Archive for category SEO
Permission Marketing – A Winning Formula for Promoting Your SEO Business
Posted by Christofer in Marketing, SEO on February 6, 2012
Running an SEO business is a difficult task as such a business is based online, there are a lot of rival businesses to contend with, and it is difficult to find potential buyers for your service. It is imperative that you keep yourself updated regarding the latest business techniques, so you can hook more leads and expand your business. Two such techniques, business card marketing and permission marketing, when combined, offer a winning formula that is sure to help your business grow.
Business Card Marketing
Business cards have your name, the name of your business and your contact number on them. They also have the URL of your website printed on them. They can be delivered to potential customers via electronic means like through email or even by hand, so that they can contact you if they are ever in need of your services.
Business card marketing is important because it helps you create a good first impression. A business card, when done rightly, can compel a potential customer to buy your service. Be sure to put in some effort into designing a good business card. Also, the website a lead will be directed to on reading your business card should be attractive, and should contain authentic information, a few testimonials, a brief description of your business and a summary of your services are ideal.
Once a potential client contacts you, you can move onto the next step that is Permission Marketing.
Permission Marketing
All internet users are bombarded with unwanted email, or spam, on a daily basis. Not only do these emails make tall claims and offer information that can only be termed as minimal and misleading, but they also waste the reader’s time.
If you promote your business through newsletters and other similar services, make sure that you have the person’s permission before you send him, or her, your newsletter. If your website offers subscription based services, allow your subscribers to customize the kind of information they regularly receive. Make sure the information is genuine and worth something to your potential buyer. You should also, very subtly, promote your business when you send your newsletter or update your blog.
Your reputation is everything because you are operating an SEO business, and a single dissatisfied customer can wreak havoc on your portfolio. If you send a potential buyer a thousand (irritating) emails about your service, you have yourself someone who is very dissatisfied. On the other hand, a quality newsletter can gently persuade a potential customer to opt in for your services.
I personally run a coupon blog that shares vistaprint promotions and promotional code for ps prints with my readers. When I started to promote my blog through direct emails at the very beginning, I didn’t provide valuable information for my readers. As a result, I started losing my subscribers until a fellow internet marketer friend of mine suggested that I should market via email but with a twist of permission marketing. Guess what happened? My subscribers became loyal visitors of my blogs, started believing in my words and even buying from me!
Permission marketing is nothing but marketing your business after asking for a potential client’s approval for the same. It lets you add a personal touch to your marketing. Even so, it may be difficult for you to find potential customers for your service. But once you have found a customer, you can keep him hooked for a long time with your permission marketing strategy!
Communication is the name of the game, so make sure that your interactions with your potential client give him a hundred reasons to buy your service.
Getting Started with Google AdWords and AdWords vs SEO
Posted by James Chaitali in SEO on January 26, 2012
Google Adwords is one of the most well-known PPC marketing systems available today. Google Adwords can be used by businesses of any size to increase their traffic and grow their customer base.
How Does Adwords Work?
Google Adwords allows you to effectively buy your way to the top of the page for certain search results. You’ve probably seen the “Sponsored Result” links at the top of the list of search results. Those results are placed there by webmasters that have purchased placement for the key word or phrase that you searched on. If you click on the sponsored result, then the webmaster will have to pay Google for that click.
Google AdWords campaigns, if well managed, are a great way to get targeted visitors. Learning the intricacies of Adwords can be challenging, however, so many people opt to hire an Adwords consultant, instead of attempting the task themselves. The initial outlay of hiring an Adwords consultant may look like just “another expense”, but it is a good investment if you are not confident in the world of PPC.
AdWords vs SEO
Using AdWords can provide similar results to SEO, in that you will see an increase in traffic from a well-run AdWords campaign, however AdWords is not the same as SEO. An AdWords campaign is a short term measure – when you stop funding your AdWords account, the traffic will stop. SEO is a long-term investment. SEO involves building links and improving the quality of your website so that it ranks highly in the search engines for organic search results – ones that you aren’t paying for. The work that a good SEO agency does should continue to serve you, in a subtle way at least, for a fair while after the campaign ends.
Getting Started
It’s easy to get started with both SEO and Adwords. The first thing any serious webmaster should do is set up a Google Webmaster Tools account. This can be used to track a lot of different things to do with your website, and is invaluable for both SEO and PPC marketing.
Tracking and testing are vital parts of PPC marketing, and AdWords. Before you can judge the effectiveness of your campaigns, you need to have a baseline idea of your traffic and your conversion rate. It’s a good idea to keep a spreadsheet with information about your traffic, conversion rates, incoming links, keywords, and other details on a month-by-month basis so that you can see how your campaigns are going.
You can test the waters with a small budget, but you should be prepared to invest a steady amount over a period of a few weeks or months to see how well a campaign is going to perform.
If you have the time and inclination, you can achieve a lot doing SEO yourself. However, SEO work can be time consuming. Hiring an SEO agency can save you a lot of time. Working together with an adwords consultant will allow you to build sustainable long-term traffic, whilst also running seasonal or topical short term PPC campaigns to take advantage of openings in the market.
Branding the Baby: Your New Blog
Posted by jenthames in Promoting Your Blog, SEO, Tips & Advice on January 16, 2012
Online Marketing is the new place to be for love or money. Unfortunately, the Internet is still very much the Wild West of Marketing. Anything goes and for the most part Cornel G is the only authority on the Web and honestly, that is pretty scary.
Branding a new blog starts by taking charge of your online reputation. Actively controlling what is known and said about you and your blog online will protect the Baby and it is like building a house. Build it well, and maintain it, and you and your blog are on your way to a comfortable life and a bright future. Branding your blog actually comes before building your blog and it will clarify your intent and prevent a multitude of errors before you invest time and money into the project. Here are the bare essentials for branding the Baby.
Branding in essence means defining your target market, the niche group of people that you are trying to reach through your website, blog and social media sites. Spend some time using the variety of free to cheap online tools that are available to help you define your niche.
- Then choose a domain/blog name. Imagine you are naming a real baby. This takes time, thought, and it definitely takes more than an afternoon. Whenever possible try to choose a domain name with SEO keywords in mind. Wordtracker is the tool of choice for keywords but there are others. Moreover, spend some time finding something that is descriptive, funny, to the point and easy to spell. One of my favorites is: http://www.uglycable.com.au, one of the top HDMI cable suppliers in Australia. Choosing the right domain and blog name is the foundation for everything else. You won’t have the luxury of going back and changing it without losing substantial ground in the rankings. Once you have your name it’s time to build the mote.
- Building the mote means that you want to sign up for as many free similar spellings connected to free email accounts and social media sites as you can. Most should be available and if you have done your domain name research properly you will already know what is and isn’t available. If some are taken don’t worry- that’s good. The main purpose in building the mote is to prevent Wild West web outlaws from snagging these names so that they can use them to impersonate you or your business down the road. To build the mote you can and should think about using all of the following:
- Create a simple website even if you are intent only on blogging using WordPress. It’s just an opinion but starting with WordPress.org rather than the free WordPress.com lets you start your blog without the heartache of later needing to switch if it becomes popular. You can also imbed your blog into your website. Paying for a good hosting service is worth every penny. It puts an investment into the project which will make you much more likely to follow through. In addition, put some thought into languages and servers. Both directly impact SEO and site speed. PHP, (front and back end) and Apache Servers offer speed and security but there are a variety of others.
- Create a Google Profile.
- Open Social Media accounts. The service Namechk will let you check and do all the social media names at once.
- Link to affiliated organizations within your niche market. Create links between all of your sites.
- After identifying your keywords spread them around throughout your blog and social media sites. Make sure to fill out all of the information requests for each site and make it SEO friendly with keywords.
- Find a designer to design a logo. The better your name the easier it will be to decide on a fantastic logo. Why do you need a logo? Well, if your blog catches on and it starts to take off you will want to brand it further. Logos can capture the essence of your blog quickly and simply in a way that the written word just can’t master. In addition, once you have a logo you can start investing in everything from promotional gifts to online advertising to attract viewers to your site.
- Be patient and keep at it. Real babies take years to grow. Really successful websites and blogs are often the same way. Throwing tons of money at it will not ensure success but steadfast doggedness, care and constant attention can pay off handsomely once your little baby has become a rock star.
4 Necessities for Bloggers on a Budget
Posted by Danielle Young in Guest Posts, SEO, Tips & Advice on December 27, 2011
Although blogging has been around for more than a decade, it still remains one of the most popular mediums for communication on the internet. It has done much to democratize the production and communication of information for those who have interesting things to say. However, there are still a lot of things that a potential blogger must consider before taking on this worthwhile endeavor. Indeed, a little bit of planning in the beginning will go a long way in helping bloggers produce quality content on a shoestring budget while gaining access to many potential readers.
In order to grow your blog on a small budget, there are several things that you should consider:
- Changing Your Hosting Provider
- Use Social Media
- Work with Other Blogs
- Search Engine Optimization
Changing Your Hosting Provider
The website hosting market has become very competitive over the past several years as server prices continue to plummet on account of Moore’s Law. This has been a great boon for people who want to run their own blogs since they are able to reach a worldwide audience for just pennies a day.
Unless you already have a large, established audience, your blog can get away with a shared hosting solution at first. This is the cheapest way to go since the hosting provider will not need to provide you with a dedicated server.
There are a number of companies that will provide you with a complete hosting solution for less than $10 a month. Some of the most popular companies are listed below:
- Dreamhost
- Bluehost
- HostGator
All of these companies provide a full complement of website hosting services, including database access and use of numerous programming languages to create a fully interactive website. Even if you don’t like to get involved with the technical aspects of your website, several hosting providers, including Dreamhost, allows for a one-click setup of WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms on the internet. By doing this, you do not need to worry about installation at all.
Of course, if you are really hamstrung for money, there are several free blogging platforms on the internet. Two of the most popular at the following:
- WordPress
- Blogger
These two websites will allow you to easily create a blog from among numerous templates. By going this route, you can be up and running in just minutes without paying a dime. Of course, there are some negative to going this route. You will not have your own domain name and customization options are limited. However, if you just want to test the waters of the blogging universe, it may be a good first step.
Use Social Media
Creating a blog is usually the easy part; the difficult thing is to actually get people to your website. The internet is littered with the remnants of long abandoned blogs, neglected due to their lack of traffic. Bloggers who were originally excited quickly become discouraged when they come to discover that no one is coming to read their brilliant insights. In order to find potential readers, you are going to need to do some marketing. One of the easiest ways to do this is by employing social media to bring people to your site. For one thing, you can employ social news and bookmarking sites like the following:
- Digg
- Hacker News
These sites aggregate news articles from a variety of sources, which are then rated based on popularity. Although many of your submissions may not become popular, it only takes one great article to go viral, flooding your blog with new visitors. Websites like Facebook and Twitter can also be used to market your blog. By providing a Facebook “Like” button or a “Tweet” icon, readers at your site can become personalized marketers for you by spreading popular articles to their friends.
Work with Other Blogs
Unless you are writing about a particularly esoteric niche, it is exceedingly likely that there are already many sites discussing the same topics that you are. More likely than not, these sites probably have more visitors than you do. Instead of competing with them, you can work with them in order to help their blog while giving you ready access to numerous new potential readers. One popular strategy is to offer to write an article for their website. Many popular blogs struggle to fill their page with content that will interest their readers. You can offer to relieve that burden by writing something for their site. In return, they will give you a byline where you can describe your own blog.
Best of all, this strategy will not cost you any money but just an investment of time in order to write the article.
Search Engine Optimization
Other than various social media websites, the main way people will find your blog is through search engines. Indeed, companies like Google have created a business empire by connecting people to the information that they want. Since search engines have become so popular, an entire industry has developed, known as search engine optimization, in order to help small sites get to the coveted results at the top of the front page. You can hire people to do this for you, but the basics are pretty straightforward and can be done by yourself. Although Google’s search engine algorithm is strictly confidential, they do provide lots of information to website owners about how to optimize their site for their search engine, which handles more than 60 percent of all searches.
So if you are interested in doing this, you should definitely spend some time here: Google Webmaster Tools. Starting your own blog is an exciting adventure and a great way to spread your ideas to the rest of the world. Although it may seem overwhelming at times, by following some of the advice presented above, you will be well on your way to launching a successful blog.
3 Successful SEO Marketing Strategies
Posted by jtoney in Blogging, Facebook, Guest Posts, Link Building, Marketing, SEO on December 2, 2011
It seems today there are a million ways to increase your site exposure. New SEO strategies are popping up weekly, some more effective than others. As websites grow, more people are veering away from basic SEO marketing and expanding alternative techniques. This sparks the creation of new strategies that when utilized with the basics, can increase your page rank and overall traffic. Therefore, we should take a look at these growing trends and see if your site can benefit from them.
Coupon Marketing:
With the current economic state, coupon shopping has become widely used. Many shoppers refuse to pay retail and spend hours clipping, printing, and collecting coupons. This trend has increased the use of coupon marketing among SEO professionals. However, coupon marketing is about more than just dangling a deal and hoping someone bites. By registering coupons with known coupon distributors such as couponchief.com and retailmenot.com, you are able to reach a customer base that was once foreign. The bargain shoppers receive these coupons through emails as well as Google search results. Since these sites are instantly indexed as new coupons are created, there is little wait for your marketing to take effect.
Along with a wider range of prospective traffic, these coupon sites build backlinks that are solid. With your site address posted to their site, your page rank increases. Since these sites have grown in popularity in the last 3 years, their rank is more than enough to be beneficial.
Credit Card Marketing:
Many sites seem to stay away from credit card marketing due to the bad wrap it has gotten from spammers. However, by choosing the proper credit card affiliates you will be able to increase your traffic with credible backlinks. Larger banking institutions allow for affiliate programs which allow you to offer benefits and rewards people may not get otherwise.
With the current rise in bank fees, credit processing fees, and ATM charges, many consumers are looking for an alternative to their current bank. This is a great time to research credible credit card merchants and find one that you can utilize for SEO marketing and increasing your traffic.
Social Networking:
Using the trend of social networking has become a highly respectful and successful means of SEO. By creating discounts on Facebook, tweeting your latest news on Twitter, and getting LinkedIn, you are exposing your site the possibility of a massive traffic increase. Combined with other SEO strategies you can create a page following beyond the occasional browser.
Many are utilizing coupon marketing with Facebook since their promotion of Facebook Coupons. For those selling items, this is a great way to increase sales. However, it is also a great tool for those who monetized their blogs, are offering discounted affiliate deals, and are looking for a way to increase traffic to their sites. By creating fan-based coupons, discount codes, and Facebook fan-only deals, you can require members to “Like” your page before seeing the deal.
Creating a new tab in Facebook
The most popular way of creating these fan-based deals is by creating a new tab in Facebook that requires members to “Like” their page. Here are instructions on how to create that:
1. Log into your Facebook page and type “Static HTML: Iframe Tabs” in the search bar. Click the first search result in the dropdown list.
2. Next click the “Add Static HTML to a Page” button and select the page from the drop down list. This will take you to your Facebook page.
3. On your page click on “Edit Page”, navigate to the “Apps” section and click on “Edit Settings” for the “Static HTML: IFrame Tabs” application. You will get a pop-up for you to enter the custom tab name. Enter the name you want visible on your tab and click “Save” then click “Okay”
4. Next the “Static HTML” editor will load and you will need to click the “Enable FBML” box if it isn’t already selected.
5. In the editors “Enter your Content Here” box you will need to type or paste the following code:
<fb:visible-to-connection> <img src=”YOUR COUPON IMAGE URL”> <fb:else> <img src=”URL TO AN IMAGE TELLING THEM TO LIKE PAGE FIRST”> <fb:else> <fb:visible-to-connection>
6. The first URL you replace will be to your coupon image. The second URL will be to another image you create advising them to “Like” you page first. Once they “Like” your page, the coupon will be visible under that tab. Each time you want to change your coupon you will need to change the first image URL with your new coupon image. After entering the URL’s click “Save and View Tab”. The page will load showing you what your new fans will see when they “Like” your page.
For those who just want to increase traffic without offering coupons or discounts, this technique can be used for anything you want you entice members with. It could be as simple as a new and interesting post on your blog where you use the title to entice them to click “Like”, or it can be a product review for something new. Whatever you want to use to convince them that it is worth it to click “Like” is up to you.
In the ever changing world of SEO, many are starting trends that will last long into the future. Following the current economic state, new products, and the trends of blog readers will increase your options for SEO marketing and allow a more versatile strategy. Take a look into your current SEO marketing plan and see if you have room for more.
Taking Another Look At Google Fresh
Posted by ThomasStone in Guest Posts, SEO on November 29, 2011
Google’s early November algorithm update, commonly called Google Fresh, is another step towards Google’s goal of providing the most helpful, relevant search results to users. By focusing on the timeliness of search items, Google is hoping to clear its search results pages of the cobwebs and dust bunnies of years-old content that constantly plagues searchers and frustrates their attempts to find up-to-date information.
Searches for annual events are prime candidates for reform through Google Fresh. Searching for the names of a specific event, such as the annual Mobile Marketing Association Forum, can yield results from years ago, but it’s more likely that a user is attempting to find information on events happening this year or next week. With the initial Fresh rollout, many of these problems began disappearing, but it will take many tweaks and updates before it reaches a level that will satisfy users and the mammoth of Mountain View. Though Fresh should provide a marked improvement in user experience, it will likely have a negative impact on many websites, at least in the short term. If newer, timelier web pages are rising to the top, it means other pages are being pushed to the bottom.
Stay Fresh
How can businesses, webmasters and blog owners avoid being penalized by Fresh? Well, the best way to avoid being penalized is to stay fresh. This doesn’t necessarily apply equally to all websites or industries, though. The professional pressure washing industry doesn’t see many revolutionary products or ideas, so their message isn’t as time sensitive as others. Things tend to stay the same from one year to the next. In the end it’s all about providing the best value for the customers. Users who are trying to figure out what to do in Chicago don’t want to read about venues that have closed or events long passed. New restaurants and venues crop up all the time, so having current information on the Windy City’s attractions would benefit a travel site dedicated to events in Chi-town. By keeping content up to date, businesses will ensure that their customers get the best data and have enough information to make informed choices.
Time stamping content accurately will let Google know what content is new and what’s old, keeping irrelevant items out of time sensitive search results. The time stamp will likely become increasingly important in search rankings from here on out, making it imperative that every piece of content is tagged accurately. Google likely has dozens of different metrics at its disposal for aiding in determining when a piece was published, but it’s unlikely that any have as prominent a position as the timestamp. Have a clearly displayed date for content not only helps Google but it also aids users in determining the relevance of content. In this way, building for a friendly, helpful user experience will also provide a benefit in search rankings by giving Google more knowledge about a page so it can rank it properly. For websites that wish to be included in Google News, providing a valid date is actually required. If the crawlers can’t find a clear publication date, the search engine will skip the page and provide the webmaster with an error explaining the problem and how to fix it.
Though Fresh will have a profound impact on end users, it doesn’t have to mean huge changes in site traffic for businesses and individuals committed to providing relevant, current information. Constantly updating the content of a site and including the original publication date of every article or post will help both users and Google evaluate the page and will result in a more profitable location in Google’s rankings.
Google Encrypts User Keywords
Posted by ThomasStone in Security News, SEO on November 3, 2011
In today’s Internet marketing world, companies must implement a broad portfolio of strategies to succeed online. Social media is rapidly accelerating in importance, while email marketing is still a reliable strategy. The huge industry that has developed around the online coupon craze –contenders like Groupon, Facebook Deals, and Google Offers–represents an increasingly effective way for small businesses to broadcast their brand across the online terrain. Pay-per-click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices can also extremely effective, but Google has recently made a move that affects several of these marketing strategies.
Citing user security concerns, Google decided to encrypt the key terms that deliver users to websites when these users are logged in to a Google account. Google has said this will affect a relatively small percentage of searches, but that percentage will likely grow as more people create Google accounts.
Previously, Google Analytics users could see the info surrounding the traffic flowing to their sites as well as the keywords people use to get there. With this information, website owners could build a strategy around those keywords. This made it fairly simple for users to consider where they should target their ads and how they could optimize for targeted keywords. Now that these queries are being concealed, website owners will be able to see that guests are coming to them from Google.com but not the keywords that brought them to their site.
PPC is another popular strategy to drive traffic and can be very effective when paired with other tools. With PPC, advertisers pay the website owner for every time someone clicks on their ad. The sponsored links that appear on sidebars and at the top of Google searches are another form of PPC. These companies pay Google directly. Google gets a lot of money through PPC and their decision to conceal queries will most likely be effective in directing more users toward PPC. It is not surprising that Google would strategize against companies championing methods used to capture organic search by legitimate means. Truthfully, it’s in Google’s best interest to not have the code of their search algorithm cracked. However, knowing the query terms that prompt a website to come up is just one of the many aspects of an SEO plan and this encryption of some keyword searches should do little to sway an overall SEO strategy.
Even though Google has made search queries harder to access, it is only a speed bump for SEO. Sure, some users who used to optimize themselves will find the process to be impossible without a roadmap. But any website that is using a professional SEO company shouldn’t experience too much of an effect.
Google’s move to encrypt search queries is certainly bold. It shows that Google isn’t afraid to flex its muscles under the guise of security concerns. While Google is not the only active search engine, it commands the highest market share by far. Despite Google’s disturbing move, smart companies can still succeed online using a comprehensive strategy that combines SEO, PPC, social media, online coupons and email marketing.
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