related to GPS, so that social networking, for example, can be enhanced by knowing who is where and doing what.
More importantly, you will get more and better control of your data and be able to establish a number of personalization systems to “wrap” your personal information with different levels and types of protection – so that you can share it widely, narrowly or not at all. Over time, the accuracy of recommendations and trustworthiness of ranking systems will help us determine which data sources to take seriously and which to avoid.
From Business Faxes to Online Games
With the rise of “linkable web apps” you will be able to use all of your different desktop, server and mobile devices and applications – telephones, fax machines and online fax services, instant messaging, pagers – and control them from a single browser window on your desktop, smartphone or handheld device. All of it will take place in an always-on, always-everywhere environment, with functionality embedded sometimes in hardware, sometimes in software, sometimes in both – so that when you need to take care of business without downloading the capability, you’ll be able to do so.
Along with more of the visual and voice-based services that are already starting to proliferate, there will be more lifelike avatar interactions in the growing virtual social networking world. This will lead to social shopping trips and virtual reality gaming far beyond anything currently being done.
In mid-2009, the “Wall Street Journal” ran a story on the development of Web 3.0 capabilities and the promise of ever-greater interconnectedness among technologies, products, services and people. The story even gave us a yardstick by which to measure the success of Web 3.0, if in fact it does succeed. If, as the WSJ puts it, “computing could become as integrated and invisible as electricity and just as important” – and we can attribute it to the new and improved Web – we’ll know that the promise has lived up to the hype. Here’s hoping!
Which Website Visitors Are Potential Clients?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, April 5, 2010
With today’s website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they’re from, what kind of browser they’re using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won’t tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers.
Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they’ve already got, they don’t need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn’t bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not.
The Setup’s The Thing
Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement.
We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax.
The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and they fear losing viewers before they ever get to the so-called “good-stuff.” But without a proper setup, an audience is just not primed to accept what you have to say.
You can’t sell anybody anything unless they understand they’ve not been getting everything they need and deserve. That understanding creates dissatisfaction with your competition and opens the audience’s minds to what you have to provide. In short, the setup needs to touch a psychological nerve.
The Customer Is Always Right – Not Quite
We’ve all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” The fact is the customer is not always right, and in many cases they don’t really know what they want or what they should have; and sometimes even when they do, they resist it because of a variety of misinformation, misunderstanding, self-doubt, and preconceived notions of conventional wisdom. It’s your website presentation’s job to set visitors on the right path.
Being The Expert Inspires Confidence
You’re supposed to be the expert in what you do, and if you are, you need to have the ability to dig deeper into what people really want, need, and desire. I am always reminded of friends of mine who hired an interior decorator to furnish their new home. The decorator asked them what kind of furniture they liked. They answered that they were looking for Colonial, to which the decorator answered, “No you aren’t. What you want is Country French.” And after he showed my friends what he was talking about they quickly agreed. The decorator knew his business and understood the clients. Yes the clients liked the idea of the homey Colonial look they’d seen, but not being furniture experts they didn’t understand what the options were, and what kind of furniture best suited their lifestyle and budget, while still providing the homey rustic but comfortable aesthetic they wanted. Customer satisfaction is about providing what the client really wants and not necessarily what they say they want.
Learn How To Communicate So Audiences Get It
Let’s face it; we all like to read about how the digital revolution has opened up the business world to more audience influence, but the fact is people are influenced and manipulated and desires created through marketing and advertising as much as ever. How many website owners actually benefit in any meaningful way from social networking and search optimization, or do they do it because it’s expected and promoted by proponents as the tactic du jour.
If you think a particular song you like is played on a thousand radio stations because it’s good, or even because it has a following then you are living in a fantasy world. If you thing the vast majority of viral videos produced by corporations go viral all by themselves then think again.
Audiences are being manipulated and transformed into customers all the time, not because companies responded to what the public says, but rather to how the public reacts to various communication and marketing stimuli. What’s truly incredible is how bad companies are at doing it. With all of the television industries’ research into viewers, they still fail to deliver consistent quality programming that people want to watch. Every Fall new shows are yanked faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, but the same crappy commercials live-on for what seems an eternity. Television viewers are a captive audience and if they want to watch their favorite show they have to tolerate the commercials (PVRs aside), but the Web is different. If your website presentation stinks, no one is going to stick around to absorb the smell.
Web Television Convergence Has Arrived
If you think of your website presentation as nothing more than a digital brochure, you’re already behind the curve. Welcome to the Web on TV.
All you need is a laptop computer or one of the new gaming consoles attached to your big screen TV to access the Web on television. And as network programmers scramble to get their acts together more and more people are opting to spend their television time on the Web. Kind of makes you rethink what kind of website presentation you should be offering. It’s time to start thinking of your website as your business channel and the content on it as programming. It’s the future and it’s here, now.
Who Visits Your Website?
Before website visitors can be transformed into clients, we have to understand who they are in terms of their mental outlook or frame of mind when they first arrive at your home page.
1. Accidental Tourists
Accidental Tourists are website visitors who find their way to your website by serendipity. Your company’s link may have come up in a search for something mentioned on your website, but not something that’s a core element of your business. But just because these people didn’t really intend to visit a site like yours doesn’t mean they’re a waste of time. Perhaps they hadn’t ever thought of using your product or service, or perhaps they didn’t ever realize how much they really wanted what you have to provide. If your website presentation is exciting, meaningful, and entertaining you at least have the chance to plant the seed of desire for your product or service.
2. Brain Pickers
Brain Pickers show up at your site with little intention to buy anything, in fact they’re there to pick your brain and find out how to do what you do for themselves. But if you’re truly an expert at what you do, you at least have the chance to show these people that what you provide is special, and doing it right requires a company with your skills and resources.
“My mechanic told me, ‘He couldn’t repair my brakes, so he made my horn louder.’” – Comedian, Steven Wright
We all want our websites to be more effective, and if you’re like most business people you are constantly searching the Web for anything that will help. What you find is a cabal of experts armed with statistics, analysis, charts and graphs all pointing to how they can get you high-up on the search engines and drive more traffíc to your site. The problem is that like Steven Wright’s mechanic these guys are adjusting your horn when it’s your brakes that need fixing.
There is little point in attracting more visitors to your site if your site has little of interest to say. Even if your site is jammed packed with useful products, services and solutions if it doesn’t connect with your audience, they won’t ever invest the time necessary for you to make your case.
When websites fail it’s most often because they do not function effectively as your primary communication tool. The Web is overcrowded with options and unless you’re prepared to deliver a compelling differentiating presentation you will be quickly dismissed as irrelevant. Let’s face it; business is tough, probably tougher than it’s ever been before.
Something is Missing
You’ve done all the technical tweaks and responded to all the research and analytics. You’re blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, and search optimizing, but still something is not quite right, something is missing. What’s the missing ingredient? You know it’s out there, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what it is.
You know the Web offers the potential to access new markets, find new customers, and reach new heights, but with all that potential, the results always seem just out of reach. If research and analytics were the answer you’d already be rich. Of course it was an over-reliance on research that brought us the Edsel, New Coke, and that wonderful Wall Street goody called Derivatives, one of the greatest investment boondoggles of our time.
There is something artificially comforting about putting your faith in seemingly logical yet unfathomable solutions based on indecipherable scientific modeling and over-hyped research analysis, all brought to you by computer scientists and mathematicians who haven’t ever run a marketing department or launched a new product or business.
Business leaders have adopted the attitude that, “It must be right, because I sure as heck don’t understand it.” And when it all goes wrong, or results are anemic, well, “What are you going to do? It’s not my fault, it all looked good on paper.” Ad agencies and Wall Street have been getting away with this kind of bunkum for decades, and look at the mess they’ve made of things.
What’s It All About, Alfie?
Business success is all about your ability to engage your audience with a message that compels them to action. Simply put, your business relies on your ability to communicate. Eureka!
And your website is the best communication vehicle you have. The question is how do you use your website to communicate your marketing message in the most engaging, compelling, and memorable manner? What is the missing ingredient that will turn your scientifically sterile online cookie-cutter presentation into something that cuts through the massive sameness of Internet clutter, and makes a statement that your audience will respond to?
Finding Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
One of the hardest things for tough-minded business people to accept is that sales and marketing success is based on the subconscious emotional and psychological appeal of a brand. That’s the reason, reliance on feature selling rarely works, and only tends to commoditize a product or service – the guy with the most bells and whistles for the least amount of money wins, and why would you want to play that game?
Even the most casual market observer must recognize that all leading brands have one thing in common, no matter what they sell: the promise of their brand is based on a concept that is established through an emotional or psychological appeal. Apple is about thinking and acting creatively without the worry of technical issues; Starbucks is about reconnecting to the original coffee break ideal of a relaxing oasis away from the hustle bustle of everyday life; and Ikea is about stylish living on a budget. Each concept appeals to the deep-seated desires of the targeted audience. It is this singular concept that makes each of these companies special and different from their competition; it is the message that all their marketing, advertising, and promotion is based upon, and it is the true value they provide their audience that attracts interest, holds attention, and delivers promise.
Implementing Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
In order to implement a company’s emotional and psychological value proposition, we use a process called the ConceptCreator. It starts with various sales’ points that need to be covered. Based on the supplied information, we develop a focused marketing concept using the Law of Dissatisfaction that enables us to discover the experiential human subtext of why people will want what you sell. The presentation concept is boiled-down to a movie-style logline that states the brand story to be presented in the Web Video campaign.
How Much Is A Concept Worth?
“Wait a minute – did he say a movie-style logline? That sure doesn’t sound business-like, and I haven’t heard any corporate CEO or MBA talk about movie loglines.” Maybe so, but think about it. Hollywood studios spend enormous sums of money to produce a movie with the potential of making hundreds of millions of dollars, and each financial investment starts with someone coming up with a clever logline that captures the imagination. Television commercials can cost ten thousand dollars a second to produce and without a guiding conceptual premise they become DOA when implemented. So why wouldn’t you start your Web Video campaign using the same proven formula.
The logline, mission statement, or elevator pitch if you prefer needs to state the characters, goals, obstacles, differentiating factors, and resolution within the context of a story scenario.
For Instance…
If it works for the movie industry will it work for the advertising and marketing industry? Let’s take a look at one of the most successful, popular, iconic marketing campaigns of the last number of years, The MAC versus PC campaign.
Example Logline Concept: A stylish, pleasant, mild-mannered young man verbally spars with his geeky competitive opposite (characters) in a series of humorous, relatable incidents (story scenario) that illustrate the people-friendly advantages (resolution) of the brand compared to its rigid, unbending competitor (differentiating factor) whose sheer size dominates the market (obstacle) in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the computer buying audience (goal). – The MAC Versus PC Ad Campaign.
“The Time Has Come The Walrus Said…”
- Lewis Carroll from ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There,’ 1892
The time has come to realize that Web Video is the best communication tactic available to deliver your marketing message to a worldwide audience; an audience that craves answers and resolution to their every need, concern and desire. It is not good enough to list a bunch of features and hackneyed bulleted points or even to dump pages and pages of search engine optimized hard-to-read text, especially when it’s aimed at an audience raised on television, movies, music and video games. We must learn to speak the language of the audience, and use the appropriate communication tools they can understand in a way that connects on a human level.
It all starts with finding the emotional and psychological value proposition your product or service promises. In a world of frustrated, cranky, attention deficit consumers, the onus is on you to present what you provide in a way that relates to the human elements that make your brand relevant.
Sincerity: The ‘Secret Sauce’ for Effective Marketing
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, March 11, 2010
A couple years ago, I was talking with someone who was, for me, a very challenging client. I’m all about cultivating relationships that result in opportunities to sell.
This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I didn’t ever really understand.
I remember one such meeting, I was trying to explain to my client the wisdom of first creating trust and credibility before trying to get a sale. And my client was blocking me at every turn with reasons why relationship development would not work for their business.
It was maddening.
Finally, I cried with exasperation, “Well, why the heck do you want to keep working with me since my approach doesn’t work for you?”
“Because you’re sincere,” the client replied.
“Who cares” I thought to myself since it didn’t seem to be to helping my client grow their business.
Since that time I’ve changed my mind about the quality of sincerity. I think it’s impossible to have sustainably effective marketing without sincerity.
The Importance of Being Sincere
The word, “sincere” is derived from the Latin word, “sincerus,” meaning whole, pure, genuine.
When you think about today’s business climate, sincerity isn’t a quality that comes to mind. But it’s a quality human beings need to perceive to be willing and able to buy.
The Place of Sincerity in Your Marketing
First, it’s important to remember the real role of marketing in your business.
Marketing is NOT about making a sale. Marketing is about creating a relationship based in trust and safety so that a sale can occur.
Regardless of public sentiment towards business, people and companies still have problems that need to be solved and stuff that has to get done. Your prospective customers still need to buy stuff.
They want to be able to trust you because they need to buy what you sell.
The marketing you do is all about establishing visibility and credibility so that there’s enough trust for the purchase to happen.
For example, if you regularly keep in touch with prospects via an ezine, you’re not doing it to “bug” your customers. You’re sending out that ezine because:
• You can remind them that “Hey, I help people just like you solve these kinds of problems.”
• You can provide examples and helpful information about the kind of problems you solve (“Here’s an example of how I helped a customer”)
• Or you provide helpful information for your prospects to better understand what they need to do to improve their situation.
Once prospective customers feel accepted for where they’re at and trust you can actually help, they can then take the next step.
It’s About Sustainable, Effective Marketing
Now there are also some relatively good-hearted entrepreneurs out there who use hard-sell tactics in their marketing. You subscribe to their ezine and get barraged with multiple emails every day telling you about some incredible program you “just gotta check out.”
Here’s what’s important: there is no rest with this kind of marketing. You must work very, very hard to generate this level of noise.
And if you’re spending so much time and energy with your marketing, it’s tough to put much time or effort into where–in my opinion–we should be making the difference: helping clients and customers get results.
That, to me, is why hype-centered marketing with or without a good heart fails. If you want to market your business in a way that brings in a steady stream of ideal customers without burning yourself into a crispy critter, sincere, heart-centered marketing is the way to go.
Keys to Developing Sincere, Effective, Sustainable Marketing
#1. Ask yourself, “what’s my highest intention for my business?”
What’s the best possible outcome for you, for your business, and for your customer?
Example: the highest intention for Highly Contagious Marketing is when we help clients create marketing that grows their client base and their bottom line.
When that happens, satisfied clients send us referrals which helps Highly Contagious Marketing succeed financially and there are more successful businesses in the world making a positive difference.
#2. Look at how your intention is reflected in your marketing?
Thinking of the many different ways you market your business, how is your intention showing up?
Example: In all the activities to promote Highly Contagious Marketing, I want to:
(1.) Provide information, a how-to, or a resource that gives the person who gets the marketing a little added value.
(2.) Provide an offer and a clear call to action for anyone wanting to take the next step and get more help from us.
#3. Ask what one change can you make to your marketing to express your sincere desire to serve customers and make a difference?
Some specific actions you can take to show more sincerity in your marketing include:
(1.) Make your marketing message truly focused on your customer and their current problem. The first half of your message should be about your customer and their situation. If you’re talking about yourself–your solutions and qualifications, your marketing is not focused on the customer.
(2.) Look for ways to leave anyone who encounters your marketing a little better off than they were before the encounter. Marketing that informs, coaches, inspires, even entertains all leave recipients a little better off.
(3.) Make sure your marketing reflects your values and if not, make changes. If you loathe hype in other marketing but use hype because “that’s what everybody says I have to do,” stop using hype. Create marketing that gets results without making you feel like you sold your soul.
Bottom Line
Remember, marketing is all about cultivating trust-based relationships so prospects can buy. And sincerity is a critical factor which enables trust to grow.
Can you market your products and services without sincerity? Sure. But you will have to work a lot harder to sustain sales because you won’t be creating the quality relationships that give your marketing real momentum.
To create marketing in which sincerity shines through, take some time to remember what your business is in service for and take action so that your marketing better reflects what matters to you.
How To Think About Webmedia
We’ve all seen Web video campaigns and television commercials that we actually enjoyed watching, not once, but over and over again. Whether it’s the Mac Versus PC ads or the thoroughly entertaining Visa Pizza Twirling Commercial, great campaigns are as memorable as great movies or television shows. When commercial presentations meet that standard, they transcend mere commercial status, and reach the level of Experiences.
Killer Campaigns is all about marketing campaigns that are memorable experiences, but why is that important; why should you care? Well if you want to grow your business, create, establish, or enhance a brand, or just plain sell more stuff on the Web, then you have to learn how to turn “advertising into content and content into an experience.”
What We’ll Show You
Each segment will feature an example of what we consider a great campaign that achieves memorable experience status. It may be a television commercial, a YouTube video, or even a video microsite, but whatever form it takes it will be worth watching, or more to the point, worth experiencing.
But just watching excellent advertising is not enough to understand why and how it works. You have to understand the technique used, and why it is effective. In some cases we may even show you failed examples of the same technique used, and explain why one campaign worked and one didn’t.
Our Perspective
We start with a particular point-of-view. You may agree with it or you may not, but by the time you’ve been through several segments of The Killer Campaign series you will at least understand how to think about great marketing concepts, and you will watch webmedia from a whole new frame-of-reference, and with a more critical eye.
Our perspective is deceivingly simple: we create marketing communication, that’s video campaigns, websites, and video microsites based on the notion that Web traffic is an audience, not prospects, clients, or potential suckers, but an audience.
The Technique and Why It Worked
The analysis we use to evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques is based on the preceding perspective of treating website traffic like an audience. Why you may ask don’t we do what everybody else does, and look at the numbers? And the answer is simple: numbers lie. Numbers themselves don’t tell you the whole story.
An effective campaign may fail because of poor implementation or faulty targeting, or any number of other reasons that don’t speak to the creation and effectiveness of the media itself. After all, one of the greatest commercials ever made, the introduction of the Macintosh computer, hardly ever got shown because certain members of the board of directors got cold feet.
Killer Campaigns: Words & Music
As powerful and important as visual communication is, without finely crafted, supportive words and music, the visuals will fall flat; they will lack the emotional impact that connects you the advertiser, with them, the audience.
The Visa Pizza Twirler Commercial with the Morgan Freeman voice-over is a tour-de-force of commercial communication. Take a look and listen:
Visa Pizza Twirler Video with Sound
But what would this presentation be like without words and music? Here’s a video of the filming of the pizza-tossing scene without any voice-over or music. The pizza-chef is brilliant but without the words and music it’s merely a pleasant distraction without emotional or commercial relevance.
Visa Pizza Twirler Video – No Words and Music
The Web and television are both multimedia communication venues that rely on visual impact and sound design combined with the element of performance, but at least one major difference makes commercial presentation on the Web a more difficult challenge: television watching is a passive exercise, while Web surfing is a proactive activity. You’ll suffer through bad television commercials to watch your favorite program but on the Web, people won’t tolerate it. That said, there are some great commercials that do get it right.
HTC You Campaign
The HTC You Campaign hits the proverbial marketing nail right on the head. This is a company that communicates the right message in the right way, because the message is not about the phone, it’s about what you need in a phone. Just listen to the tag line: “you don’t need to get a phone, you need a phone that gets you, and you, and you, and we are HTC.”
This is a presentation that transcends commercial status. At the heart of the video are words and music that form a hypnotizing poetic social commentary on our over-stimulated hectic lives, and it provides a human solution, not a technical one. The concept is brilliant: this is not a product, it’s a life enabler, and who couldn’t use one of those. There is no discussion of features or price. It’s not even about the phone; it’s about making life easier for you, and it does it with a brilliant script and a hypnotic musical score.
HTC You Campaign Video
Conclusion
In order for a commercial, a website, or a webmedia campaign to attain the level of an effective content experience, it must connect with an audience on an emotional level, the level at which decisions are made, and actions approved.
The HTC You Campaign illustrates how poetic words, delivered in an inspiring voice-over, supported by a hypnotic musical score, with associated images, turn advertising into content and content into an experience.
Does your website presentation or webmedia marketing strike this kind of cord with your audience, or are you still trying to win the hearts and minds of your audience with just another feature or price adjustment?
The Web is a different kind of communication venue. The old broadcast scenario of repeat, repeat, repeat, until they say your brand name in their sleep, just won’t work on the Web. You may only get one shot at any individual audience member, don’t screw it up.
Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
You’ve tested your website, you’ve visited it a few times, you’ve gotten some feedback on it, and you have a bit of data about your visitors.
You might want to make some changes. Here are the top ten issues in website design and usability.
Think about these things in relation to your website and consider what you might want to do to perfect your site.
1. The First Glance
In general, people look at the top left corner of your website first. You should have your essential information there: what your offerings are and how your potential customers can get it. Some visitors are at your site only long enough to confirm that you sell what they want, and some are ready to buy. All visitors need to be able to tell what you do right away. Don’t hide behind a splash page or make people wait while something loads – many won’t take the time.
2. Navigation
When your customers want and need more information, they’ll stay and look for it. Make sure they can find it easily. Put your navigation in the usual places, and make it very obvious what your visitors need to click in order to find each section. Don’t have more than 5-7 choices in your main navigation and keep it consistent on every page. Let your creativity and uniqueness show in some other way – follow the rules when it comes to navigation.
3. Contact Information
Can customers (and search engines) find you when they need you? Your contact information must be clear and accurate. It must also be easy to find. Visitors will visit your website several times before they choose to go for your services or purchase. Don’t make it hard for them to contact you when they’re ready.
4. Call To Action
What do you want your visitors to do? It should be easy to find out how to complete an order through your website or get more information. Regardless of the content of the page make sure that you include a clear call to action. Make it easy for visitors to purchase or request information from you. Just be sure to make it very clear.
5. Above the Fold Focus
Many visitors won’t scroll; most won’t scroll unless you have already convinced them that it’s worth their while to do so. Make sure important aspects are above fold. The unimportant things – why are they on your page? This is especially important on the home page. Visitors who’ve reached your FAQs page or your blog are probably interested enough to spend some time reading.
6. Inviting Content
To develop relationships with your clients, you need to have them visit more than once. In fact, most people won’t commit themselves the first time they come to your website. You need to offer them something of value so they’ll return. Do you have a blog, or frequently-updated featured products? Have you got any useful information that you could offer your customers?
7. Well-Organized Pages
Don’t make your visitors search. Always ensure that your page layout is clear, concise and gives the visitor exactly what they want without having to search for it. Try to put yourself in your customer’s position and use what you learn from testing. Decide what you want to say and plan its organization before you write, so you can be sure to have coherent paragraphs.
8. Visual Appeal
While the content on your page is the most important thing, an attractive page will be more enjoyable and appealing for visitors. Choose colours that work well together, leave some open space so it’s not too busy, and make sure you have everything lined up nicely. Even if you have not got artistic skills you can make a good impression – and you should.
9. Sincerity and Trustworthiness
The internet is all about trust. If you can ensure that your website is trustworthy, people will be more likely to complete an order. What’s more, the search engines also base your rankings on how trustworthy they think your page is. Don’t undermine your future success by trying to trick the search engines or mislead your visitors.
10. A Polished Finish
Do your links work? Make sure you check your grammar, spelling and layout are correct? Is all the information up to date and accurate? Your visitors would prefer to shop in a well kept and clean shop in the high street. They would prefer to purchase in a clean and well kept website too. They’ll have less faith in you if you have errors on your website.
Is your website perfect? Maybe not. We’ll be providing more information on all of these points as we go along, and your site will become better and better as you follow our suggestions and learn more.
Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Nearly all internet marketing professionals use video as one of the core methods for marketing their business. These ten tips aim to help you get started creating short, attractive, effective videos based on solid keywords that convert and that stand the test of time.
Video grabs people’s attention far more quickly and effectively than text, audio or photographs. Making a short video can capture a thousand words and pictures and helps to get across your personal brand and lifestyle.
It’s important to stand out in the crowd on video channels and search engines. Aim your headlines at capturing the imagination regarding your topic. So don’t be dull – test out curiosity, shock or fun tactics for getting those download clícks.
First of all, get set up.
When you’re starting out, it’s ok to just use your webcam. It will give you the chance to practice while you’re honing your presentation skills before you fork out for a camcorder. When you’re ready, you can purchase an inexpensive digital video recorder, like say the Flip and a tripod.
Make sure you take your videos in well-lit conditions. Inside your office you’ll need decent lighting, or you can whip out your camera when you’re out and about. It makes for a much more interesting back drop.
OK. So now let’s go through each of my TOP 10 TIPS for creating and using videos to market your business.
#1: Keep Your Videos Short
Whether you’re loading videos on YouTube or just putting them up on your website or blog, it’s really important to keep to just 5 or 6 minutes.
If needed, you can of course break longer topics up into a series of smaller videos, which you could market as a series (see tip 10).
#2: Post Videos on Your Sales PagesM
You can use video on your sales page to introduce the main benefits of your product or business opportuníty. How about placing a video on your sales page or sign up pages.
This helps to orientate visitors and to highlight the main points of your regular, written sales letter.
#3: Choose Your Keywords Carefully
This is really an important tip, because it will affect how your video gets picked up by the search engines and other internet ‘bots’ that seek out content.
Research your top keyword phrases. Pick keywords that will attract the right kind of traffic and leads – research like crazy to find out what your prospects are looking for – and be sure to include your keywords in headings and tags and description boxes.
Doing this research and tracking clíck thrus (CTR) and conversions will help you secure your most cost-effective keywords and keyword phrases.
#4: Have a Clear Purpose & Structure
Your keywords will help make sure you target your video on the right purpose before you start. Does your video answer the questions your visitors have in their heads when they’re searching for solutions. Make things crystal clear.
Stay on topic and give added value – unique value if possible – and your videos will convert much better for you. Write down a structure – a set of headings – for what you’re going to cover. Have a script if necessary.
You can mention any links that you have to another video specifically on that related topic.
#5: Look at the Camera
The aim here is to connect with your audience, both in the topic you choose and the content as well as in your communication style. Remember you are talking to people – real live people. What are their needs and wants, hopes and fears.
With regards to presentation, stick your líst of headings right next to the camera so you stay looking in the camera at all times, rather than looking away at a screen or down at your notes.
An authentic and honest video is far more valuable than a glossy TV like broadcast. So don’t worry if you’re not up to TV presenter standards. Just be yourself and enjoy the opportuníty to reach out to people in a different way than using text copy.
#6: Create a Clear Call to Action
You should create one very clear service and call to action. It’s very important that people know exactly what to do as a result of watching your video.
What is your most wanted response (MWR)? Don’t confuse visitors with lots of options and different offers. Focus on the single most wanted response.
Alternatively, you can put your video up next to a sign up box – linked to your emaíl marketing – and clearly ask them to opt ín, more than once. Provide an incentive, such as a free report or further video coaching resources.
#7: Encourage Comments on Your Video
One of the best things about video is that it’s a very personal, social medium. The more people that are talking about your video and passing it on, the more buzz you’ll create.
Visitors may return to your page to see who has commented since their last comment. There may accumulate a whole líst of tips that have been created by your niche community, prompted by your initial video post.
39 Tools for Marketing Your Small Busíness Online
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thousands of free online marketíng tools clamor for attention, with new ones popping up every week it seems. You know you should be doing more to reach out to your customers, but just researching which tools to use can be a vast time investment, even if they don’t require a big financial outlay.
Below is a compiled líst of the most popular (or most useful) low-cost or free small business marketing tools. You might be using some of them already, but you’re sure to find a couple that will round out your small business marketing toolkit nicely. And, if you’re just starting out marketing a new busíness online, this líst may help point you in the right direction.
Directories
The Open Directory – A staple of the SEO crowd, this directory can be tricky to get into but well worth it for the link juice it passes along to your site.
Yahoo! Directory – It’s not free – this directory will set you back a couple hundred bucks a year – but it’s well worth it for inclusion.
Best of the Web Directory – This directory has been around a while and can pass along some good PageRank to your site.
Niche Directories
Find the directories in your industry that pass along good link building opportunities. Some examples to get you started: SBDGraphics.com for ad agencies, web developers, printers and other graphics professionals; sbdpro.com for small businesses and businesses that serve them; Cpapro.com for the accounting industry; SEOAlpaca.org for alpaca breeders, and so on.
Press Release Distribution Services
Marketwire – The most bang for your buck from an actual wire service, Marketwire’s prices are lower than PR Newswire and Businesswire. This newer service is built for powerful online exposure, and you’ll enjoy the full online distribution with any geographical AP wire distribution. (Sometimes you can get statewide wire distribution for nearly the same cost as only your local metropolitan area.) It’s great for building inbound links – just choose the SEO Enhanced option.
PRLog – A good-performing free press release distribution outlet, PRLog press releases rank really well and for a really long time if they are written with SEO copywriting best practices. Press releases include three links, though they are URL based (starting with http) rather than text anchor. PRLog also lets you create your newsroom where all your press releases reside, as well as an “about us” page and product showcase area.
PitchEngine – A relatively new PR-for-social-media site that promises to let you create and share press releases easily and for free and syndicate content to Google News. Lets you include HTML in your press release, so you can use keyword text anchor links. The site is marketing itself quite aggressively and will likely build a big presence quickly. The only catch is your release will disappear off the site after 30 days if you aren’t a paid member ($50/month for your press room).
Emaíl Marketing
AWeber – AWeber makes it easy to start building your emaíl marketing líst, if you haven’t already. For less than $20/month, you can build unlímited newsletter lists, send unlímited email blasts, and email unlímited autorespond messages to up to 500 subscribers/líst. (Then it’s $29/month up to 2500 subscribers.) Also offers a recurring 30% commission – a pretty good affiliate program for a service you’ll appreciate enough to recommend to others. (Disclosure note: the link above is our affiliate link. We’ve been using the service for 3 years now, after trying out Constant Contact and researching about 20 other providers! Most either do autoresponders or email blasts/newsletters – not both.)
Content Sharing Websites
Squidoo – Create a lens around your business area. A good one with lots of information will even rank in the search engines and can bring traffic to your web site.
Scribd – Share your expert content like white papers and articles. You can make them available for free or sell them. You can submit documents in PowerPoint, Word, PDF and many other file formats.
SlideShare – Post your presentations and documents online for others to view and share. This is a great way to get exponential exposure for your sales or marketing materials – or share documents privately. See some tips for getting more visibility with SlideShare: http://bit.ly/aNXmS2
Flikr – Does your product or service translate well visually? Use this popular photo sharing site to get more eyeballs.
Blip.tv – A video-sharing alternative to YouTube, blip.tv lets you embed links in your descriptions and create a TV station showing all your videos in one spot.
Social Networks
Facebook – Create a page for your business. Feed your blog in. Start a group. Get fans. Advertise to targeted users if your products appeal to the Facebook crowd (which is basically everybody nowadays). See using the new Facebook business page layout to learn more. Stop by our page and become a fan, too!
MySpace – Take a second look at this medium for social networking. According to MarketingProfs, more than half of MySpace.com users are 35 or older. Explore using MySpace for your business.
LinkedIn – Like a virtual Rolodex. Build your professional profile, link up with other professionals, join groups or even start a group. Participating in Q&A’s related to your profession is a great way to build credibility and visibility.
Ning – Build your social network around your business. You may even get your network into the search engine results pages. Learn more about using Ning for business. (http://bit.ly/amLKcE)
Read “Utlize Social Media to Gain Additional Exposure for Your Site” (http://bit.ly/bcoWEQ) for more information about social networks and how they can drive targeted traffíc to your site.
Social Bookmarking
Digg – Getting your content on the home page of Digg is one way to bump up your web site’s traffic by thousands within minutes. This can result in valuable links to your site. Start with this beginner’s guide to Digg.
StumbleUpon – Build friends and send them your articles to rate. More thumbs up will get your article shown to more people outside your network and can result in thousands of visitors every day. Tips for using StumbleUpon.
Reddit – Even if your content gets buried on Digg, it can flourish on Reddit – which can be a catalyst for jumping to the home page of other social bookmarking sites. Learn more about the types of topics that do well on Reddit.
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
While ostensibly aimed at helping Google target potential weaknesses in its own product pages, and of no direct use to SEOs, there is nonetheless more than a little gold to be found here, if one just examines the document in a little more depth. So while the post at Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is already beginning to bristle with comments lamenting the fact that this isn’t a clear treasure map to the search-ranking mother lode, it’s worth sifting through the Report Card to see what informational nuggets are hidden inside.
Subject I: Search Result Presentation
It’s easy to see why some readers simply dismissed this document out of hand, as the first section starts off being little more than a rehash of the standard “Use Page Titles, Use Meta Descriptions” advice found in any SEO-101 manual. Only by persevering to the part talking about Google Sitelink Triggering, does one begin to suspect that there may be a little more to the report card than meets the eye. Here the authors throw out a couple of crumbs about categorizing website and link-structure, and consolidating a site’s URLs to maximize its informational focus with the aim of increasing the chances of Google generating Sitelinks.
Even so, it’s nothing most professionals haven’t heard before, and I suspect that by this time a lot of readers had given up, thinking that nothing interesting was in store.
Subject II: URLs and Redirects
This is where we see a little glitter among the rubble, as the section starts off with the statement that: “Google products’ URLs take many different forms. Most larger products use a subdomain, while smaller ones usually use a directory form…”
In itself this is not an exceptional statement, and the chapter continues to give handy, but hardly unique, information about canonicalization, URL structure, and redirects until Page 10, where we find the following declaration:
“Subdomains require an extra DNS lookup, slightly affecting latency, which is very important at Google.”
Page load-speeds are an important factor to Google. There’s been talk and speculation about this ever since Matt Cutts dropped the first hints last year, and these days most SEOs are busily proclaiming that slow websites are now a handicap.
Haven’t they always been?
Be that as it may, this fact is not common knowledge with the average webmaster, as demonstrated by a question I’m regularly confronted with over at the Google Webmaster Help Forum:
“Which is a better way to categorize my site, subdomains or folders?”
The standard answer to this question used to be “Whichever you prefer” before load-times became an issue. Now, however, we find a clear indicator that a folder-based approach is much-preferable unless a category actually contains enough information to merit its own site, which is effectively what a subdomain turns it into.
Subject III: On-Page Optimizations
While at first glance this chapter is more standard SEO-101 fodder, it’s where we find a sizable nugget, as the report talks about semantic markup, and how Google uses it to gauge a page’s content.
“Nothing new here; we all use H1 tags.” you might say, but you’d only be partially right, because this issue not only runs much deeper than H1 headings, it runs beyond Heading tags altogether, as I’ll explain shortly. For the moment, however, let’s stay with them.
In the past few years, a great many Optimizers have reached the conclusion that only H1, and, to a degree, H2 are of any promotional value, and that lesser headings (H3 – H6) carry practically no weight at all. But let’s take a look at the following statement, taken from Page 38 of the Report:
“Most product main pages have an opportuníty to use one
tag, like the example above, but they’re currently only using other heading tags (
in this case) or larger font styling. While styling your text so it appears larger might achieve the same visual presentation, it does not provide the same semantic meaning to the search engine that an
tag does.”
tag does.”
For starters it’s obvious that the lesser headings are alive and well, and being used by Google. We’re also told that Google does not, or cannot, judge the visual-context meaning of CSS styled text. The conclusion is to use more heading tags instead of CSS styles wherever your content calls for it. However, there’s more to it still. Let’s take another look at part of that statement:
“…but they’re currently only using other heading tags…”
It would appear that Google still places greater value on other semantic markup tags (em, strong, blockquote, etc.) than many professionals give them acknowledgment, for these days. Otherwise why would the author specifically note the fact that Google only uses headings and font styles?
I personally know quite a few professionals who have long-since abandoned most semantic markup tags in favour of CSS style, since the prevailing attitude of designers and SEOs has been that making text bold or italic no longer carries much promotional weight, following widespread abuses in the mid-2000s and Google’s consequent algorithm updates.
And although the above statement may be a tentative one, it might just point the way back to a more HTML-based approach to web design. Indeed, if it can be taken at face-value, it’s entirely possible that those SEOs and designers advocating CSS-based, table-less design as the way forward are barking up the wrong tree. Whatever the case may be, there is undoubtedly more to the SEO Report Card than first meets the eye, and at the very least, there is a little gold to be extracted from the mass of standard information. Only by reading the full document will you be able to make an assessment yourself.
What should also be remembered is that the SEO Report Card is not aimed at high-flying SEOs or E-lebrity industry pundits, but at the intermediate webmaster for whom even the report’s basic information is of immense value, if read alongside Google’s SEO Starter Guide
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Monday, March 1, 2010
Pay Per Click Marketing vs Facebook Advertising
Google is the Bad Egg of Internet Marketing & MLM. With so
many accounts slapped and closed down for good, Top Gurus
are turning to Facebook Advertising as a far superior
option for cheap targeted traffic.
Don’t Put your Eggs in One Marketing Basket
Savvy Pro marketers like our members aren’t panicking -
we’ve always had a back up plan on the go. Our advice has
been simple – don’t put all your eggs in one basket -
especially Google’s! If you’re using Pay Per Click
Advertising, then make sure you also have some SEO going on
- to generate organic traffic.
It takes a lot of hard work to get your site ranked
through organic traffic – writing articles, forum posts,
blogs, squidoo lenses, hub pages, video marketing – to
build up your online presence and expertise for your chosen
niche keywords.
Organic takes time. So if you don’t have the patience and
want to generate lots of traffic fast, PPC is a good to
have as part of your marketing model.
But internet marketers and PPC experts are absolutely fed
up with the arrogance of Google. So if we’re not doing
Google Adwords for our marketing, where do we get the
masses of traffic we are still able to generate on a daily
basis?
Adding Content Rich Social Marketing into the Mix
If you want free traffic, you usually have to spend masses
of your time with manually writing copy and creating
podcasts and video marketing. So really it’s not free at
all – time is money and all that. Hiring a copy writing
group to create niche content can become quite expensive.
So all this organic SEO friendly traffic takes time to
build up and requires consistent daily effort. This is good
to add to your marketing mix but won’t give you fast
traffic.
What’s super important too is that organic SEO content is
ultimately still controlled by the search engines, so
Google still has power over how you get seen by your
prospects.
How hard is it these days to do enough clever keyword
research to get your unique niche and rank on page one of
Google. Almost impossible – especially if you’re one newbie
trying to compete with the big gurus in internet marketing
or MLM network marketing arena.
What Marketing Strategies to Use that Beat Google Adwords
Fair and Square?
What company is fair and sane, loves affiliates and direct
marketers? What company attracts nearly 40 billion views a
month and the traffic is uber quality and dirt cheap? Who
is this company? Well, it’s your friendly neighbourhood….
Facebook!
Facebook is the only company that Google actually
acknowledges is a real competitor to them. Facebook is
currently showing up as having four hundred million active
members – that makes it 5 times the size of Google!!!
Yet Facebook ads represent just 5% of the advertising done
on Google.
Now don’t be thinking Facebook is just for youngsters!
Insidefacebook.com published its statistics and show that
only 11% of users are aged 13-17. While 33% are 18-25s, a
whopping 18% are aged between 35 and 44. That’s 100 million
people! And a further 9% are aged 45-54 and 4% 55-65.
Don’t spend another cent with Google till you’ve checked
out Facebook Advertising.
Why Facebook is the New Face of Paid Advertising
Facebook is pretty much untapped compared to PPC
advertising on Google, Yahoo or Bing.
It’s truly a “sleeping giant”, an ingenious source of
traffic that is…
- much bigger than PPC
- less competitive than PPC
- more targeted than PPC
- less expensive than PPC
And what’s more, Facebook’s integrated personal profiles
mean you can hone in on exactly the demographic you are
trying to target – not just on keyword phrases, you can
also target only Facebook members who are in particular age
groups, regions and/or have specifically stated certain
interest areas – it’s simply awesome how deep you can get
into Facebook – giving you massive choice and combinations.
Because of this, Facebook allows you to use the same ad in
many different ways so you can really hit the hot spots of
your users and their interests. Imagine being able to
target by age, gender, film interests, AND keywords… you
can really hit your message home.
So what this means in practice is that the clicks you get
on your Facebook ad are immensely more targeted and convert
far better and cost far less than what you’d achieve on
Google Adwords.
If all that targeting isn’t enough to convince you, here
are some more benefits of using Facebook advertising:
- Facebook is also great for newbies. It’s really easy to
use and to set up your campaigns. If you can send an
email, you can do Facebook ads.
- Facebook ads work in any market and will give a far
better ROI than PPC, even for affiliate marketing.
- Facebook advertiser competition is minimal right now,
so now is the time to tap into this massive source of
traffic.
- Your ad in Facebook can include not only titles and
descriptions but also images, which you can’t do with
PPC ads.
- Facebook ads leave little wastage because you can seek
out ultra targeted members who are likely to respond to
your offer.
Following the Facebook Rules
There is a downside.
Facebook is hugely protective of its users. So you have to
really study and follow their rules. And this will take you
some time.
The general rule of thumb stems from what is called
“permission marketing”. So make sure you check this out so
you don’t get your account cancelled.
Adding Search to Your Marketing Mix
The powerful capabilities of organic search engine optimization (SEO) are now a highly sought after marketing tool by many companies that want to alert customers to their products or services by focusing on certain keyphrases that highlight these offerings. And though SEO has embarked on a meteoric rise in the past few years, other non-traditional forms of marketing are now gaining a great deal of well-deserved credibility as well. More and more marketers are using paid ads to hone in on a potentially profitable client base, while other more traditional channels, such as PR and print ads, appear to be becoming somewhat less effective.
In a recent study (1), Forrester Research found that interactive marketing spending will reach nearly $55 billion by 2014, representing 21% of all marketing spend. And the fact of the matter is that marketers are continuing to place more stock in newer forms of marketing and social media, leaving many higher-ups to wonder if it is time for them to include these channels in their own marketing mixes. And with the help of your search engine optimization company, it’s possible to achieve outstanding rankings and results!
What follows are some common considerations that should be analyzed prior to the launch of an SEO campaign so that you will know what you are getting into, what you will need from your team and your prospective search engine optimization company, and how to most effectively pursue this particular form of marketing.
Achieving Buy-in
Search engine optimization is unlike many traditional forms of marketing in that several departments must be involved in order for the SEO campaign to be successful. Apart from the obvious need to get buy-in from upper management (unless, of course, you are upper management), you will also need to get buy-in from your sales department and, very importantly, your IT department before pursuing the powerful capabilities your search engine optimization company can bring to the table.
Upper Management
While a well thought out, highly targeted SEO campaign is becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool, many “old school” bigwigs are uncomfortable pursuing something that is completely foreign to them. This is not an indictment of the individual – keep in mind that the traditional marketing methods that the company has likely relied upon (trade shows, direct mail, print advertising, etc.) have been relatively unchanged for decades.
While these traditional marketing channels may have remained relatively stagnant, the allocation of spend for them has not. According to a 2008 SEMPO report, more marketers are shifting their budgets to search rather than spending it on the more traditional channels of the past. Nearly 26% of advertisers shifted budget for print magazines to search; 23% from direct mail; 18% from print newspaper; 15% from website development; and 7% from email marketíng.
One of the reasons for this is obviously the effectiveness of the channel. In the same study, SEMPO found that respondents viewed marketing online efforts as their strongest tactic or best ROI. 63% of respondents saw paid search as the best return on investment in terms of marketing or advertising efforts; 49% for organic SEO; 43% for email marketíng; 12% for conferences and exhibitions; 11% for public relations; and 6% for print magazines.
Another reason for the shift in marketing dollars, which can be used as ammunition when you are trying to convince your higher-ups to go with a search engine optimization company, is the ultimate accountability that goes along with online marketing: the data that indicates success or failure of your SEO campaign is of the black-or-white variety.
When describing the effectiveness of a company’s marketing strategy, there is often an old sentiment tossed around – “I know that half of my marketing is not working, just not which half.” Because of the analytics involved in search engine optimization, your company higher-ups can take comfort in the fact that this is not another marketing initiative that will self-perpetuate indefinitely – the metrics involved in your SEO campaign will demonstrate that it is working, justifying the continued expenditure.
When trying to get buy-in from upper management, you also have a formidable weapon in the actions, or inaction, of your competitors. If your hated rivals are actively embracing the tools offered by a search engine optimization company, there will be a tendency among upper management not to want to let them get too far ahead. If none of your top competitors appear to be actively pursuing this channel, your company can gain traction before your rivals do and thus gain the competitive edge. Whichever the case, it is now much easier to present a compelling argument to pursue an SEO campaign.
Sales Department
There is often a mutual suspicion and distrust between sales and marketing, but in order for your SEO campaign initiative to be as successful as possible, you should involve sales in the process of selecting a search engine optimization company as early as possible. Achieving buy-in from the salespeople is critical in making certain that the leads that are generated from the website are followed up on as diligently as they should be. By asking sales to assist in important areas of the SEO campaign, like creating an ideal prospect profile and helping to identify targeted keyphrases (after all, they talk to your prospects more often than anyone), you should be able to ensure that when the leads start coming in, your sales team will believe that leads from the website are high-quality and worthy of their immediate attention. After all, without increased revenues, the SEO campaign is not a success – and your salespeople will play a crucial role in determining this.
IT Department
This can be your most difficult challenge. Unlike most other forms of marketing, search engine optimization is a mixture of marketing and technology. Without achieving buy-in, or at least acceptance, from the IT team prior to the launch of an SEO campaign, you are likely to run into problems. IT teams can be particularly protective of their “turf” and may be reluctant to hand over information to your prospective search engine optimization company. This is not inherently bad (it obviously shows dedication to the job), but it can make things difficult when your search engine optimization company is requesting that changes be made to the company website or that analytics platforms be introduced (to name only two likely scenarios).
If you are not used to dealing with your IT department, it would probably serve you well to involve your prospective search engine optimization company in the process of achieving buy-in with them. After all, the vendor should have years of experience in approaching these situations without ruffling feathers. If you choose to approach IT yourself, make it a point to let them know that they will receive a fair share of recognition for the success of the initiative and involve them in how you are defining success. This may be enough to win them over to your side.
Works Cited:
1. U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 – 2014
Search Engine Optimization SEO is No Place for Amateurs
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, February 18, 2010
SEO is No Place for Amateurs
How come everybody nowadays is an SEO Expert?
Let’s face it; not a day goes by where we don’t see someone offering their services as a Search Engine Optimization specialist. The strange thing is however, many of the people offering such services on the various forums tend to have no runs on the board themselves.
Of course, I’m not saying there aren’t a great deal of reputable internet marketing services out there, but they are becoming increasingly outnumbered by those with little or no background at all, and it is these people and their companies which are highly unlikely to ever produce satisfactory results for their clients.
Perhaps one should bear in mind that there is no difference between investing your money in internet marketing, and investing your money in a regular market. In both cases you need to measure your results just as you need to target the correct audience. For example, you wouldn’t even consider wasting your money by advertising your product or your service in a newspaper that is completely irrelevant to your target market. Advertising is done for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to bring in a return on your investment, irrespective of whether the advertising is done online or offline.
Why You Should Avoid the Amateurs
Essentially, you need to bear in mind that while any Tom, Dick, and Harry can learn about search engine optimization, it takes several years of dedication, practice, and careful analysis, in order to fully understand the different techniques, and how to apply different techniques to different types of business.
The bottom line is; a SEO campaign is in fact a highly intensive process that starts out with intense keyword research in order to establish which keywords are the most likely to produce maximum results for a website. Once the ideal keywords have been established, it can be incredibly tempting to simply spread them around on your website and hope for the best. However, in most cases you’ll find that the most popular keywords also have the most competition.
As such, why bother targeting particular key words, irrespective of how popular they are, if there’s virtually no chance they are going to help in terms of ranking? In fact, you could end up waiting for several months before the major search engines start recognizing your website.
On the other hand, a specialist who is highly skilled in internet marketing will be aware of which relevant keywords and keyword phrases will help to improve a website’s ranking. Likewise, a true professional will also know where the keywords and keyword phrases should be placed on a website in order for them to have the maximum amount of impact, without being penalized for keyword stuffing.
Onsite optimization of keywords is notoriously time consuming if it’s being done properly. But if your goal is to give a website a boost in search engine ranking, then this optimization process needs to be continued off-site as well. Here again, a competent SEO professional will know exactly how to go about implementing a successful link building campaign, including article marketing, submittíng articles to directories, taking advantage of several social networking sites, and also social book marking.
Furthermore, because a professional SEO specialist appreciates the importance of being able to get a good return on investment, they will also make use of Analytics tools in order to track conversions and monitor the success of an internet marketing campaign. Bear in mind, that these tools are essential in order to fine tune any good SEO campaign.
Steer Clear of Internet Marketing Fraudsters
Unfortunately, but also to be expected, the internet is full of undesirable people who focus entirely on targeting honorable businesses by means of providing them with false promises regarding guaranteed results. These people will more often than not guarantee that they will get your website to the top of the search rankings by using specific keywords. However, in most cases, they simply use keywords which are so rarely used, they show at the top of search rankings simply because they have no competition – no one uses them.
Obviously, if no one is ever typing that keyword into the search box, then why waste money on it? One of the easiest ways to determine whether or not an internet marketing expert is in fact legitimate, is that the legitimate ones don’t ever provide any guarantees with regards to getting you in the top spot on search results. This is because they know that no one can guarantee such results due to a number of reasons, such as algorithms which change continuously.
How to Avoid the Wrong Internet Marketing Service
First and foremost, you need to ask the right questions:
1. You need to determine how long the company has been involved with Internet marketing.
2. You should ask to see testimonials from past clients.
3. You should search online for their services. In fact, you should attempt to find their website by using keywords and keyword phrases which are relevant to the services they provide. Obviously, if you fail to find them on the first page of Google search results, then your alarm bells should start ringing. For example, if you were considering using the services of Sunshine Coast Internet Marketing Company, you could do a search for Sunshine Coast Internet marketing, internet marketing Sunshine Coast, etc.
The most important thing of all is that you acknowledge the fact that going with the wrong internet marketing company can end up costing you a considerable amount of money for nothing. On the other hand, if you choose to use the services of a reputable company, you can almost be certain that your website will end up ranking much higher than it did before.
Putting SEO Under the Microscope
There is not a day that goes by that people recommending search engine optimization (SEO) don’t come up with yet another interesting idea or opinion on a topic in their field. They are all so focused on structures and procedures that they often forget that not every one agrees with their viewpoints and practices – that is, if their technical mumbo-jumbo can be understood.
The following are 5 SEO topics that are frequently discussed and disagreed upon:
1 – The Importance of Content Structure & Keywords
While keywords may add great value from a technical, algorithmic ranking perspective, their presence may not always entice the audience to explore the site they are visiting. The content may seem boring and unappealing, rather than grabbing and fascinating. In that case, the psychological triggers that will tell the reader to continue browsing will be missing, as will the desire to share the information with their friends and family.
SEO experts won’t ever agree on which is more important when it comes to keywords and compelling content. In the end, it will be up to the website owner or manager to decide what is more important to him: search engine rankings or sales.
2 – Pro or Con Reciprocal Link Exchange
A ‘reciprocal link exchange’ is an effective and efficient way of driving traffic to a website and improving the search engine placement of participating websites. At least, that is what some experts believe, while others are fearful and refuse to swap any kind of link that may refer to their business.
Artificially manipulating links may not be the best SEO idea on the market, but there is definitely nothing wrong with link trading programs that exchange links of companies endorsing a relationship, or business related directories.
If you do decide to participate in a link exchange, check the links regularly and report the dead ones to the webmaster so they can either be fixed or removed.
3 – Should the H1 Headline and Title Tag Match – or Not?
Many SEO consultants are skeptical when they notice sites whose H1 header is different from the title tag. One may wonder what the reasoning may be, because this action may confuse and upset the audience. Users click on a certain headline because they are interested in its content, yet when the search result is complete, and the header and title tag do not match, they may find themselves confronted with a completely different message, which may be something they are not interested in. That is very disappointing for the user, even if it may result in a higher ranking.
4 – The Relevance of a Website’s Age
Although many web designers believe that the age and history of a website are pertinent, it is not quite clear if search engines actually do use an ‘age’ or an ‘age of links’ metric to inflate incumbent rankings. Search engines check keywords, pay-per-click, link building and other SEO features and don’t necessarily verify when a website was built. All they care about is how user friendly and SEO strong the site is, which means that a younger, highly efficient site should absolutely be able to compete with more mature competitors.
5 – Reporting a Competitor’s Spam Activities
Spam is a reality and spammers should be reported. At least, that is what a number of SEO specialists would argue. Others may disagree and point out that those who are extremely vocal about competitors’ manipulative tactics to enhance search engine ranking are usually the ones abusing it the most. All they are trying to do is shift the focus away from them.
Anyone reporting spam should not publicly announce their actions because, even if spammers are breaking guidelines, the SEO community is vehement about socially shunning those violating the “code of silence”. As unethical as this blackmail may seem, it should not stop you from warning the search engines about illegal activities and, at the same time, reap some of the benefits associated with this. In the end, you will have to market and protect your site and business.
Here are several arguments in favor of spam reporting:
• Taking out spammers will improve the value of the Internet and help search engines provide more accurate search results.
• Your ranking may improve by eliminating a competitor.
• Removing manipulators will leave more room for your site to achieve better rankings, to boost visibility and to boost your sales.
• You can learn from researching spam activities and tactics. You will learn what is inappropriate, what the engines do/don’t tolerate and what penalties can be expected for which unlawful actions.
• As long as you are clean yourself, reporting spammers can gain you trust with the search engines.
These are a few reasons against it:
• If you are engaged in certain types of spam, or unknowingly benefit from it, you can accidentally hurt your website’s ranking.
• It is unethical to blow the whistle on and hurt other SEO specialists. People have been arguing about ethics for centuries and in the end it will be up to each individual to decide what is more important to them and to their website.
The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization SEO
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Fundamentals of SEO
Why SEO?
Search engines provide the majority of traffic to websites
across the Internet, regardless of website focus. Therefore, if
your site cannot be properly located and indexed by the leading
search engines, you are missing out on the best opportunity to
drive targeted visitors and potential revenue.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is the process by which pages
are improved to increase their organic search engine rankings.
This is done by assessing what the individual search engines are
looking for and providing that. The outcome of an SEO Campaign
is to create high organic rankings for the keywords/phrases for
which the client is indeed an authority. This will ultimately
create an increase in targeted traffic. A good SEO campaign
includes the following three aspects:
1. Keyword Analysis
2. Onsite Optimization
3. Offsite Optimization
Keyword analysis is the process by which you analyze and
select keywords based on traffic, competition, and relevance. If
you are not selecting the proper keywords, then the rest of the
optimization is really a lost cause. The text and theme of the
site needs to revolve around these keywords and very much define
how the site appears to both users and search engines.
Onsite optimization deals with changes made to the site
itself. This involves making changes to the text content,
architecture of the site, HTML code, and page layout.
CSS design http://www.webassist.com/dreamweaver-extensions/
css-sculptor/?WAAID=898″) is often recommended when working
to optimize a website as it helps keep important content at the
top of your pages and allows for your pages to be easily and
efficiently crawled by the search engines. This is the most
commonly understood aspect of SEO, but only accounts for about
40% of a site’s rankings. This is where your keywords are placed
throughout the code to show the search engines what your site is
about.
Offsite optimization deals with changes made outside the
scope of the site. This mainly involves increasing the quantity
and quality of inbound links to the site. Approximately 60% of
Google’s current ranking algorithm is based on inbound linking.
Your goal is to maximize the site’s exposure on the Web and get
as many sites as possible to link back to your site.
What is a Good Keyword and What is Not?
This is the ultimate question we have to ask ourselves when
judging keywords. There are many variables you have to take into
account when selecting exactly what keywords your site will be
optimized for. Use the following criteria to determine the
viability of a keyword:
* The estimated amount of searches for the keyword in a 24
hour period
* The number of sites competing for the keyword
* The quality of the sites competing for the keyword
* The ability of the site to support the keyword
* Relevance between keywords
* The target audience of the site
Keep in mind that your number one goal is to accurately depict
what the site is about through the keywords (and the eventual
text content). If your site is not properly described by the
keywords, then either the site is targeted wrong or you’ve
selected the wrong keywords.
Search engines like sites that are targeted to a specific topic.
If a site is spread too thin as far as topic goes, then it will
be much harder to appear as an authority for any one topic.
Search engines do favor large sites, but generally it is better
to have a smaller targeted site than a larger broad site that is
about many topics.
It’s not uncommon to discover site theme issues when doing
keyword selection. Oftentimes, it leads to a reassessment of the
site as a whole (which is a positive). In this way, general
marketing, user experience, and SEO overlap. If you do not feel
your site is targeted towards the correct keywords and themes,
it is important that you re-target the site and its content prior
to optimization. You should understand your audience, the
purpose of your site, and its themes before even starting an SEO
initiative.
It is also common for sites to get caught up in industry jargon.
You have to look at your keywords as your target audience would.
If you’re targeting the general consumer and you use lots of
industry jargon, then you cannot expect much of a return on
investment.
Another thing to watch out for is overly generic keywords. If
you are attempting to optimize your site for keywords that can
mean many other things, you are bringing in a whole lot of new
competition. So, we have a small list now of what to avoid.
* Keywords that are not relevant to each other
* Keywords that do not fit the theme of the site
* Industry jargon, if it is not applicable to the audience
* Keywords that are too generic/overly competitive
META Headers
Optimizing the META header is the first and easiest step in
onsite optimization. There are four main areas that you should
be concerned with:
1. Title
2. Description
3. Keywords
4. Robots
Depending on the keyword selection, the Title should be made up
of the first two keywords. This provides high density and
prominence for both keywords instead of using it all on one. Of
course, the Title should make sense and be descriptive of the
page. The Description borrows the same idea, but expands on it a
little. It is ideal to include both the primary and secondary
keyword in a short sentence describing the page. The Keywords
field is simply a list of the keywords separated by commas with
no spaces in between. The Robots tag tell the search engine
spiders what to do with the page.
Links
“Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by
page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than
the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for
example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes
cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily
and help to make other pages ‘important.’” -Quote from Google’s
website.
Link popularity is one of the most important factors search
engines use in determining where you will rank in the search
engine results (SERPs) for your keywords and phrases, as it
helps them to determine how important or popular your site is
and what its reputation is. Link building, as part of the
offsite optimization process, is the process of finding
related/relevant websites and receiving a link from them to you.
Natural linking occurs when a site has good content that others
will link to without being asked. But to get these links, people
have to know about you. It is a catch 22. Building links has
become pretty sophisticated over the last couple of years. Today
you need a mixture of links from many sources including
articles, press releases, social media, blogs, directories and
others.
10 Things You Need to Know about SEO
I have compiled a list of 10 vital things – from choosing an
expert to instructing your web developer – that every marketer
needs to consider when undertaking search engine optimisation as
part of their marketing mix.
1. Strategy First
Please, don’t ask for a full SEO proposal from an agency until
you have set your strategy. Too often, agencies will respond
with a full proposal, including lots of articles to be created,
sites to be built and links to be implemented without a clear
strategy.
Some sites are more straight forward but others are complex and
would benefit from asking a couple of agencies to get involved
at the research stage – ask them about the strengths and
weaknesses of your site, what they think of your competitors,
and what strategic approach they would take with your site.
To get the best advice from this process, expect to pay the
agencies involved. A small percentage of your online budget
spent on good strategy will save you money in the long term.
Even better, pay two agencies for a strategy recommendation and
then choose the best one for your business!
2. Choosing a Consultant
You need to work with someone who can communicate about SEO in
plain English, someone who can take complicated ideas and
techniques and turn them into something you can understand,
then make a decision on – especially as there are often many
possible solutions to choose from.
Someone with experience in your vertical – such as travel,
finance, retail – as well as several other verticals is
important. An SEO consultant with experience across multiple
types of business, as well as experience that is directly
relevant to you will have better problem solving skills and more
exposure to technologies. Experience in your sector will mean
the consultant will be very helpful in defining your strategy,
understanding terminology, and knowing what your competitors are
doing.
3. Expectations
What are realistic expectations from your investment in SEO?
Too often, we see marketers defining their keyword set or crazy
goals for their site without any basis in how SEO really works.
If you are a law firm, for example, and you want to rank highly
for terms such as “lawyer”, or “barrister”, then you have to
take into account that these are extremely popular and
competitive terms. It might not be achievable, and even if it
is, it’s probably a very hard road to get there.
Be open to advice when setting the goals for your website (which
should be a part of the keyword research period of your SEO
project). If you have a PPC campaign running first, you can use
the keyword data from that campaign to gain an understanding of
what is important for your website.
4. Using the Right Language
Optimising begins with keyword research that helps you
understand the language your customers are using to find your
products and services.
Be realistic. It may sound obvious but, if the words your
customers are using to search are not on your website pages,
then you won’t be found in the search engines for those words.
Similarly, brand words and buzz words are all very nice in
marketing, but if people aren’t using those words to search,
then again you won’t be found.
Be ready to change the language of your site. Be open to the
idea of conforming your website to the language people use.
Optimisation is about including those words in the right areas
of your pages (such as navigation, links, headings, meta tags
and content) so the search engine sees all the right signals to
understand what your site’s pages should be ranked for.
5. Measurement
Rankings are not the only measure of success! For many years,
SEO firms have measured everything on rankings. However, we
recommend using analytics similar to a PPC (paid) search
campaign for a more comprehensive measure of success.
Here is a simple description of how to do that: Take what you
are spending on SEO and put it against traffic and conversions
to work out cost per unique browser, cost per click and cost per
conversion. It’s best to analyse these over a period of six
and/or twelve months to allow for any changes in SEO to come into
effect. This is because the major difference between SEO and PPC
is the implementation time – for SEO, the results will take
months, rather than days.
6. Moving Variables
There are so many moving variables in SEO that it would be
impossible to find one person who knows everything! But a good
SEO consultant is worth their weight in gold. Their value is not
necessarily in the implementation, but in tapping into their
experience to find the right implementation. One tiny piece of
advice from them which may take 10 minutes to explain could be
worth more than a copywriter producing numerous articles for
your site each month.
7. One Agency or Two?
Some agencies have two separate teams working on SEO and PPC.
Some marketers choose two completely different agencies to
handle their SEO and PPC campaigns.
However, the two are very closely related and the results from
one can be useful to the other. For instance, the keyword data
from your PPC campaign can help with your SEO keyword research.
On the flip side, optimising pages for SEO will usually provide
your PPC campaigns with a better quality score. When PPC and SEO
listings are seen together on a search engine, they usually
increase the click-through and conversion rates for both
campaigns.
They go hand in hand, and each can have a positive effect on the
other if done well. And with one agency on both campaigns, they
will have a greater depth of experience with your business,
which can only help you to succeed.
8. Web Developers are not SEO Experts
Finally, a word on expertise. Most web developers say they are
experts in SEO (http://www.dgmmarketing.com.au/
search-engine-optimisation.htm). There is no doubting that many
of them do a reasonable job, but they are not truly specialists
in the area of SEO.
In the same way, I wouldn’t recommend that an SEO specialist
designs your website. They are specialist skills, which both
contribute to the success of your business online.
9. Use of Java Script
Those pesky robots that the major search engines rely on to rank
web pages have until recently imposed some limitations for web
development. While useful code such as Java Script can make your
website really functional – a simple example is a loan
calculator, and many websites’ navigation and links – and thus
attractive to users, the robots often couldn’t follow the code
properly, and thus skipped over it. The major problem was that
commonly, web developers didn’t know that Java Script wasn’t
being read or followed by the robots.
That has changed recently, with Google updating its technology
so that the robots can read and follow Java Script. When the
robots can follow a website’s navigation and links properly, the
SEO rankings are greatly influenced.
10. Flash
Potentially any Flash file can now be indexed, according to
Google, but it still depends on how that Flash site is
constructed. Generally older Flash sites are not seen in the
most effective way by the search engines, though it depends on
the practices of the Flash developer. Many older Flash sites
have overcome this problem by building an underlying version of
the site in html – though this method too has its drawbacks.
Flash sites need to be built like html sites, with multiple
files that optimise each keyword. If you are building a new
Flash site, be sure to consult with an SEO expert before the
developer starts on the build.
Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:24 AM
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?
Don’t exactly know what it is about starting a new year of
marketing online, but I always stop and take a hard look at all
my marketing tactics and methods. Article marketing is always at
the top of my list, mainly because it is and has always been the
cornerstone of everything I do on the web.
By cornerstone I mean it is the key to basically all of my
online earnings. Without article marketing I wouldn’t be a
full-time online marketer – it’s as simple as that. No articles,
no income.
Articles bring in the targeted traffic. Articles build those all
important one-way backlinks. Articles build those even more
important top rankings in Google for your chosen keywords.
Articles build your online reputation and credibility in the
eyes of your visitors.
I was struggling on the web for around three years before I
wrote my first article. “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site”
which is still on around 8,000 sites around the web.
Writing was always a passion of mine, but it was more on the
creative side, although I did work briefly as a reporter for a
very small community newspaper. Looking back on it, I believe
(perhaps falsely) that I had to gain all those years of
experience before I could start writing articles about it.
Which was the totally wrong attitude to take since anyone can
research a favorite subject or topic and write a short
informative article on it. Most of us have been doing that since
grade school – it is the same as writing a report or an essay.
Only with article writing you actually see monetary returns
almost immediately. Surfers search for an answer in the search
engines, your article pops up, they read it and then click the
link to your webpage where you have conveniently placed your
affiliate links or your own products.
A Small Percentage of Those Article Readers Will Buy Your
Products and You’re in Business.
Over time, all those backlinks in your resource box at the end
of your article will make your keywords rise in the search
engines, especially Google. Then as someone searches in Google -
your site pops up, they click thru to your webpage and a small
percentage of these visitors will buy your product or affiliate
product displayed on your page.
Smart marketers will also start building a large list of
prospective customers by offering a free guide, ecourse, ebook
or software program to get those visitors to sign-up to your
opt-in list. These marketers can then do follow-up with all
these potential customers.
That in a nutshell is an article marketing model or funnel which
thousands of online marketers and webmasters are using. And have
been using for years.
But Will Article Marketing Remain Effective in 2010 and the
Coming Years?
More than likely the answer would be yes but the web is
constantly changing and there are other games worth playing. The
same kind of marketing system could be done with Videos, Blogs,
Social Networks and even with Twitter. Your options are more
varied…
However, I find article marketing can be integrated into all
these elements. For example, EzineArticles lets you Tweet your
articles to all your followers. I turn my best articles into
Videos and place them on YouTube which opens up a whole
different flow of traffic to my webpages and affiliate links.
Likewise, you can place your articles or links to them on
FaceBook, MySpace and the other social networks. I find getting
your articles on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon… can bring in a lot
of traffic and increase your rankings.
But the Question Remains – is Article Marketing as Effective
as It Once Was?
My own answer and personal opinion is no since it’s
effectiveness has been watered down somewhat because every “tom
dick and harry plus sally” is doing it. Everyone has discovered
how writing short informative articles on the topic of your site
can be very lucrative.
When I wrote that first article five years ago, I was ‘writer
#1561′ with Ezinearticles. Now they have over 242,000 writers!
Back then, I found your article was placed on a lot more sites
mostly because there wasn’t that many articles out there and
competition was much, much less than it is now. More people
writing more articles simply means your article falls into a
bigger pool of other articles.
I believe video marketing is at the stage article marketing was
at around five years ago. So turning your articles into short
“how to” videos would probably be a wiser move and you would
have a lot less competition. You can also place your marketing
into the whole Video/Youtube craze that is still bringing in
tons of traffic and interested customers.
However, the popularity of free article directories have grown
and some of these sites have very high traffic numbers. Here are
some of the main ones I use:
* EzineArticles
* GoArticles
* iSnare
* IdeaMarketers
And I also like to place my articles on important but perhaps
lesser known sites such as:
* PromotionWorld
* SelfGrowth
* American Chronicle
* Buzzle
However, article marketing is still a very good way to get your
site and name on the web. It can still bring in traffic and help
build those all important backlinks and search engine rankings.
This is one marketer who will not be giving up article marketing
any time soon.
Some of my most effective techniques for article marketing are:
– Place your targeted keyword phrase in the title, usually
at the beginning.
- Make sure your article is informative and supplies the
information a reader is searching for – but always try to
motivate the reader to click your links in the resource box
for further information since your main objective is to get
the reader to click thru to your site.
- Most experts say to keep your article short, around 400 – 700
words, but I have found longer articles of 800-1500 words do
really well.
- Place your targeted keywords in the anchor text of your
resource box links, that’s the underlined clickable part.
Vary these keywords to avoid keyword spamming.
- For very important sites, try writing an exclusive unique
article for that site alone.
- Always spell-check and proof-read your articles. Grammar has
never been my strong point so what I do for finding the
correct usage of some tricky phrases or words – I do a search
in Google with “quotation marks” to find out which one has the
most links/usage… I go with one that has the most links,
even if it’s wrong. Thousands of people are making the same
mistake. Many marketers do the same thing with misspelled
keywords.
While they can be expensive, I also like using paid article
submission sites such as SubmitYourArticle, ThePhantomwriters
and Isnare… mainly because article marketing has been so
profitable for me, I don’t mind pouring some of those earnings
back into those sites. It saves me time and extends the reach
of my articles.
Article marketing will continue to be one of your best ways to
build backlinks, raise your rankings and bring in potential
customers to your site. It still works for me and hundreds of
thousands of other webmasters – it should also work for you.
The FTC Needs to Shut Up!
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is one of the most unique
parts of our government. It has a wide range of powers given by
law, which encompass among other things the ability to pass
rules and regulations against unfair and deceptive acts or
practices. The FTC often issues “guidelines which are no more
than notices that they will push for prosecution or civil action
against individuals in violation their guidelines. Although
these guidelines are often up for public debate, they are not
passed by any governing body such as Congress, yet affect us
often more than any newly passed law would. While many people
see that the FTC is a consumer rights entity within the
government, a growing number of people see that the FTC is a
part of a growing, overreaching government that is interfering
with the ability of businesses and often individuals to conduct
business in this market economy.
I’m not claiming that the FTC should NOT prosecute obvious
fraud, where consumers are clearly being scammed – such as not
delivering a product as promised or the mass distribution of
unsafe toys. That being said, the FTC’s guidelines and civil
actions are quickly crossing the border of infringing not only
on our ability to do business, but our First Amendment Rights to
Free Speech. The Right to express one’s self and opinions,
whether it is political or business related is an inherent part
of our society and the foundations of our business community.
The courts have ruled that advertising is a form of free speech,
which cannot be infringed upon anymore than any other opinion,
written or spoken.
Recently the FTC issued guidelines (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/
10/endortest.shtm) (which means, as said, we plan to bring action
against someone) that regulate bloggers. Bloggers are a unique
part of our economy, a throwback to the creation of this Country
when people would often hand out pamphlets to express their
opinion, in order to get attention to their cause. Bloggers are
often people, like myself, who have taken the initiative to put
their feelings down and write, taking the power away from larger
media organizations, and putting it into the hands of the
individual. As one knows, blogs often express anything from
political opinion to diet tips. They are sometimes political,
commercial, religious, or just something someone did in order to
express their frustration at their parents. Whatever the reason
is, they are a wonderful expression of our First Amendment
Rights.
Yet the FTC believes that bloggers are so unique, that they
need to be regulated in a way that has never been proposed to
mainstream media. The FTC recently issued regulations in which
they clearly state how bloggers who engage in commercial
activity, should clearly state how they are related to the
product, and make it obvious they are engaging in business, or
have been paid to endorse the product. This uniquely affects the
interactive advertising community, because it could easily be
interpreted that any link, any mention of a product that would
in turn create a sale (such as an affiliate link) would have to
be clearly mentioned as an advertisement or state the nature of
the relationship.
Additionally, more and more the FTC is engaged in the business
of deciding what is considered an “authentic or substantiated”
claim by an endorser or a product. While they have for the last
decade or so, been more involved in cases in which they believe
unsubstantiated product claims have been made, they are
specifically targeting bloggers – and their opinions. This
growing trend is more and more disturbing, as it gives the
government the right to make assumptions on the quality and
accuracy of claims of businesses – and then in theory, the
accuracy of claims of individuals. It asks businesses and
bloggers to basically “prove” what they are saying is correct,
even if it is an opinion. They must substantiate according to
the FTC, all their claims.
This is unique in nature, because it places an undue hardship
often on small businesses and bloggers, who cannot afford to
hire research teams or a huge law firm to assist them in the
creation of their materials. A sole-proprietor who discovers
that perhaps his home-made fig bars have lead to increased
weight loss and energy, in theory, will have to prove and
substantiate his claims before he could buy advertising on
Google that states that these bars can help in weight loss. It
could prevent a small business owner from selling knitted goods
on Ebay, because the claim that they have kept her warmer than
any other coat she owned, might be subject to scrutiny. They
have to worry that the government, the FTC might intervene at
some point and bring action against them based on perception and
supposition. It gives bureaucrats, non-elected officials an
extreme amount of power over small businesses in this Country.
The right of Free Speech in this Country is quite interesting,
because it allows people to express their opinion, even if they
are wrong. It assumes that no opinion is inherently wrong and
opens up the possibility of debate. It also assumes that most
adults are intelligent enough to make their own decisions
regarding their dislikes, their opinions and the products they
want to buy. The government, acting as “Big Mommy” is more and
more interfering and saying that they want to regulate what we
see and hear – that despite a huge Internet with tons of
information, we can’t do our own research and decide if a
product is what we want. We are giving the government more power
than has ever existed before: the ability to sanitize what we
hear and see before it’s released to the public.
“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big
enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows
us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” – Thomas
Jefferson
Must-Try Marketing Maneuvers
MicroBilt, in Princeton, N.J., helps small companies gauge the creditworthiness of their clients–a business about as scintillating as a glass of warm skim milk.
To spice up its message, MicroBilt focused on marketing its clients–specifically, by creating edgy videos for them. For Red House Furniture, a retailer in High Point, N.C., that offers financing to customers with shaky credit, MicroBilt created a video featuring a jauntily irreverent song about how Red House sells to “black and white people.” CNN ran a light-hearted news segment about it in May. For MicroBilt, it’s a subtle sell: The company name doesn’t appear in the commercials, but in theory the more furniture Red House sells, the more demand it will have for MicroBilt’s services. “We thought it would generate more business for them in the downturn, and eventually for us, and it’s paid off,” says MicroBilt Chief Executive Walter Wojciechowski.
MicroBilt also produces videos that run in its quarterly digital magazine, SEE, covering everything from regulatory changes to general tips on running small businesses. Ahead of the Federal Trade Commission’s planned enforcement of its “Red Flags” laws that require any business that extends credit to implement internal checks for possible identity theft, MicroBilt created an educational video starring comedian Goremy as a suited FTC representative who raps the warning: “Personal info we’ve got to protect, because you know we don’t want identify theft.”
Six employees work part-time on SEE. As for the videos, each costs around $10,000 to produce, and MicroBilt has pumped out five in the last year. Smart investments all around, says Wojciechowski: In 2008 MicroBilt’s revenues grew 40%, to roughly $30 million, from the previous year, and are expected to jump at a “double-digit” rate in 2009. Demand for additional comfort in a recession, or bona fide marketing coup? “I think a significant amount of that increase is attributable to our brand enhancement [strategy],” avers Wojciechowski. “It’s a lot easier for our sales people who are cold calling on new customers because we’re now recognized in the marketplace.”
You can have the greatest new product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, who cares? When cash is tight, marketing budgets suffer. (We know–we’re in publishing.) That’s why Forbes canvassed the entrepreneurial, consulting and academic ranks for go-to marketing techniques that even small businesses can afford. Here are but a few, and the estimated costs of each.
Stick to a Shtick
Some brands are so dialed in to a customer base–its history, interests and aspirations–that the marketing effort smacks more of a celebration. Jeremy Cowan, founder of Schmaltz Brewing Co., maker of He’Brew beer, builds all his events around Jewish themes. Each year, he hosts an anniversary party where he gives out yarmulkes and Hanukkah Gelt (kosher chocolate coins) with his brand on it. (Jewish DJs often work their magic for free beer.) Cowan also ran a contest asking for bat mitzvah photos to create a collage now used on his label and invites. “It’s not just weird,” he says. “It reinforces our message and our vision.” Cost: A few thousand bucks, depending on the extravagance of the events.
Turn Your Customers Into Stars
This is a less costly twist on MicroBilt’s make-a-video strategy, with a dash of social-networking spice thrown in. Talented or not, people want to share their art, stories, even their hopes and dreams. Give them an outlet in exchange for sampling your product or service. When skin care company Philosophy launched a new fragrance, Unconditional Love, just before Valentine’s Day this year, it put out a call for love stories to be posted on its Web site. It received 2,000 submissions. Each writer received samples of the perfume–and the company got their contact information. Cost: Beyond the free products, minimal.
Host a Virtual Trade Show
Traditional trade shows are a convention-center-sized hassle–and they cost a lot to boot. Add up booth rental and presentation time-slot fees, advertising, promotional doodads and travel expenses (never mind the lost time away from the office), and a company’s tab can rocket up to $100,000 per show. Hence the rise of virtual trade shows, designed to look and function like the real thing but that play out in real time in cyberspace. Entry fee: just $3,000 to $8,000. Better yet, you don’t need to be a computer wizard to participate. Here are nine steps for getting the most out of them.
Tweet (No, Really, We Mean It)
By now you’ve heard about Twitter–that curious, strangely addictive social-networking technology that facilitates the exchange of torrents of severely truncated messages (140 characters max) among millions of users. You may have read that it’s a waste of time–and in many respects, that’s true. What’s also true is that Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool. Here are 21 compelling ways to use it. Cost: your time–and not much of it.
Work the Press
Mentions in the news media offer what traditional marketing and advertising can’t: exposure with implied credibility. While PR is nothing new, plenty of companies (and PR agencies) still don’t get it. To get your foot in the door with journalists, first build trust and rapport by offering information on your industry without angling for a profile, or even a quote. Second, offer constructive feedback on important stories; most journalists’ e-mail addresses are online, so you can write to them directly. Third, remember that pain sells–in any economic environment. Cautionary tales that readers can learn from are inherently intriguing, so don’t be afraid to share. Cost: PR firms charge by the project or by monthly retainer (up to $15,000 a month). Tight on cash? Negotiate a pay-for-performance contract–based on press citations or other measurable metrics. To save more than a few bucks, check out “Making The Media Your Mates.”
Light Up Their In-boxes
E-mail marketing has been around for years, but the tricky part remains getting people to open the messages in the first place. Here are three handy tips, courtesy of Gene Marks, owner of the Marks Group, a technology consultancy to small businesses. First, avoid using generic addresses like sales@ or info@ in the “from” line; second, keep the “from” name consistent and recognizable in all e-mails; third, be clear and specific as to what’s being offered in the subject line (“Acme’s Weekly Newsletter” won’t cut it). Cost: Easy-to-use, database-driven tools–many customizable, down to the logos and graphics–cost around $100 per month to blast thousands of e-mails.
Wipe Off the Lens
If all else fails, take another hard look at the market and its willingness to pay for your product or service. Four years ago, Sarah Endline, a former Yahoo! product designer, hosted small focus groups to hit upon a new candy idea: pebble-sized cacao beans smothered in premium chocolate. In one effort, Endline invited 12 people to munch on everything from Gummi bears to organic chocolate bars; later she enlisted Harvard B-school students to host focus groups on campus. Result: a rocking little candy maker called Sweetriot in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo district. Cost: Market surveys can cost up to $10,000, but there are some cheaper online options. Zoomerang charges $600 for a year subscription to its surveys service; Survey Monkey offers subscriptions starting at around $20 per month or $200 a year. Focus groups? Perhaps $100 for food and drinks. (For more on conducting affordable market research, check out “Market Research On The Cheap.”)
Maryellen Kane, founder and chief executive of Olive Juice, a children’s clothing company, was used to shelling out north of $5,000 to man a booth for three days at industry tradeshows. That’s big money for a company with just 12 employees and about $3 million in sales.
One day, when looking for things to cut, Kane had an epiphany: The booth space had to go. “Most of the time these shows are nothing more than a popularity contest, where a big space denotes a big footprint in the industry,” says Kane, 42. “But there’s little actual sales that come from these things and the shows end up costing companies way more money than they make them.”
Kane still goes to shows but she doesn’t rent the booth. Instead she walks the floor and networks with buyers. Want to get even better bang for the buck? Try a virtual tradeshow.
Small businesses are always strapped for cash. Yet plenty still spend their precious capital on stuff they don’t need. Here are a few more fiscally responsible moves to consider making. For a full list of 10, see our slide show.
Go Easy on the Lights
Timers and motion-detecting power switches can now be had for less than $10. So there’s no reason to not have them for all lights within an office building, says Alan Lysaght, a planning consultant for companies such as Molson Breweries and Standard Broadcasting. From rarely used bathrooms to cavernous cubicle dens, ensuring lights are off when nobody’s around can cut electric bills by up to 40%, he adds.
Scrutinize Your Wireless Bill
CAMP, a roofer in Houston, took a look at its wireless bill and was able to negotiate rates that saved it $1,000 a month on its 32 lines. Movie Cube, which runs rental grocery-store kiosks, knocked its $25,000 monthly wireless bill down $5,000 a month and sliced its $100,000 monthly data bill by $10,000. Most companies don’t have an in-house staffer familiar enough with wireless billing to squeeze out these kinds of savings, but they can call a consultant such as Validas that will right-size their phone plan and deal with billing disputes.
Lose The Security Blanket
Jeanne Achille, chief executive of The Devon Group, a public-relations firm in Middletown, N.J., doesn’t mind paying Symantec for software to keep her computer network free of viruses and hackers. She questions, however, the value of paying her voicemail supplier, Avaya, $40 a month for “protection” of the voicemail software on her phones. “When was the last time you heard of a small company’s voicemail getting hacked?” she asks. Worse, she says, is that the service is difficult to cancel. Avaya told her that she has to give written notice of cancellation 12 months in advance. Avaya declined to comment on individual customers, but said that customers can cancel multiyear contracts as long as they serve out or pay for the current contract year’s services.
Ditch The Door-Stoppers
Just what are prospective clients doing with those fat catalogues you fling at them? Throwing them out, that’s what. Most big department stores have stopped printing door-stoppers, and you should, too. Rag & Bone Bindery, which hand-binds books and photo albums, used to distribute catalogues like Sears in 1955. “We were printing them by the thousands, giving them away and not knowing whether people were even looking at them,” says owner Jason Thompson. The company now pours that money into its Web site–and is landing customers at a faster clip.
Be Leary Of Bought Leads
No sales lead, no sales and no success. That’s why companies pay big money to companies such as InfoUSA to secure a pile of leads culled from industry databases. Olive Juice’s Kane, however, has found the accounts she lands through paid leads to be much less dependable (and profitable) than leads she earns on her own. “It led me to bug a lot of accounts that weren’t ready to buy,” she says. “Our most loyal clients are the ones who found us or heard of us from raving fans.”
Writing for the Web
Content is one of the most valuable things you can focus on
during development of your website. Consider each page of your
website an opportunity to capture or lose your audience. If a
web page has paragraph after paragraph of text, many visitors
won’t bother to begin reading. There are various other things to
be leery of when writing for the web. This article covers eight
tips to help you succeed when writing content for your
website.
Entice with Communicative Headings
Visitors decide whether to invest their precious time reading
your content, typically after scanning a heading or two.
Consider which headline will receive more attention:
* PHP solutions (http://www.webassist.com/
php-scripts-and-solutions/?WAAID=898) for the Web
* Three eCommerce PHP Solutions for the Web
While both could be headings for the same content, the second
heading will attract more attention because it clearly denotes
what will follow. Additionally, it adds a level of expertise. It
is also important to keep your headings concise. When headings
wrap to multiple lines, they start becoming paragraph-like and
readers cannot scan them. Sub-headings are another way to make
your content easier for visitors to scan. Once readers have
decided your heading is worth investing more time in, they often
scan the sub-headings to jump to the section that is most
applicable to them.
Conclude Before You Expand
Every page of your website should cater to the most impatient
reader and clearly state what the page is about in the first few
lines. Most readers won’t want to read an entire page to get to
the point. Write an introductory paragraph that summarizes the
most important parts.
Many successful writers outline the points they want to get
across, fill in those points and only then do they write their
first paragraph. It is not necessary to write from top to bottom
and this method can help you write a stronger introduction.
Create Effective Lists
It is quicker to scroll down a web page than it is to read from
left to right and keep your eyes wrapping from line to line. For
this reason, readers appreciate lists. However, it is important
not to use overwhelmingly long lists. Studies have shown people
can remember 7 things at a time. A list of seven bulleted items
is digestible, while a list of 50 is intimidating. If it is
crucial for you to list 50 points, break up your lists with
sub-headings so readers are able to jump from section to section
efficiently.
Write Clearly and Succinctly
Whether your visitors are coming to gain information, make
buying decisions or simply be entertained, respect that they
don’t have all day to read your content. If you are wordy, you
can expect your visitors to drift to competitors’ websites.
However, don’t sacrifice clarity for brevity.
Similar to print writing, each paragraph should contain only one
idea. The attention span of a web reader is shorter than that of
a print reader though, which makes it important to trim your
paragraphs to a few sentences each.
Eliminate unnecessary words. For example, there is no need to
say, “at this point in time” when you can say “currently.” It is
useless to say “an awful tragedy” when tragedies are awful by
nature. Avoid describing an object as “round in shape” when you
can just say round.
Avoid the passive voice. For example, replace, “My life has been
made easier by templates” with “Templates simplified my
life.”
The above paragraph helps illustrate that examples are useful;
however, I should specify that repeating yourself is not. Do not
say the same thing in three different ways.
Use consistent language. Consider your audience when writing in
first, second or third person and be careful transitioning from
one to the next. Jumping from a formal paragraph to a first
person story sounds like two authors wrote the content.
Finally, read your content aloud and trust your first reaction.
If you have to re-read to put the emphasis in the correct part
of the sentence or to understand your own point, you can bet
that others will too.
More importantly, have someone else read your content -
preferably, your target audience, not your business partner. You
are too close to the ideas you want to communicate and others
may find ambiguities that you will certainly want to clarify.
Create Content Relative to Your Audience
Know your audience and speak to them, not at them. Whether your
objective is to sell toilet seats or convey a change in the
stock market, play to people’s emotions. Don’t use technical
terms for a less than savvy audience.
Don’t assume your readers have been to certain pages of your
website before others. With a growing dependence on search
engines, visitors often arrive at a website two tiers down from
the home page. Consider the visitor’s point of view: If I knew
nothing about this company or website, would I understand this
page?
Be cautious of tangents, information and links that will
distract a reader from the web page’s primary purpose.
Specify Links with Style and Language
Links are another way visitors can scan your web pages as they
stand out from normal text – or at least they should. Make sure
your links differ in color or style from other text on your
website. Using “click here to learn more” is a waste of space.
Instead, use “learn more.” Your links should tell readers where
they are going, but they shouldn’t be reminded they need their
mouse to get there.
Be specific with where the link is leading to. There are many
websites that break up articles into two or more pages. Readers
are more apt to click on a link that says, “Part 2: Mortgage
Lending” than they are to click on a link that says “next.”
Proofread – Forward and Backward
There are some people who are a magnetic force to typos and
grammatical blunders. While some will gloss over these errors,
the people who do notice are typically repelled. Websites with
typos look unprofessional – or worse – like the author didn’t
care enough about the reader to take the time to proofread.
Tips for proofreading:
* Use spell check and grammar check.
* Read backward. When we read forward, our eyes skip over
small words and miss mistakes.
* Have someone else proofread your content.
* If in doubt, look it up!
Trusting copy/paste is a common mistake; be sure to proofread
your content after it is on the web page.
Conclude with Action
Although many of your readers won’t make it to the end of your
content, it’s important to summarize for those who do. Include
your overall point, as well as where you would like to lead your
reader to next. If you are fortunate enough to have your readers
want more, don’t miss an opportunity to provide it!
For example, I would like to conclude by articulating that web
writing has similarities to print writing (entice and be
concise!) but differs in that readers are more impatient and can
easily “surf” elsewhere. The more you understand how people read
on the web in general and what your audience wants to know, the
more you will keep visitors coming back for more.
Killer Campaigns: Making Emotional Connections
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:28 AM
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Killer Campaigns: Making Emotional Connections
We live in an age of clones: somebody makes a very profitable
movie about vampires, and the next thing you know we’re all
inundated with movies, television shows, books, blogs, websites,
and every form of blood-sucking permutation you can imagine.
CSI begets CSI Miami, which begets CSI New York, which begets
NCIS, which begets NCIS Los Angeles, which is just about as much
as anyone can take. If something is successful, you can be sure
more of the same will follow.
Despite the occasional success story, most clones either fail
completely, or never live up to the success of their
groundbreaking predecessors.
Most of the copycats fail because the clone-masters behind them
don’t understand why the original worked, and as a consequence,
they clone all the wrong elements. This is as true of commercial
presentations as it is with broadcast programming.
Cloning a successful format is not the same as Slipstreaming.
Clone marketing is just rote copying of technical elements
without any reference to why the original worked, whereas
Slipstream marketing takes a familiar idea and plays off it like
a great jazz musician reinterprets an old standard.
Kleenex “Let It Out” Campaign:
Recognizing The Emotional Value Proposition
What is more generic than facial tissue? A consumable paper
product that you use once and discard; it is the very definition
of a commodity, and as we all know commodity-sales are primarily
based on price. Enter Kimberly Clark, one company that has
managed to turn their commodity product into the industry
standard to the extent that the commodity itself has become
known by Kimberly Clark’s designated brand name – Kleenex.
The Kleenex, “Let It Out” campaign is just one example of a
company that recognizes that in order to turn their commodity
product into something of higher value, they have to link it to
what we refer to as “an emotional value proposition:” the
implied psychological or emotional connection between the
product and the consumer.
The original series of Web videos was housed on a dedicated
video microsite. The series of videos showed a casually dressed
interviewer with an engaging personality asking people to sit
down on a couch in the middle of a busy street to chat about
some significant emotional moment in their lives. Some people
talked about their children; one woman even discussed Katrina
and the impact it had on her. People cried, and people laughed,
until tears came to their eyes, at which point, the interviewer
handed each person a Kleenex: Kleenex and emotions go
hand-in-hand. Let It Out, the concept was brilliant.
The following version was created for television; it is a
compendium of clips from various videos, and as good as it is,
it doesn’t have the same emotional power of the Web video
versions that concentrated on each person’s emotional response
to the interviewer’s questions. It’s good, but not as good,
but it does serve to illustrate the point. Unfortunately the
individual videos are no longer available.
Kleenex “Let It Out” TV Commercial
(http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/687/Kleenex-Let-It-Out-TV-Commercial)
Everything in the commercial works: the interviewer’s manner
and personality, the visual imagery of the couch in the street,
and the memorable music message. It’s all good, very, very
good.
On The Other Hand…
Rogers Communication Inc. is a large Canadian communication
company that provides digital cable TV, high speed Internet, and
mobile phone services. Their primary competition would be Bell
Canada.
In order to promote their new Home Phone service Rogers
initiated a series of commercials featuring a man on the street
interviewing people passing by, asking them to compare their
phone service to their competitors. They used a red and blue
couch in the street with the red side of the couch representing
Rogers and the blue side representing Bell. They handed each
person a blue phone and asked them to call a friend or relative;
then they handed the person a red phone representing Rogers, and
asked them to call the same person. Then the interviewer asked
them to compare the service, which according to the commercial
was the same. The difference of course was in the price.
Anyone who has seen both campaigns could come to only one
conclusion, and that is the Roger’s commercials were patterned
after the Kleenex, “Let It Out” campaign. Did it work? Take a
look.
Rogers Home Phone Campaign
(http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/688/Rogers-Home-Phone-Campaign)
On a very superficial level, the commercials are eerily the
same, both have a couch in the street, an interviewer, and a
passerby; but on an emotional and psychological level, they are
as far apart as you can get.
Kleenex tied the use of their product to people’s most personal
feelings, their response to emotional reminiscence, while Rogers
relied on price only. Their service isn’t better, it’s the
same; it’s just cheaper so the ad says. The Kleenex interviewer
is courteous, interested, and responsive, while the Rogers
representative is glib, and a bit smarmy.
The Technique and Why It Worked
The Kleenex campaign works for all kinds of reasons, the most
important of which is that it engages the audience with an
intriguing visual presentation that resonates on a psychological
level by providing an emotional value proposition associated
with their brand. On the other hand, Roger’s value proposition
is price.
You may say, price is important, but pricing tactics are a
dangerous game. Competitors aren’t just going to sit back and
let you drive them out of business. If you fire a price missile
across your competitor’s bow, you can bet they’ll respond, and
that’s exactly what Bell did.
Whoops!
By not understanding what Kleenex had done in their campaign,
and not following Kleenex’s precedent by associating their
brand with an emotionally resonant value proposition, they laid
themselves wide open to a slipstreamed response by their
competitors, who created a campaign that riffed on their
imagery, and one-upped them with an alternate price comparison.
Rogers Advertisement
(http://www.sitepronews.com/images3/rogerscouch.jpg)
Bell Advertisement
(http://www.sitepronews.com/images3/bellcouch.jpg)
Conclusion
If a commodity product like facial tissue can become a major
brand by employing marketing strategies that emphasize their
emotional value proposition, then so can your product or
service. Delivering a marketing message based on it’s
underlying emotional value is a better strategy than price and
feature selling, a tactic guaranteed to be short-lived. Features
are forever being added and prices are continually under
competitive pressure, but emotional relevance is sustainable.
For many companies, it is very difficult for them to see the
emotional value their offering brings to the table, but the
conceptual basis of any effective marketing campaign starts with
discovering that underlying human connection your product or
service has with its audience.
Web Design For Beginners
Define your audience and their needs
Defining the purpose and objectives of your website should be your first step. Focus on what you want your website to achieve. Create a profile of your intended audience and try to understand their needs and tastes, and design the site with them at the forefront of your mind at all times.
Take a look at competitor websites to gain an idea of what works and what doesn’t.
Easy navigation
In order to make your content easy for your intended audience to navigate, make sure the links to the main sections of your website are easily visible from each web page. You want to invite people to view as many pages of your site as possible, so make it easy for them to find each page.
A good way to help you visualise the structure of the site is to create a flow chart of the whole website on paper. Think about think about how your users might structure the information within the site to help them find the information they need easily.
Try to keep the information on your first page a general overview so you don’t bog people down with too much information. They can then click on the (clear and easy to use) links to view more information about the topics that they are interested in.
Layout
Most web pages have a common structure consisting of a header and footer, a horizontal navigation bar along the top and / or a vertical navigation bar down the left of the page and a central section for the main content.
This structure is based on simple, easy-to-understand layout principles.
If there’s a lot of content, split it up into several different pages so your viewer doesn’t have to digest too much information on one page.
Keep text simple and to the point, and make sure grammar is correct – check and check again to avoid looking unprofessional. Text is more difficult to read on screen than in printed media, so it’s crucial get your message across in a succinct and easy to understand way.
You should always keep your text blocks relatively small. Huge paragraphs are more difficult to read and may make your audience lose interest quickly.
Stick to 2 or 3 different fonts at the most – and make sure they are ones generally found on most computers. San serifs are easier to read on computer monitors so stick to these for the main text, and make sure your text is large enough for everyone to read.
Bullet points, lists and relevant photos can help to break up the text.
Learn the basics of html
Learning the basics of html – even if you are using WYSIWYG software Front Page or Dreamweaver – will help you gain an understanding of how a web page in built, and deal with problems you encounter using the software. A good beginner’s guide to html can be found at: http://htmldog.com/guides/htmlbeginner/
Try and stay away from tables, and create the pages using layers (divs) and cascading style sheets (CSS).
Tables mix ‘presentational’ data in with your content, which makes the file size of your pages unnecessarily large, as users must download this presentational data for each page they visit.
But by using structural markup to create web pages, you can keep the actual content of your page separate from the way it is presented.
Table-based pages are also much less accessible to users with disabilities and viewers using mobiles and PDAs to access the Web.
And to change the layout of the site, all you need to do is change the style sheets; you do not need to edit the pages themselves at all.
For more info about the advantages of using divs and CSS over tables, take a look at http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html
Using colour
Creating a balanced colour palette from which to choose your website colour scheme will help you to create a professional looking website. Bright clashing colours scream amateur.
If you are creating a website for a company with a logo, start here. Upload the logo to your host server and go to a colour palette website such as (http://www.colorhunter.com/) to create a palette, from which you can choose colours for the main banner, buttons and text rollovers etc.
And keep things simple and uncluttered – empty space makes colours stand out and text easier to read.
Optimising photos and images
Don’t use a graphic just for the sake of it – make sure there’s a reason for it’s presence, i.e. it improves the user’s understanding and experience. A site full of unnecessary graphics looks amateurish, and it can be an obstacle for accessibility tools such as screen readers.
Make sure the photos and images you do use are clear and well optimised to reduce file size and increase page loading times. One sure sign of an amateurish website is a page with a huge image that takes forever to load. And your viewer will probably click away from the site before they even get a chance to see it.
Creating clear, professional looking graphics
GIFs are really grids made of tiny pixel squares. Data about every pixel is saved (so it’s lossless), and you can save up to 256 colors. Pixels may also be transparent.
A GIF may contain more than one frame, so it can be animated.
It is a good format for saving images with fewer colors, like charts and small graphics, images containing text, and drawings.
JPEGs are a good file format for images with millions of colors, like photographs, drawings with many shades, images containing gradients etc.
For more information on optimising images for the web, have a look at this tutorial: http://inobscuro.com/tutorials/read/35/
Design tips:
a.) Use design to highlight functionality. For example; using gradients on button also helps make them seem more ‘button like’, different coloured mouse over text draws attention to links.
b.) Be wary of animation and sounds unless they serve a specific function. It is difficult to concentrate on reading what’s on your site when there are things flashing on and off and flying around the page. And visitors with slow connections may resent that you wasted their time by forcing them to load animations and sound files against their will.
Some recent research does indicate that visitors assaulted by blinking ads are more likely to leave the site immediately, and are far less likely to bookmark the site, return to it, link to it, and recommend it.
c.) Don’t use images as a web page background. Image backgrounds scream “amateur”, because it’s mostly amateurish sites that use them. They take longer to load and the text over the background image is usually difficult to read.
d.) Design the webpage including all elements within it for your audience. For example, create a chilled out mood for a massage / therapy website using colours like lavender and blue. Use darker, more restrained, stronger colours for a more traditional finance website.
e.) If your business doesn’t already have one, make a logo for your site, display it at the top of every page, and add a link from it back to your homepage. It will make your site look more professional and create a sense of branding to help people remember your site and recognise it as yours.
Going ‘live’
Hosting
When it comes to hosting, cheapest is not always best. For a small-ish ‘beginner’ website you shouldn’t need much bandwidth (unless you’ve not been following the ‘image optimisation’ guidelines!) But I wouldn’t recommend hosting your website with the cheapest offer available until you have checked that they can give all the support you may need as a newbie.
I would always recommend looking for a local contact telephone number on the website of the hosting company you are considering using, and ringing it to make sure there is an actual person at the end of it.
Ask if you can get technical help from this number – they may only communicate via email for technical support. If they give you another number, ask how much it costs per minute, and ring it to make sure there is someone at the end willing to help you as a beginner should you have any problems connecting to their server, uploading your files, or sorting out your email accounts.
You should also make sure email accounts are included in the cost, and, if you have any dynamic elements such as a search facility or enquiry form on the website, check that the server will support the PHP or ASP etc needed to allow this facility to work, and if that is included in the hosting price quoted.
Ftp
You can download free ftp software to upload your new website to your new hosting space from Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) or Smart ftp (http://www.smartftp.com/), or you could try a free trial with Cute ftp (http://www.cuteftp.com/cuteftp/).
Search engine optimisation
Although professional web designers have the optimisation of the website in mind from the start of design and development, as a newbie, you have to take it one step at a time! So now you’ve designed, built and uploaded your website, take a look at some of the ways you can now begin to optimise it for search engine ranking:
http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization
http://www.seo-news.com/archives2009.html
In addition to design, a business website should offer the right features for its users. Although professional web design is important, usability of the website is crucial to its success. A professional website should be rich with features and allow customers to interact with the business.
Customer expectations have evolved with time. When internet users visit a website today, they expect the website to offer a certain level of interaction. With the popularity of second generation websites, popularly known as Web2.0, it has become common for businesses to offer a range of interactive features on websites such as videos, podcasts, and many ways in which customers can offer their feedback. Many of these features are easy to implement on a website and most web design companies and professionals will offer them as standard features with their websites.
Businesses can benefit from this trend by offering interactive features on the company’s website that are easy to implement. Building an effective web presence is vital for any company today and the company’s website is its greatest marketing tool. Improving the interactivity of the company website can help increase conversion rates and improve brand loyalty and recognition.
Discussed below are some the top interactive features that are easy to implement on your website. It can add value to any website.
Newsletter Subscription
Collecting email addresses of potential customers is vital for direct marketing or sending newsletters. Most websites offer an automated system for subscribing or unsubscribing to their mailing list via their website.
Commenting on articles
This is commonly found on blogs. Allowing users to comment can be useful in many ways. In addition to feedback, it also allows the content to build with user generated content. It should only be added to relevant sections of the website.
Most Recent Posts
If you have a blog, then you can display a list of 10 most recent posts from your blog on your main website. It can add value to your website especially if your blog and website target the same niche.
Google Map
An interactive Google Map can make your website interactive. Google map can be used in many ways. You can use it simply to display an interactive map of your location or you can use one of its built in features such as distance calculator, etc to add more functionaility. It is also possible to custom applications for your website using Google Map’s powerful development API.
Most professional web design companies and freelance web designers today will be able to work with this technology to add to your website if required.
Google Custom Search feature
Google’s custom search feature has become popular with websites in recent years. Google custom search allows websites to implement search functionality on their website using Google’s powerful search algorithms. It is possible to restrict the search to your website only or include other partner websites in your searches. Ad revenue generated by Google using your custom search feature can be shared so there an opportunity for generating revenue on your website.
Related Articles
This can improve the readership of your website by providing users with content that are related. It is relatively easy to implement on a website and can be automated or work by assigning manual tags or keywords.
RSS Feed
RSS is a commonly used format for sharing content on the web. By offering RSS feed of your website content, you make it readily accessible to millions of internet users who use feed reader applications to find information on the internet. It also makes it easier for users to subscribe to website updates by email. RSS feeds also make it easier for users to share content on other social media sites.
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking has become quite popular on the internet. Millions of users use social bookmarking to organise favourite content and share it with others. It also helps in promoting your website and can generate massive traffic. A website should offer a shortcut for adding the web page using leading social bookmarking accounts.
Latest Content Tab
A list of latest content from relevant sections of the website can improve the usability of the website.
E.g. List of the Latest Articles, News and Jobs can be displayed at the side of a website; similar to what is found on leading blogs and portals today. This offers better utilization of space and adds interactivity.
Feedback forms to gather information
Feedback forms are still an effective method to collect response from website users. It is used by many websites. The form should be customized to the specific needs of a website.
Survey/polls
Surveys and polls on website is another also important and widely used to collect information from customers. This feature is now standard with most leading CMS or blog platforms.
There are many features that can make your website interactive and more effective. Websites designed by a professional Web Design Company or designer will most likely include a range of interactive features to start with.
Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:05 AM
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success
You may feel as though you’re on a hamster wheel when it comes to measuring your marketing. You run, run, and run some more, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. That feeling is perfectly natural if you’re not measuring your ROI (Return on Investment) with your marketing. For years, I’ve been on this hamster wheel myself, without a system that I liked to help me measure my marketing results. Numbers and statistics have never been my strong suit, and even though I got A’s in most of my math classes, it took every brain cell I had to do so. 
Late last year, I finally determined what was important for me to track in my marketing, and now have created a system so that I can track my marketing from week to week. Whether you set up your system in a document or spreadsheet, you’ll be amazed at the power that you feel when you view the numbers from week to week and can spot trends developing or problem spots that need a solution. I was amazed to discover that when I started paying attention to my weekly stats, I actually found myself engrossed, fascinated, and excited! Now that I am tracking these numbers, I know exactly where to spend my time and efforts to receive the highest and best rate of return.
Here are 7 statistics that I track in my weekly marketing tracking system:
1. Number of marketing activities. I now list by name and amount of the total number of marketing activities in which I engage each week. This number includes article submissions, direct mailings, direct contacts (in person or by phone), press releases, and programs given. I’ve noticed that the higher the number, the better the rest of my marketing results for the week.
2. Web site stats. I’m primarily seeking the number of unique visitors to my web site each week. However, it’s also important to know what keywords visitors used to land on your site as well as what sites referred the visitor to your site. I don’t keep a separate log of this info, but do have a weekly Google Analytics report emailed to me with this information. Google Analytics is a free web tracking program that’s easy to install on almost any site.
3. Blog stats. I want to know the number of people who read my blog this week. Now, this is a difficult stat to measure, as blog readers use any number of RSS readers to view blog posts or subscribe to my blog via email. So, I have also installed Google Analytics on my blog and look at those results to determine the number of unique visitors to my blog in any given week, which I interpret as number of blog readers.
4. Ezine stats. My weekly ezine serves as my primary connection to my list. I track how many new subscribers I gain each week on that list, my open rate for each issue of my ezine, the number of clickthroughs for each issue, and my total number of ezine subscribers.
5. Social networking connections. I’m not in a contest to acquire the most connections possible for all of my social networking sites. I believe it’s the quality of the connection (i.e. relevance to your target market) rather than the quantity of connections that will be most useful for you. What I’m primarily tracking here is that I’m making a slow and gradual increase in the number of my connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
6. Product and service sales. I note how many product sales I have made each week as well as how much revenue I have earned in the services and consulting side of my business. Because my primary product is my membership site, I probably have many more product sales (i.e. memberships) than many of you who sell information products as an income stream in your business.
7. New clients. I get a number of requests from potential clients each week, but never tracked those in any meaningful way. Now I know how many inquiries have come in, how many have become new clients, and which inquiries need follow up at a later date. This system always keeps me in motion and in front of new client prospects.
Measuring the results of your marketing activities is crucial to your success, and anyone can do it. Start to evaluate your marketing activities to empower yourself to make those strategic decisions about how and where to focus your efforts going forward so that you can achieve the level of success you desire.
Internet Marketing – Misconceptions That You Must Consider
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:00 AM
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Internet Marketing – Misconceptions That You Must Consider
Internet marketing is seen as a get rich quick scheme by many newbie marketers because of the ease and convenience linked to the world-wide-web. This is however misleading, as the success that you achieve whether online or off line, is directly linked to what you put in.
It usually takes much time, tribulations, steep learning and also some failures before you will succeed in the internet marketing world. It is advisable to take heed of the following misconceptions.
Cash will flow in very quickly
Internet marketing takes a substantial amount of work. Spend lots of time learning the ropes, but do expect the odd failure along the way. Your success is entirely up to you and you usually reap what you sow.
You will not make any money
Life is an issue of balance, and your input towards any business venture, will determine the output. The supreme goal for internet marketing success will only be reached by consistently applying yourself in a disciplined manner. If you are prepared to learn and accept the occasional failure whilst learning from your mistakes and apply that knowledge, the money will come.
Anyone is suited for internet marketing
If you adopt the attitude of telling yourself there is nothing to this, you are already starting of on the wrong footing. A venture such as this takes a lot of discipline and you must be willing to learn. Have an open mind get rid of your preconceived ideas and be willing to embrace new thoughts as they come up.
It is too difficult
Have you ever taken a deep look within your self to discover where the true potential lies? Is there a potential internet marketing guru waiting to come out? What do others need that has not been created yet? The answers to these questions are only the beginnings of your ability to differentiate yourself from the crowd.
It will only require a few hours work a day
This is possible but in the beginning, long hours are not unheard of. You must be prepared to spend up to 18 hour days in front of your computer. The compensating factor however is that at some point in the future you will be able to automate most of your efforts.
It takes many years to learn online business
This is not true and if you apply yourself in a diligent and consistent manner, your learning can be accelerated without compromising on the quality. Study hard, read newsletters and articles, join online forums and listen to those who are already successful within the internet marketing field.
Internet marketing is a real and authentic business venture, but be prepared for the many skeptics and other people who will look at you in a funny way.
They react in this manner because of not seeing you leave your house at 8 in the morning and returning at 6 every evening. Remind them that you are just as exhausted from working and researching all day as they are from slogging in the workplace or office all day. If you work on your business model and ignore the misconceptions, then you will succeed.
The next 10 online trends in 2010
It’s never been harder to keep up with the latest web trends – with the expansion onto mobile platforms, the growth of social media and the need for start ups to be aware of new SEO techniques.
As a result, we’ve assembled a team of web experts to help you and your business keep on top of the most important trends on the web. Constructing a mobile website, creating social media campaigns and selling online are just some of the challenges businesses will face during 2010.
Here are top online trends for the next 12 months.
Mobile web
Every web-savvy business knows smartphone use is on the rise. But few are actively developing for mobiles by creating websites specifically used for handheld devices.
As more and more mobile users flock to gadgets with larger touchscreens and internet browsers, such as the iPhone or Google Nexus One, the mobile space will become bigger and SMEs need to get on board. If your website isn’t accessible through a smartphone or app, users will give up and go somewhere else – losing you traffic and potential sales.
Ovum analyst Nathan Burley says the number of people taking up smartphones instead of traditional handsets will require businesses to develop mobile websites.
“In our view there are two big trends that will occur in 2010. That is mobile broadband and the adoption of smartphones, and the impact of those two things on the industry. This is changing the way people access the internet, and that is in mobile.”
“The big change is that these smartphones are allowing people to use tools in the same way a laptop did in the past, which is opening more users to the internet on the go.”
Chris Thomas, chief executive of SEO firm Reseo, says 2010 will be “the year of the mobile”.
“I think mobile search is definitely here. Google is throwing a lot of money at mobile, and it’s going to be really interesting to see how businesses leverage that.”
SEO
Using search engine algorithms in order to get your site on “page one” has been a tactic used by online businesses for years. But SEO experts say the process of getting a website known will become even harder in 2010 with the rise of personalised and real-time search.
Social network Twitter sparked a trend when it designed the first popular real-time search engine. When users search for a term, the site would update that search with new “tweets” as they were being made.
Google has recently introduced a real-time search function of its own, complete with indexed tweets, while Microsoft Bing has made a deal to show tweets in search results. But Thomas says while 2010 will see a rise in real-time search traffic, businesses shouldn’t be too keen to pursue a dedicated real-time search strategy.
“I think people are still trying to figure out what to do with it. Perhaps if there’s a trending topic, such as Copenhagen or climate change, that’s where we could see real-time do some work because there’s an opportunity for someone selling solar panels to come in, using a message like “stop climate change” via solar panels or something. There is some real potential there.”
“This is where it could go, but it’s such an active industry, with optimisation and SEO changing. But I always say to our clients, stick to your knitting and don’t do anything silly.”
Jim Stewart, chief executive of Stewart Media, says real-time search will continue to grow but businesses need to be aware of the more subtle changes Google is making to its search algorithms.
“All of the normal SEO things still apply, even though Google is going forward with things like personalised search. That will surely play a part, but you still have to get on the front page at all before you get into someone’s personal search results.”
Stewart warns Google will be updating its speed-check feature, through which the engine checks how fast it takes for a user to connect to a website. If a business has any downtime, it could affect search rankings.
But Stewart also says Google could potentially lose its place as the top search engine, as users could migrate to other offerings or be wary of the company’s search power.
“I don’t believe the search engine is providing as relevant results as it did this time last year. I’m sure they know it, but it doesn’t seem to be working as well. I’d also love to think that people will begin to start using Bing more and more, but it has to become a better search engine before that happens.”
“The other thing is privacy. A lot of people already are pretty wary of Google and privacy issues, even to the point where Eric Schmidt said if you’re doing something on the web you don’t want people to know, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”
Social Media
Facebook and Twitter were the standout social networks from 2009, and their popularity will surge in 2010 with both introducing new features, including paid accounts for business.
But businesses need to pay attention to the trends on these sites. Creating a social media strategy is no longer optional, it is vital to the health of a company and its ability to tap into an online user-base.
Some experts say if you aren’t engaging online, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to gain new customers and fans who will effectively market for you if given enough reason.
Thomas says 2010 will be the year in which businesses must jump on social media or risk being left behind by the competition.
“If you don’t have a Facebook fan page you should get in, and if you’re in a community-minded space, where you can offer things like competitions and such, then you’re set.”
James Griffin, founder and chief executive of online reputation management company SR7, says this year will see the rise of analysts who will begin to convince businesses to study, track and move operations into social media.
“Analysts will be versed in understanding and using social media, the quantitative and qualitative reports will empower businesses to implement researched social media strategies and gather market intelligence.”
Online retail
More and more Australian businesses are selling online, but compared to the US we have a lot of catching up to do. Online spending has grown from 1% to 3% of overall spending over the last 10 years, compared to the American equivalent of 7%.
Hal Pritchard, founder and chief executive of online kitchenware retailer Everton Online, says 2010 should be the year in which businesses start to realise they cannot operate without an eCommerce offering.
“The whole market in general is maturing. I think some of the people who didn’t want to do it originally are now deciding they have to do it, because if I count the number of competitors I have now compared to last year, there’s certainly a lot more out there.”
Pritchard says the biggest trend emerging in Australia is the growth of free shipping, which has allowed retailers in the US to stand out from the crowd.
“Freight is getting lower and is free in some places, which I suspect is going to be a general trend as competition hots up. Margins will get even tighter, and affording these things will be difficult, but I think it’s one of the things that are happening.”
“We seem to be following the US as we progress, and we’re less far behind and I think that free freight is the next thing. But it’s not just about that, it’s about pushing the boundaries and staying on the edge, not just having a good website. The people who can innovate and stay ahead will do well.”
Advertising
The internet advertising industry continued to grow in 2009 and will do the same in 2010, but the next 12 months is expected to see the ongoing development of mobile advertising.
Last year the Interactive Advertising Bureau forecast the online ad market to pass $2 billion by next month, representing a 27% increase from 2008. While the downturn forced spending down in 2009, it’s safe to assume that figure will rise in 2010.
The mobile advertising scene is fairly new, so naturally few SMEs are actually investing in the sector. But Apple’s recent acquisitions of Quattro, along with Google’s purchase of AdMob, shows the big players are serious about the mobile space.
But Thomas says businesses should think about advertising on prominent sites such as social networks, in order to keep up with the market.
“In the last 12 months we have started various campaigns using Facebook ads with quite good success, and it’s getting better. Businesses should be taking advantage of the solid targeting available through sites like Facebook.”
“We’re certainly seeing more advertising on Twitter. You have sites now which are allowing companies to hire someone with a million followers to tweet their messages. I mean, it’ll cost you, but the return on investment of that tweet could be huge.”
YouTube senior product manager David King says the growth of viral content, pieces of media published online which gain popularity in a short amount of time, are opening businesses up to new advertising models.
He says if a business finds a piece of content it created on a YouTube video, it can choose to place an in-video or AdWords advertisements rather than claim a copyright violation.
“These advertising structures are really geared towards taking control of what users upload. It’s only relevant if you’re uploading content, but if you are a small business and are doing that, this could be relevant for you.”
Reputation management
Most businesses are at least operating a website, but even those rejecting the online space need to be aware of how fast rumours and allegations can fly in the digital age. Several companies have had their reputations tarnished within hours from the activities of either rogue employees, or a botched advertising campaign.
Griffin says businesses need to control their reputation by monitoring what people are saying about them.
“The answer is, companies have been pushed into conducting a social media marketing campaigns without research and without adequately addressing the risk factors associated with social media.”
“2010 will see companies embracing the need to address the inherent risks of social media, with enterprises moving towards a scientific and empirically based approach to managing risk.”
Last year, Domino’s Pizza landed itself into trouble when two employees posted a video of themselves handling food unhygienically on the internet. Cotton On experienced backlash on Facebook when it continued to sell baby clothes with slogans such as “They Shake Me”.
Griffin says businesses can avoid such catastrophes by carefully monitoring who is talking about their brand, and being ready to address any situation as quickly as it appeared.
“The many and varied social media ‘fails’ of 2008-2009 will see companies and institutions take a measured, risk-based approach to these platforms.”
“Auditing, monitoring and analysing social media platforms along with risk mitigation strategies will become standard fare for those companies looking to protect and enhance their brand on social media platforms.”
Marketing
While mobile advertising may be taking awhile to heat up, many businesses are developing new and interesting mobile marketing campaigns to draw people into their stores.
Google has developed a system whereby users take a picture of a barcode with their mobile phone and use the search engine to find information. Closer to home, Hoyts Cinemas currently runs a promotion where movie goers with Bluetooth activated on their handsets sometimes receive discount offers via text messages when they walk into a lobby.
But it isn’t just big companies which are using mobiles for marketing. Peter Shipman, who owns a casual Mexican restaurant in the US, bought ads in university newspapers to advertise a barcode sent through text messages used to claim discounts.
US company Jagtag is now developing a technology used to identify barcodes through camera phones, when it is then sent via text message in order for the user to receive a discount code.
Thomas says this year will see a number of companies bring mobile marketing strategies to the forefront of their campaigns.
“There are going to be some really good creative ways people will start to get customers in store, and sending messages out like that… providing they don’t break any spam laws.”
“We’re going to see these companies start to realise how much activity is occurring through mobiles, and then we’re going to see them respond by commissioning campaigns of their own.”
Thomas also says a number of companies will begin to commission mobile apps, especially on the iPhone, purely for marketing purposes. Whether this will gain them revenue or purely open their brand to a new audience, the mobile apps market will become part of an online business’s marketing strategy in 2010.
Content
The growth of the internet has allowed businesses to publish content of their own, including blogs, pictures and even videos. King says SMEs should think about creating some sort of content on YouTube or similar sites such as a tutorial, and see a fan base grow.
“There are a lot of smaller to medium sized businesses which have really operated with a focus of specifically gearing themselves towards publishing on YouTube, and they really make a go of it – and we give them a global audience to do so.”
But King warns businesses they must be generating useful content, without the appearance of a blatant marketing pitch, and not be scared of entering a new area where they might not have experience.
“As these things become more commonplace, consumers love them, but unfortunately businesses which have been relying on older business models do not. I really think they need to get over that a little bit. Ultimately the consumer is right, and they are going to spend their time the way they spend it.”
“Businesses need to really stay focused on that consumer experience and not get hung up on the comfort of the way things used to be. The more businesses can try and anticipate where things can go as opposed to stopping it, I think that’s the best place to be for them.”
Open Source
Once upon a time, businesses wouldn’t trust open-source programs in favour of branded, more trustworthy software solutions. But now open-source has given SMEs a way of operating high-end programs without substantial costs.
With popular programs such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Open Office, WordPress and Joomla now gaining notoriety, organisations are beginning to realise open-source programs aren’t just technically inferior rip-offs, but legitimate alternatives.
A number of organisations, including the British Government and the French police force, have openly supported open-source, while Gartner research from late-2008 indicates the majority of businesses in the Asia/Pacific region took up open-source in 2009.
And with the development and popularity of open-source Android operating system continuing to grow, open-source is likely to play a major part in a business’s IT strategy in 2010.
Cloud computing
Two years ago “cloud computing” was viewed by many businesses as a buzzword with no particular meaning, used by tech-heads who didn’t quite know what they were talking about.
Now, using cloud services has become an essential for businesses. Whether they are backing up their data or using a piece of software hosted on external servers, cloud computing is now a part of everyday operations for many SMEs.
Cloud services have branched out into three main categories: applications, also known as software-as-a-service, infrastructure, used for data backups, and internal service providers for businesses with customised apps and programs.
Analyst firm Gartner recently named cloud computing as one of the top strategic technologies for 2010, saying it could be exploited in a number of different ways to customise programs and apps to a particular company’s needs.
“Using cloud resources does not eliminate the costs of IT solutions, but does rearrange some and reduce others. In addition, consuming cloud services enterprises will increasingly act as cloud providers and deliver application, information or business process services to customers and business partners.”
20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 1:29 PM
Thursday, January 14, 2010
20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing
By Merle (c) 2010 MerlesWorld
(http://MerlesWorld.com)
Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy
for people to come together and share opinions, experiences and
thoughts on a number of topics. Smart companies understand this
and are using the power of social media to connect and inform
their customers, and potential customers. Referred to as “Social
Media Marketing”, it’s a smart way to open the lines of
communication between you and your prospects.
Social media activities run the gamut from Blogging, micro
blogging sites such as Twitter, social networking communities
such as LinkedIn and Facebook, video and music uploading sites,
discussion forums, photo sharing and more. With so many
different sites and ways to participate, it can be difficult to
keep track of all your efforts.
Participating in social media doesn’t take a lot of money, but
it is very time consuming and businesses want to know that all
of this investment in time is paying off. Before launching a
campaign, you should have a firm grasp on what it is you’re
trying to accomplish. Is it increasing website traffic? Getting
more ezine subscribers? Having more people download your free
ebook or whitepaper? Or maybe you just want to work on your
company’s brand image. Whatever it is, you need to have a plan.
As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going,
you’ll never get there”. Have your game plan intact before
getting started in marketing yourself, or your company with
social media.
There are many different forms of social media, so it’s
impossible to use them all. Pick three or four, and funnel the
majority of your efforts there. Even if you won’t be working
them all, at the very least you should claim your name or
company name on as many social services as possible. You don’t
want to find out later that someone has the user name that you
want. If you need to see if your chosen user name is available
try http://Namechk.com which checks dozens of social media
networking and bookmarking sites all at once to see if it’s
available. Claim your name now so you won’t end up being sorry
later.
So how do you monitor all the buzz? How do you monitor your
brand and protect your hard earned reputation? I thought you’d
never ask. There isn’t one fool-proof method but there are many
services and tools out there that will make it easy to see who’s
talking about you online. Some are free and others will make you
pull out your wallet.
These “online reputation management” tools, as they’re often
referred to, will help you to define keywords or phrases you
wish to track and then watch for any mention of your company
name, products, or services. It’s important to defend and monitor
your online reputation. Similar to High School reputations,
protecting your image online is the name of the game, and just
as in real life, everyone has one to maintain.
Let’s take a look at some of the measuring and tracking tools at
your disposal:
1) http://BackTweets.com : A search engine for Twitter. See
who’s tweeting your links and more. Can also sign up for email
alerts of new findings.
2) http://Addictomatic.com : A little different than the others,
you type in a keyword, topic or phrase and out it goes searching
the top blogs, news sites, Google, Technorati, Ask, YouTube,
Flickr, Digg, Topix and more. You’ll be given a personalized
results page to bookmark with everything it finds related to
your topic.
3) http://Buzzoo.net : All about Internet buzz, it tracks
several different websites to bring you what’s “hot” right now.
4) http://Surchur.com : Search for the latest and greatest on
topics that are popular right now. Type in a keyphrase and it
searches blogs, social news sites, photo and video sites for
your chosen topic.
5) http://Commentful.Blogflux.com : This service watches for
comments on blog posts, Digg, Flickr, and others and notifies
you of any findings.
6) http://AlertRank.com : A better way to organize and sort
Google alerts. Get a daily report emailed to you in a
spreadsheet format of what it finds.
7) http://BoardTracker.com : A search engine for forums only.
Monitor discussion boards and be notified by email when a thread
matching your search terms is discovered. Free to use.
http://www.google.com/alerts : I’ve been using this “secret
weapon” for years. Simply type in your name or company name and
receive daily emails of results found. They do the work, you
receive the links. Free and nice.
9) http://BrandsEye.com : An online reputation management tool
with a real-time, concise overview of your online reputation.
Multiple levels of services and pricing available. Starting at
$1.00.
10) http://Twazzup.com : Another Twitter only search engine.
11) http://SiteMention.com : Type in your url and find out
what’s being said about you. The results returned are gathered
from Google Blog Search, Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, MySpace,
Digg, Delicious and many more.
12) http://Brandwatch.net: This service tracks your brands,
companies, even the competition. Sign up for free weekly updates
on any brand. Their detailed reports break down what sites like
you, your most talked about features, weekly summary of all
blogs and forum activity. Very similar to the old “press
clipping” service.
13) http://Trackur.com : A tool that scans many websites,
including blogs, news, image and video sites, forums and
notifies you of any mention of your brand, products/services.
Easy to use and affordable. Prices vary depending on need, a
personal account is only $18.00 a month, corporate account
$88.00 a month with other options also available. Try a
“personal” account free for 14 days.
14) http://FiltrBox.com : This one searches online news sources,
Twitter and others to find out what’s being said about you or
your company. Pricing is based on the number of users, but there
is a free version that provides “5 filters” and 15 days of what
they call “article history”.
15) http://SocialMention.com/alerts : Just like Google Alerts
but for social media. Enter your keyword phrase and email address
to be notified of any new findings. Searches blogs, microblogs
like Twitter, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news, videos
and more.
16) http://BlogPulse.com : A search engine that searches only
for data posted to blogs. Enter your keyword, hit submit and
off it goes to gather results.
17) http://BackType.com : Billing itself as a “conversational
search engine” they index millions of conversations from social
networks, blogs and other social media.
18) http://sm2.techrigy.com : Industry insiders claim this to be
the leading social media monitoring solution online. Choice of
free or paid version. Free is limited to five searches and 1,000
results. There are three paid professional levels: Gold, Diamond,
or Platinum.
19) http://ReputationDefender.com : This paid service finds out
everything there is to know about you online, and if negative
information is found they try to have it removed. Different
types of plans are available such as “My Reputation”, “My
Privacy”, starting at only $14.95 a month.
20) http://Topsy.com : Topsy will track your tweets that have
been retweeted so you can find out who’s been sending you all
that “link love”. Type in your Twitter user name and you’ll be
amazed at what you find.
If you’d like to track incoming traffic from your various social
media profiles, an easy way to do it using Google Analytics can
be found here http://Tinyurl.com/kuc9rL
Just as there are many ways to market your company using social
media, as you can see, there’s a multitude of tools and services
at your disposal to track and see if all of that hard work is
paying off. Smart companies realize the importance of social
media in their marketing efforts and are utilizing it on some
level. How smart are you?
Need to increase website revenues this month? Affiliate programs have been a boon for the Web and a salvation for many Web-prenuers since the beginning of the commercial Internet. There are an endless number of ways to generate revenue from affiliate programs — and just as many sites and solutions to choose from. So finding a reputable and quality program that works within the scope of your business model is a serious challenge. Choose wisely and ’Net riches are yours. Choose poorly and you may be wasting your time, energy and resources. There are more fly-by-nights in this industry than anywhere else.
Website Services Magazine has put together the following list of 50 of the most popular affiliate industry sites on the ’Net — from directories to wildly popular individual programs. Research for this report is provided courtesy of Ranking.com — the Web’s largest provider of website popularity metrics
and detailed website information on over one million online destinations.
Link Web Services: http://www.LinkWebServices.com
Web University: http://WebUniversity.LinkWebServices.com
The Web Store: http://www.LinkWebServices.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
Top 50 Video Sharing Sites
Top 50 Video Sharing Sites
Link Web Services: http://www.LinkWebServices.com
Web University: http://WebUniversity.LinkWebServices.com
The Web Store: http://www.LinkWebServices.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
The powerful capabilities of organic search engine optimization (SEO) are now a highly sought after marketing tool by many companies that want to alert customers to their products or services by focusing on certain keyphrases that highlight these offerings. And though SEO has embarked on a meteoric rise in the past few years, other non-traditional forms of marketing are now gaining a great deal of well-deserved credibility as well. More and more marketers are using paid ads to hone in on a potentially profitable client base, while other more traditional channels, such as PR and print ads, appear to be becoming somewhat less effective.
In a recent study (1), Forrester Research found that interactive marketing spending will reach nearly $55 billion by 2014, representing 21% of all marketing spend. And the fact of the matter is that marketers are continuing to place more stock in newer forms of marketing and social media, leaving many higher-ups to wonder if it is time for them to include these channels in their own marketing mixes. And with the help of your search engine optimization company, it’s possible to achieve outstanding rankings and results!
What follows are some common considerations that should be analyzed prior to the launch of an SEO campaign so that you will know what you are getting into, what you will need from your own team and your prospective search engine optimization company, and how to most effectively pursue this particular form of marketing.
Achieving Buy-in
Search engine optimization is unlike many traditional forms of marketing in that several departments must be involved in order for the SEO campaign to be successful. Apart from the obvious need to get buy-in from upper management (unless, of course, you are upper management), you will also need to get buy-in from your sales department and, very importantly, your IT department before pursuing the powerful capabilities your search engine optimization company can bring to the table.
Upper Management
While a well thought out, highly targeted SEO campaign is becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool, many “old school” bigwigs are uncomfortable pursuing something that is completely foreign to them. This is not an indictment of the individual – keep in mind that the traditional marketing methods that the company has likely relied upon (trade shows, direct mail, print advertising, etc.) have been relatively unchanged for decades.
While these traditional marketing channels may have remained relatively stagnant, the allocation of spend for them has not. According to a 2008 SEMPO report, more marketers are shifting their budgets to search rather than spending it on the more traditional channels of the past. Nearly 26% of advertisers shifted budget for print magazines to search; 23% from direct mail; 18% from print newspaper; 15% from website development; and 7% from email marketing.
One of the reasons for this is obviously the effectiveness of the channel. In the same study, SEMPO found that respondents viewed online marketing efforts as their strongest tactic or best ROI. 63% of respondents saw paid search as the best return on investment in terms of marketing or advertising efforts; 49% for organic SEO; 43% for email marketing; 12% for conferences and exhibitions; 11% for public relations; and 6% for print magazines.
Another reason for the shift in marketing dollars, which can be used as ammunition when you are trying to convince your higher-ups to go with a search engine optimization company, is the ultimate accountability that goes along with online marketing: the data that indicates success or failure of your SEO campaign is of the black-or-white variety.
When describing the effectiveness of a company’s marketing strategy, there is often an old sentiment tossed around – “I know that half of my marketing is not working, just not which half.” Because of the analytics involved in search engine optimization, your company higher-ups can take comfort in the fact that this is not another marketing initiative that will self-perpetuate indefinitely – the metrics involved in your SEO campaign will demonstrate that it is working, justifying the continued expenditure.
When trying to get buy-in from upper management, you also have a formidable weapon in the actions, or inaction, of your competitors. If your hated rivals are actively embracing the tools offered by a search engine optimization company, there will be a tendency among upper management not to want to let them get too far ahead. If none of your top competitors appear to be actively pursuing this channel, your company can gain traction before your rivals do and thus gain the competitive edge. Whichever the case, it is now much easier to present a compelling argument to pursue an SEO campaign.
Sales Department
There is often a mutual suspicion and distrust between sales and marketing, but in order for your SEO campaign initiative to be as successful as possible, you should involve sales in the process of selecting a search engine optimization company as early as possible. Achieving buy-in from the salespeople is critical in making certain that the leads that are generated from the website are followed up on as diligently as they should be. By asking sales to assist in important areas of the SEO campaign, like creating an ideal prospect profile and helping to identify targeted keyphrases (after all, they talk to your prospects more often than anyone), you should be able to ensure that when the leads start coming in, your sales team will believe that leads from the website are high-quality and worthy of their immediate attention. After all, without increased revenues, the SEO campaign is not a success – and your salespeople will play a crucial role in determining this.
IT Department
This can be your most difficult challenge. Unlike most other forms of marketing, search engine optimization is a mixture of marketing and technology. Without achieving buy-in, or at least acceptance, from the IT team prior to the launch of an SEO campaign, you are likely to run into problems. IT teams can be particularly protective of their “turf” and may be reluctant to hand over information to your prospective search engine optimization company. This is not inherently bad (it obviously shows dedication to the job), but it can make things difficult when your search engine optimization company is requesting that changes be made to the company website or that analytics platforms be introduced (to name only two likely scenarios).
If you are not used to dealing with your IT department, it would probably serve you well to involve your prospective search engine optimization company in the process of achieving buy-in with them. After all, the vendor should have years of experience in approaching these situations without ruffling feathers. If you choose to approach IT yourself, make it a point to let them know that they will receive a fair share of credit for the success of the initiative and involve them in how you are defining success. This may be enough to win them over to your side.
Leveraging Your Assets
Search engine optimization is not something that should be done in a vacuum if you wish to achieve optimal results, nor is it a discipline in which it is necessary to start from scratch. Many of the pieces necessary for a successful SEO campaign are already in place – it is simply a matter of identifying them and using them (and your search engine optimization company) to their full potential.
Your People
While your search engine optimization company should take the time to understand everything that it possibly can about your business before embarking on your SEO campaign, nobody will ever understand your business better than you and your colleagues. This is why it is important for your search engine optimization company to help you to utilize key people that are vital to the success of the initiative, including people outside the marketing department.
Sales
Salespeople are the front line of your organization – the people who know how to talk to your prospects and understand what is involved in their decision making processes. When it comes to collaborating with your search engine optimization company on keyphrase selection (finding the phrases that will bring highly-motivated prospects to your site), your sales staff can be invaluable. Many companies have names for products or services that are very popular internally but very rarely used on the street, so targeting these phrases during your SEO campaign will not bring you the type of traffic that you seek. Your salespeople (at least the good ones) know how your prospects speak in the real world. A good search engine optimization company will help you to utilize your sales staff – and ensure they feel involved and enthusiastic about the SEO campaign in the process.
Customers
Customers can also be invaluable when it comes to selecting the keyphrases to target for your SEO campaign. Many companies are surprised when they enlist the help of a search engine optimization company to begin a campaign only to discover that their customers do not speak the same language that they do. This is common across just about every industry – most people are very intimately involved in their industries and use proprietary names, acronyms, and other verbiage that is, at the least, confusing to an outsider. Anyone who has ever been dragged along to a work function by a spouse can attest to this – it often sounds as though the employees are speaking animatedly in a foreign language, leaving the reluctant spouse to fend for him or herself. In short, talk to your best customers. Ask them what they would type into a search engine if they were looking for a company that provided what you offer. You will almost certainly be surprised by the responses.
Company Experts
Almost every company can boast that it has industry experts on staff – the ones who design products and services, the ones who implement them, etc. Yet very few companies take advantage of these experts to promote the company as a leader in their respective fields. Since search engines place a premium on valuable, educational content, leveraging your company experts to create articles and whitepapers for your SEO campaign is an excellent way to attain search engine rankings while also providing something of value to your site visitors. Adding this type of content throughout your SEO campaign also allows you the luxury of educating your prospects online so that they will be further down the line in the sales cycle when they eventually decide to make contact.
Your Content
Now that you have learned how to effectively make the best use out of your colleagues, it’s time to take an inventory of the content that is available to you for your SEO campaign initiatives. As mentioned previously, valuable content is held in high regard by engines and visitors alike. Often, however, much of this content never finds its way to the company website for whatever reason. Your search engine optimization company should help you to identify this content, which can include the following:
Whitepapers
Does your company have whitepapers that are used during presentations, at tradeshows, and in other areas but that are not available on your website? If so, you are missing out on a great opportunity to promote your expertise, educate your prospects, and impress the search engines. Most of these whitepapers can be optimized during the SEO campaign for maximum search engine benefit with minimal changes. Even older whitepapers can usually be dusted off by your search engine optimization company and brought up to date at a fraction of the effort that would be involved in creating a new one.
Articles
Similar to whitepapers but typically shorter, articles written by your company experts can be just as beneficial as whitepapers when added to the company site and for the same reason. Unless you have signed away the rights to any articles to the original publishing entity, there is no reason why your search engine optimization company cannot use them on your website for marketing purposes. Older articles, like older whitepapers, can typically be updated with minimal effort.
Press Releases
Your company press releases can also be optimized and utilized on your website. In fact, optimizing press releases prior to their distribution on the newswires is also a good idea. Unlike whitepapers and expert articles, it is usually unnecessary for your search engine optimization company to go back and update press releases during the SEO campaign, since they are historical in nature.
Offline Marketing
Almost every organization has offline marketing materials that are used at trade shows, in sales presentations, or in direct mail. Since this material has (usually) already been vetted by the marketing department, it is usually fit for consumption by the general public. Often, however, these materials are left to rot once they have served their offline purpose, when they could easily be repurposed by your search engine optimization company and used to great effect on the website. Of course, there may be good reasons for this – you may not want to give away your best sales pitch to your competitors by making it public.
Unique Challenges
Although it is wise to make the most out of your existing assets when you are launching an SEO campaign, you should also be aware of some of the unique challenges that are inherent to the online arena. Keeping these challenges in mind as you begin your SEO campaign can make a large difference in your results down the road.
Understanding Searcher Behavior
In marketing, it is accepted that one must grab the prospect’s attention with a compelling message in order to maintain his or her interest. On the Internet, this is paramount. People who are using search engines are, by definition, in a “searching” mode. While this is of course obvious, it is also important to remember that in no other form of marketing is it easier for the searcher to abandon your attempts to attract his or her attention and look elsewhere. Your competitors are a simple click of the ‘back’ button away. In fact, a recent study shows that the average visitor to a website stays for less than three minutes – hardly enough time for him or her to be sold.
Searchers have been conditioned, by the sheer amount of information available, to be impatient when they do not immediately find what it is they are seeking. What does this mean? It means that your pages should offer immediate insight on the common problems that your customers face. If you cannot communicate, within a few seconds, how you understand your prospect and how you are different from the myriad of other firms out there, you have lost them, perhaps forever. With help from your search engine optimization company, take a close look at every page of your website. Do you focus on the user, or do you focus on your company? Do you immediately engage your prospects with your knowledge of what particular business challenges they are facing? If not, it may be time to rethink the most prominent marketing message on your individual pages and devise a new action plan for your SEO campaign.
Redefining “Competition”
Almost every company has a list of four or five companies that it considers to be its primary competitors. These are generally the companies that it believes offer products and services most similar to its own. Often these companies steal employees from one another, and they seem forever concerned with what the other is doing.
On a search engine, however, your definition of competition should be broader. It should include any company that offers the same products or services as your company that outranks you for important terms. Whether or not these companies are on your immediate radar is immaterial – a searcher will not know the difference, nor will he or she care. The Internet is, by and large, a vast and level playing field. There are quite possibly companies that you have never heard of using the Internet almost exclusively to promote their brands. It is important to watch out for these competitors as well as the ones you and your search engine optimization company currently track.
The Role of Patience
Unlike with most marketing channels, search engine optimization has many variables that will be outside of your control and the benefits will not be immediate. Simply put, it takes time to properly optimize a website for optimal search engine performance, and there are no guarantees as to when the engines will re-visit your site and reward you for the efforts of your SEO campaign (although, if you select the right search engine optimization company and play your cards right, it will happen).
The obvious downside is that an SEO campaign can take time before you begin to see your ROI, and unlike most other forms of traditional marketing, the timing can vary greatly. The upside, which people who successfully engage in an SEO campaign realize, is that the ROI is typically much greater than other forms of marketing. It is also important to remember that working with a search engine optimization company is a longer-term investment, which, like other longer-term investments, takes time to mature. If you spend marketing dollars on a print ad, that ad will only be effective for as long as the publication is in the public eye. If you buy banner ads or use pay-per-click advertising, your presence will decline once you stop paying. But a website that’s been properly optimized by a competent, knowledgeable search engine optimization company will likely bring you traffic for years to come.
Works Cited
1. U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 – 2014
Your Website’s Missing Ingredient
“My mechanic told me, ‘He couldn’t repair my brakes, so he made my horn louder.’” – Comedian, Steven Wright
We all want our websites to be more effective, and if you’re like mo t business people you are constantly searching the Web for anything that will help. What you find is a cabal of experts armed with statistics, analysis, charts and graphs all pointing to how they can get you high-up on the search engines and drive more traffic to your site. The problem is that like Steven Wright’s mechanic these guys are adjusting your horn when it’s your brakes that need fixing.
There is little point in attracting more visitors to your site if your site has little of interest to say. Even if your site is jammed packed with useful products, services and solutions if it doesn’t connect with your audience, they will never invest the time necessary for you to make your case.
When websites fail it’s most often because they do not function effectively as your primary communication tool. The Web is overcrowded with options and unless you’re prepared to deliver a compelling differentiating presentation you will be quickly dismissed as irrelevant. Let’s face it; business is tough, probably tougher than it’s ever been before.
Something is Missing
You’ve done all the technical tweaks and responded to all the research and analytics. You’re blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, and search optimizing, but still something is not quite right, something is missing. What’s the missing ingredient? You know it’s out there, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what it is.
You know the Web offers the potential to access new markets, find new customers, and reach new heights, but with all that opportunity, the results always seem just out of reach. If research and analytics were the answer you’d already be rich. Of course it was an over-reliance on research that brought us the Edsel, New Coke, and that wonderful Wall Street goody called Derivatives, one of the greatest investment boondoggles of our time.
There is something artificially comforting about putting your faith in seemingly logical yet unfathomable solutions based on indecipherable scientific modeling and over-hyped research analysis, all brought to you by computer scientists and mathematicians who never ran a marketing department or launched a new product or business.
Business leaders have adopted the attitude that, “It must be right, because I sure as heck don’t understand it.” And when it all goes wrong, or results are anemic, well, “What are you going to do? It’s not my fault, it all looked good on paper.” Ad agencies and Wall Street have been getting away with this kind of bunkum for decades, and look at the mess they’ve made of things.
What’s It All About, Alfie?
Business success is all about your ability to engage your audience with a message that compels them to action. Simply put, your business relies on your ability to communicate. Eureka!
And your website is the best communication vehicle you have. The question is how do you use your website to communicate your marketing message in the most engaging, compelling, and memorable manner? What is the missing ingredient that will turn your scientifically sterile online cookie-cutter presentation into something that cuts through the massive sameness of Internet clutter, and makes a statement that your audience will respond to?
Finding Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
One of the hardest things for tough-minded business people to accept is that sales and marketing success is based on the subconscious emotional and psychological appeal of a brand. That’s the reason, reliance on feature selling rarely works, and only tends to commoditize a product or service – the guy with the most bells and whistles for the least amount of money wins, and why would you want to play that game?
Even the most casual market observer must recognize that all leading brands have one thing in common, no matter what they sell: the promise of their brand is based on a concept that is established through an emotional or psychological appeal. Apple is about thinking and acting creatively without the worry of technical issues; Starbucks is about reconnecting to the original coffee break ideal of a relaxing oasis away from the hustle bustle of everyday life; and Ikea is about stylish living on a budget. Each concept appeals to the deep-seated desires of the targeted audience. It is this singular concept that makes each of these companies special and different from their competition; it is the message that all their marketing, advertising, and promotion is based upon, and it is the true value they offer their audience that attracts interest, holds attention, and delivers promise.
Implementing Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition
In order to implement a company’s emotional and psychological value proposition, we use a process called the ConceptCreator. It starts with various sales’ points that need to be covered. Based on the supplied information, we develop a focused marketing concept using the Law of Dissatisfaction that enables us to discover the experiential human subtext of why people will want what you sell. The presentation concept is boiled-down to a movie-style logline that states the brand story to be presented in the Web Video campaign.
How Much Is A Concept Worth?
“Wait a minute – did he say a movie-style logline? That sure doesn’t sound business-like, and I never heard any corporate CEO or MBA talk about movie loglines.” Maybe so, but think about it. Hollywood studios spend enormous sums of money to produce a movie with the potential of making hundreds of millions of dollars, and each financial investment starts with someone coming up with a clever logline that captures the imagination. Television commercials can cost ten thousand dollars a second to produce and without a guiding conceptual premise they become DOA when implemented. So why wouldn’t you start your Web Video campaign using the same proven formula.
The logline, mission statement, or elevator pitch if you prefer needs to state the characters, goals, obstacles, differentiating factors, and resolution within the context of a story scenario.
For Instance…
If it works for the movie industry will it work for the advertising and marketing industry? Let’s take a look at one of the most successful last number of years, The MAC versus PC campaign.
Example Logline Concept: A stylish, pleasant, mild-mannered young man verbally spars with his geeky competitive opposite (characters) in a series of humorous, relatable incidents (story scenario) that illustrate the people-friendly advantages (resolution) of the brand compared to its rigid, unbending competitor (differentiating factor) whose sheer size dominates the market (obstacle) in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the computer buying audience (goal). – The MAC Versus PC Ad Campaign.
“The Time Has Come The Walrus Said…”
- Lewis Carroll from ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice
Found There,’ 1892
The time has come to realize that Web Video is the best communication tactic available to deliver your marketing message to a worldwide audience; an audience that craves answers and resolution to their every need, concern and desire. It is not good enough to list a bunch of features and hackneyed bulleted points or even to dump pages and pages of search engine optimized hard-to-read text, especially when it’s aimed at an audience raised on television, movies, music and video games. We must learn to speak the language of the audience, and use the appropriate communication tools they can understand in a way that connects on a human level.
It all starts with finding the emotional and psychological value proposition your product or service promises. In a world of frustrated, cranky, attention deficit consumers, the onus is on you to present what you offer in a way that relates to the human elements that make your brand relevant.
Build Backlinks & Rank Higher: The Five Most Effective Strategies
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:28 AM
Friday, September 18, 2009
As the online market place continues to warm up to the idea of SEO, link building has become center stage as it tends to be the most time consuming and crucial part of any internet marketing strategy. Link building services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of SEO. This process involves finding qualified and thematically relevant one-way linking partners who will link back to your website.
At first glance this sounds easy and there are hundreds of automated products out there that claim to add thousands of back links overnight. The truth is there are no short cuts in cultivating authoritative back links for a site. Link building companies spend many hours link building by hand in order to get the best results. Spammy automated products often never cultivate valuable links and tend to do more harm than good. Here are a couple quick suggestions to help you get started.
1. Know What Keywords You’re Targeting
Link building strategies are an extension of your current SEO practice. You’ll want to reference the list of keywords you have selected to optimize your site. Make sure that the anchor text of the link has the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “baby names” you’ll want to place that keyword in the anchor text of the link. I’ve seen many companies go after links by using their company name. Although this does increase link popularity it fails to pass popularity for a specific keyword and can be seen as a failed attempt.
2. Develop a Link Building Strategy
There are many strategies link building companies use to source qualified back links to their clients. The most tedious but often most rewarding method is manual linking requests also known as “cherry picking”. This method allows you to obtain exceptionally qualified links which can really help boost your position in the search engine results page (SERPS). A good place to start with manual link building is to look at your suppliers, vendors, clients, related organizations associations and more.
Besides manual link requests other well known tactics include:
1. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, Joe Ant)
2. article submission (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com)
3. optimized press releases (PRWeb.com)
4. social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)
5. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Furl)
6. Blogs (niche blogs)
7. Forums (niche forums)
8. Classifieds (niche classifieds)
3. Identify Thematically Relevant and Authoritative Linking Sources
Search engines see links as votes of confidence for your site. The more relevant and authoritative the site, the more consideration is given to the link and the subsequent keyword in the anchor text. It really pays off to focus on the quality of your links rather than the quantity. It is also important for your link building to look natural and not an attempt to deceive search engine spiders in search of links. Try looking for sites within your industry rather than general, unrelated sites to get links from.
A good example of this would be content creation and distribution. Try creating content on a relevant subject of which you can speak authoritatively. An example of this would be a SEO company writing a short article on 5 simple ways companies can start link building and placing it on an authoritative, industry relevant site like this one. Remember, before placing a link on a site (or making a request), ask yourself three questions:
1. Does a link to my website belong here (does it look natural)?
2. Is this site relevant and authoritative?
3. Is there any benefit to my potential customers?
4. Look for the onsite attributes of the linking site
4. Determine Where Your Link Will Reside
Once you’ve nailed down a potential linking partner that represents the overall quality and thematic authority that your site deserves you’ll need to see where your link will reside. Here are a couple guidelines that I look for when placing links on a site. I try to get my links no more than a few clicks away from the homepage. The page must be thematically relevant and recently cached by Google’s search engine (this lets me know that the page has been indexed by Google). I also take a look at the number of external (outbound) links leaving that page. I try to keep the number of external links below 50 as it will dilute the effect of the page. Lastly, I look at the page the link will be placed on. For some sites this is harder to control, but if you have the option you should know where the most valuable locations are. I always try to get my links in line with thematically relevant content, like an article or blog post. I’ve found this produces some of the best results. Try to avoid placing your links on a “sponsored” or advertisers section that runs throughout the entire site. Also avoid footer links as rumor has it Google has devalued links buried in the footer of the site. Links placed at the top of the page or inserted into the site’s navigation also tend to do quite well. Bottom line is that your links need to look like they belong and provide value to the user and the site it is published on.
5. Be Aware of “No-Follow” Links
Within the last 5 years Google developed the concept of the “no-follow” link. The “no-follow” code is inserted into your link and instructs the Google spider to ignore it. The “no-follow” link can be seen used most commonly in blog comments and forum posts. This initiative was set forth to combat spam and automated linking mechanisms that would throw links automatically on blog comments and forum posts.
There are a lot of SEO professionals that will only place a link if it is a “do-follow” link, meaning it doesn’t have the “no-follow” attribute. I tend to disagree with this notion especially when the link in question is on a highly trafficked authority site. If it makes sense for the link to be there, then add your link. Even though Google won’t give you any credit for it, it will be seen by thousands of people who may visit your site and link to you themselves because your site is highly relevant. I call this concept indirect link building. You are influencing and promoting your site to potential linking partners.
Link Building is a very time consuming process and link building companies spend a lot of time researching, testing and improving their techniques. Link building services are available for companies that don’t have the time to invest in manual link building. The bottom line is that with a little help anyone can link build and move their site up the SERPS.
Link Web Services Opens New Channel on YouTube!
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 9:54 AM
Sunday, May 31, 2009
LinkWebServices.com has opened a new channel on YouTube!
View all of our customer’s videos at http://www.YouTube.com/LinkWebServices
Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Channel; we will let you know whenever we upload a fresh video!
Matt Cutts on SEO 2009 & Google Talks AdSense
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:59 AM
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Matt Cutts on SEO 2009 & Google Talks AdSense
WebProNews’ Mike McDonald caught up with Matt Cutts of Google at the Hofbrau House in Las Vegas during PubCon to get his views on a number of topics.
Is Ranking Dead?
Cutts said, “I’m not sure I would say ranking is dead but it’s not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.”
The Great Google Adsense Side Effect
If the Internet consisted of real brick and mortar buildings there would be a construction boom going on right now like the world has never seen. The Internet is not in a recession or on the road to a depression, rather it is experiencing an economic and social explosion of activity.
There is one marketing truth you must understand: People buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell. So, just because your lead is not ready to buy today, doesn’t mean they aren’t important. After all, today’s leads are tomorrow’s customers, or next month’s or next year’s.
By Sharon Housley (c) 2009
Here is a collection of what we consider “must have” tools for webmasters. These tools will benefit any webmaster, both novices and experts alike. Arm yourself with these tools in order to achieve a more professional online presence.
1. Custom 404 Page
Use a custom 404 page, so that if a user incorrectly types a webpage URL, they will still retain navigational options within your site and be provided
Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:01 AM
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
By James Gladwin (c) 2009
Believe me, in spite of the current financial turmoil, there hasn’t ever been a better time to generate an online income stream!
And yet it seems that so many budding Internet marketers are finding it hard to break through VNB – the “Visitor Numbers Barrier.”
When I started, I thought there was some magic elixir or secret technique that would transform my visitor numbers! If only I could find THE ONE
24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 2:25 PM
Sunday, February 22, 2009
By Ivana Katz (c) 2009
Wondering what pages to include on your website and why? Here is a list of important information that should be included on your site.
Before you start thinking about what to write, it is important that you create a plan, which outlines what each page will contain. That way you won’t repeat yourself or forget vital information. The most common pages on successful websites include:
1. Home Page (First Page)
By George Peirson (c) 2009
Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.
These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the
How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 6:34 PM
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009
If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat yourself on the back too quickly.
By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter what your company is selling – a website, however modest, has become a standard.
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:03 AM
Sunday, February 15, 2009
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009
Got a website?
If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat
yourself on the back too quickly.
By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business
card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter
what your company is selling – a website, however modest,
has become a standard.
Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:27 AM
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Believe me, in spite of the current financial turmoil, there hasn’t ever been a better time to generate an online income stream!
And yet it seems that so many budding Internet marketers are finding it hard to break through VNB – the “Visitor Numbers Barrier.”
When I started, I thought there was some magic elixir or secret technique that would transform my visitor numbers! If only I could find THE ONE
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