Tag Archives: internet marketing

Social Network Marketing And What It Can Do For You

Most people ask the wrong questions when talking with marketers: “How can you make money off social networks?”

The value is placed on social networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, Mixx, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Twitter and Flikr, while ignoring the real reason these networks were setup and how you can use those ideas to help your business……

The top social networking websites which are Facebook, Twitter, and now Pinterest were founded as a way to stay in touch with friends and family and to meet new people online that all share the same ideas. LinkedIn has a similar slant – it is great for entrepreneurs and professionals who want to keep track of their contacts for hiring / outsourcing. Flicker is just a blindingly simple tool for sharing photos.

The success of social networks marks a dynamic shift in how people are using the Internet. We have evolved from just searching for information to creating and participating in social spaces with other individuals through the Internet. This model is based upon the hive mentality where people identify themselves as part of a group with similar likes and interests that draw them together.

Social networks make viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing much easier than before. The best use of social networks is not to make money ‘directly’ off them, but to harness their marketing potential and to use them to market your own business. The best way to do that is to optimize your website (including the process of link building) for your target keywords.

Online social networks present an efficient platform for you to use in the spread of your marketing message. In addition, they are also a great tool for getting tons of visitors and thousands of page views to your site.

What this all means is that you need to devote more of your attention towards how you can leverage the traffic you do receive from these sources. To do that, you should allow your visitors to create their own social network centered on your niche topic. The power of this cannot be missed since social networks allow for multiple points of connections between almost anyone on Earth, giving them the ability to find, share, enjoy, and track anything and everything that tickles their fancy.

Social network marketing works in the exact same fashion, except people choose to provide your link without being asked to do so, and places like del.ici.ous, Digg, Blogpulse, and Technorati give them the ability to do that. In offline terms, that means turning towards your friends and family to ask for their opinions. Online, it means turning towards a group of trusted people whose opinions and recommendations you value.

In fact, in lots of cases, you’ve probably done some research on your own, using the traditional search engine marketing model and then turned to a social network that you’re a part of to validate your findings and complete your research by getting their experiences and opinions about the topic. This is social network marketing at work in its purest form.

Online social networks provide the platform needed to speak out (if they are so inclined) or to simply watch the conversations as they happen.

What Is The Truth About Search Engine Optimization?

A great many people within today’s world believe that websites are a quick ride to fame and fortune overnight. These same folks also believe they can become successful without putting in hard work. I am here to tell you; this very rarely happens and if it does it is accomplished by those with experience; in internet marketing.

Most people are also sold on the dream that SEO is the cure-all to their financial woes and they are going to become rich. Successful websites are not always successful in the beginning and sometimes beginning an internet website can prove to very difficult and time consuming.

Google Search Engine Marketing:

Google is a search engine that your internet website must be listed within. Keep in mind that Google has approximately fifty billion internet web pages, which increases daily. You have to ask yourself with those kind of figures, why should Google index your one little business website? To be frank you may not get indexed if you’re aren’t careful.

Your website is completed now what?

More than likely when your website is completed, it will join a huge population of other websites while sitting dormant. There are of course ways to list your business but a word of warning, this sometimes can prove complex and is very easy to make a mess of it; if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Search Engine Optimization:

When your website is up and running, you must jump into what is called “Search Engine Optimization”. SEO is not a one-step process. SEO is something, which must be performed often in order to retain your search engine rankings.

Your goal should be to bring customers to your website:

You must also market your site, in order for your products and services to get in front of your potential customers. Keep in mind, you must first draw these potential customers into your business website before you call sell them anything.

Long waiting periods and frustration

Some business website owners complain of a long waiting period, while they wait to appear on the Google Search engine. The truth is that more than likely you are going to wait quite a while before internet traffic will find your business within the Google Search engine. SEO is not the cure all for your marketing strategies and frankly, you would make a mistake if you solely depend on it for your marketing strategy.

Alternatives to search engine marketing

Some great alternatives are email marketing, article marketing, blogging, newsletters and AdWords and others. These are traditional methods within the internet advertising arena’s and have been found to work from not only a cost effective standpoint; but a time-efficient standpoint as well.

Is search engine marketing truly crucial for your marketing needs?

Some marketing experts will gladly inform you, that your business should not rely on Google or the other search engines for success. As a businessperson you should not expect to make all your money through search engines. However the search engines should be incorporated into a well rounded marketing plan.

The Importance Of Search Engine Optimization in Your Marketing

Many people ask what search engine marketing is and how can it pertain to their business?  Search engine marketing is the promotion of your website through search engines while obtaining more web traffic to your website.  This in turn generates more leads for potential sales within your business.  Some SEO experts think that a very important part of search engine marketing is pay per click advertising.

What is pay-per-click advertising and how can it aid my business website?

Pay per click advertising brings in internet traffic to your website once your pay per click campaign is active. You can actually start receiving targeted visitors to your site within minutes, provided of course you have set up your PPC campaign correctly.  SEO on the other hand will minimally take hours, days and in some case three to six months before you will see results.

Ensure your business website is registered with the major search engines:

Within today’s world, unbelievably more people spend more time on the internet as compared to those who do not use the internet. The younger generation (ages 18 to 35) spends more time upon the internet as compared to other market groups.  No matter the market group, which you are targeting, you must ensure your business website can be found within the major search engines upon the internet.  Internet visitors utilize the search engines in searching for products, services and information.  If you do not have your business listed within the major search engines, you will be losing business or even worse go out of business.

 What can SEO do for my business website?

The most effective method of search engine marketing is search engine optimization.  SEO improves the quality as well as increasing the multitude of traffic to your business website through the major search engines.  The more often your business shows up within the major search engines, the more visitors you will receive to your internet site, which will in return generate more leads as well as sales for your business.

What is the big deal about rankings with my business website and search engines?

You want your business to rank well within the search engine rankings.  Upon achieving good rankings, you will find that your business website will bring people in who are looking for particular services or products.  These are commonly titled “potential customers”.

 SEO is not a one-time deal

SEO requires a lot of time as well as your efforts in obtaining success.  This is not a one-time thing, which you must perform.  SEO in order to be effective must be updated continually; as well as often.  If you are not confident with your own SEO skills, I would recommend you hire a professional SEO to aid you with your SEO needs.  This will allow you to focus on other matters pertaining to your business.

How important is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing is very important for your business and should be permanently instituted within your marketing plan for your business.  If you utilize search engine marketing effectively, you will find that your business will experience the success you have worked so hard to achieve.

SEO Tips For WordPress Marketing

WordPress is one of the most powerful marketing tools that are available on the internet today. It can be used to create a blog for your internet business or your very own website to promote your product. What is really great about WordPress is that you can create either of these in a matter of minutes even if you do not know how to do HTML. The key to a successful WordPress blog or website is the SEO  – Search Engine Optimization Capability. Here a few tips that you can use on your WordPress Marketing blog or website to make it SEO capable.

1. Permalinks –  Permalinks are the links that are created when you post your blog article in WordPress, for example, http://juliasvaservice.com/seo-tips-for-wordpress-marketing/ .  You need to be sure that you are using permalinks on your WordPress site.  By default your WordPress software contains web URL’s which contain question marks and numbers inside of them. These links are hard for the search engine web crawlers to attach themselves to. As a result your site will not be indexed as fast as it would normally be.  Using permalinks it is easy for the web crawlers to crawl your site by using the keywords, which is very important, to have in your permalink.  WordPress also, however, does offer you the opportunity to create custom URL’s for both your permalinks and archives.  You will be able to find this option under your Administration panel go into Settings then Permalinks.

2. Titles – In the permalinks section of your WordPress marketing software you have the option of date and name based.  This option will place the year, month, date, and post title in your URL.  For the SEO web crawlers it is best to have the name of your site appear in the front of this URL.  So instead of using the basic URL you should choose Post name URL and create a link that has your site name appearing first.  So your post would be listed as the example above

3. Tags – Tags are a great addition to your site on a SEO standpoint. They will enable the search engines web crawlers’ crawl through your site more easily and also it will allow you to create specific pages for your tags and keywords. You can also install the Ultimate Tag Warrior for your WordPress.

4. Page Titles – You will need to make sure you have good titles on all of your webpages.  Just as you put the site name at the beginning of your URL you will need to do the same thing with your page title.

5. Post Titles – The post titles that you choose should be clearly written.  Do not stuff these titles with keywords that you are using to target your site or blog. Choose your keywords carefully when you are posting and get those words in your post title.

6. Autolinks – You will also need to cross link to your own posts and pages in your content. You do this by linking keywords to your relevant posts.

7. Relevant Posts -Be sure to post links to related posts under all your postings. This will help the web crawlers that are crawling through your site and indexing all of your posts.

8. Ping Services – Each time you post or edit either a posting or a page your WordPress blog can notify a variety of different sites that you have updated your blog.  It is very important that you use this step.

9. Google Sitemaps – Google has a tool for you that are called Google Sitemaps. This tool will help you index your site and allows you to tell Google which pages are the most important.

10. Categories – Categories will help you organize your content. If you have your permalinks turned on, the category names will appear in your URL. This is why it is very important that you name your category names very carefully. Try and make sure that you use keywords to name your categories and do not be afraid to make loads of them. WordPress gives you the ability to use sub categories and sub-subcategories so make as many categories you can. This way you are able to down your focus on certain keyword phrases.

Creating a WordPress site that is SEO ready is simple if you know how to do it correctly. Using these steps can help you create a great SEO site in no time.

In my next article I will explain why it is important to share your content across your social media sites.

Success For Your Business With Search Engine Optimization

Most people that have been working on the internet know the information that I have listed in this article. Please feel free to pass this article on to people you know who are just starting a business.

The internet is a very competitive place to conduct business within our current society. By developing a good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan and your business stands a great chance of being successful upon the internet.

How important is Search Engine Optimization with marketing?

Search Engine Optimization allows internet users to view your business website ahead of the obvious competition, which does exist upon the internet. Search engines are very much a part of making your business website successful.

Familiarize yourself with Google:

One of the major, if not most important, internet search engines is Google. Google has numerous factors, which they consider to determine how websites are ranked. Google is one particular search engine, which any website owner must contend with. You must be familiar with the factors, which Google utilizes in ranking your business website, if you cast this fact aside; you are going to have serious problems promoting your business upon the internet.

A few of these factors are the number of back links to your site from other sites. You also will find that proper use of keywords will play a role in the ranking of your site. Proper optimization and number of pages on your site, are also a factor in determining your overall ranking within the search engines.

Will pictures or videos help with my website rankings?

Adding relevant pictures and images can help your site. Especially when they are tagged with the proper keywords. As far as videos go, the general consensus is that a good relevant video will help your site get ranked much higher in the search engines. Once again proper keyword tagging and a keyword title will be key to getting your site ranked. This is where good SEO comes into play.

When should I begin thinking about SEO?

You should begin thinking about SEO before and during your website being developed. Additional and updated SEO can be done after your site is fully developed and launched. Your website developer should be able to speak to you about good SEO strategies, if your website developer can’t or will not discuss this with you; you need to find one that will. Without proper SEO to your site you will have a major problem getting ranked within the search engines.

Keywords and your website

The next thing, which you must do in utilizing search engine marketing, is to find keywords, which will be suitable to place within the text content of your website, which you are promoting. Do understand that you must not merely flood your website content with keywords, Google along with many search engines frown upon this. You will need to ensure the content as well as keywords are carefully placed and within your really great and relevant web content.

What if I am not confident with performing SEO?

A good SEO consultant can aid you in utilizing particular formula’s, which govern how many keywords should be placed in your website content. SEO consultants can also aid you with understanding the rules and regulations pertaining to this marketing method.

What do I do now?

You will need to give your business website an edge within the major search engines. Some website owners make the huge mistake of constructing very extravagant and very expensive websites, with all the little trinkets, only to find that their website performs badly within the major search engines.

A good SEO consultant can aid you with learning effective SEO techniques. I would recommend hiring an SEO consultant which of course will require payment for their services. However, the expertise brought into play by these professionals can save you not only money, in the long run, but precious time and energy

Benefits Of Search Engine Optimization For You

There are two ways to measure the success of business websites.  You can check the page ranking within the internet search engines as well as the search engine result page.  If you are a business owner with a website, you should use search engine optimization to benefit your business from the many tools and resources that the internet has to offer.

The downside to having a website for your business is that you have to ensure that internet traffic can actually find your website.  How will people who use the internet even know your website exists if they can’t find it? If you don’t take the necessary steps to ensure your website is ranked accordingly within the major search engines; they can’t!

Search engine optimization can help your business.  SEO can place your website possibly within the top of the search engine results.  Help from SEO will not only aid with increasing sales for your business but also increase the flow of internet traffic to your website.  SEO can also aid with your products visibility while improving business relations with your current customers.

The first mistake you could make in becoming a business website owner, is to disregard how important the internet search engines can be to your business.  Internet search engines drive the majority of internet traffic.  Internet users click on links found within the search engine result pages.  If you can get a decent ranking with your business site within the major search engines, you will stand a great chance of success, for website.

You must ensure that your website is appealing to your visitors.  There is no need to draw any visitors into your business website, if you do not have relevant content or a website which internet users find appealing.  It does not take a long period of time someone to decide if they like or dislike your website (less than 3 seconds on average).  Your focus must be to grab their attention when they stumble upon or find your website through a search engine.

If you are not an SEO expert then you might want to consider hiring one.  SEO experts can improve the traffic to your commercial website, while aiding your business to be competitive with other online businesses.  SEO’s offer many services which your business could greatly benefit from.  Website reporting, search engine submissions, link popularity building, as well as monthly maintenance are a few of the things, which SEO’s can offer your business website.

SEO’s allow companies no matter what size to advertise their products and services with the power of the internet.  If you are uncomfortable, hiring an individual SEO expert, then a search engine optimization company might be right up your alley.

SEO companies or individual SEO experts can be a great help, with maintaining your website, as well as your page rankings.  If you choose the right company for your business site, you will eventually see the results in not only the growth of the internet traffic to your website; but also profits.

Social Media Marketing and Your Business

Is social media marketing a daunting task to your business? Social media marketing is a great tool, if you know how to do it correctly.  A lot of business coaches recommend that small businesses delve into social media marketing. So the business owner sets up the Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn account.  So now what? The business coach recommends that you send status updates at least once-a-day. They recommend that you should send tweets at least several times a day.

Now, what are you going to send status updates about? What are you going to tweet about? It is recommended that you don’t always send status updates and tweets about specials of your business. It is recommended that you should send status updates and tweets regarding what you are doing in your community, or what special events you are attending in your community. Do you sponsor a little league team? A little league hockey team? A soccer team? These are perfect topics to send status updates about or to tweet about. Let everyone know on your fan page what those events are and how they can help sponsor the same team.

Has there been a new restaurant that just opened up in your community? Well, visit the new restaurant and then give a status update of how your visit was, the food, the service. Let your fans know if you enjoyed the restaurant or not.

If you have children you can also send status updates and tweets about what your children are doing in school.  Mix these status updates and tweets in with some tweets about new things that is going on with your business.  This is a great way for people to get to know you, have a relationship with you, build trust with you and your business. The best way to get business is from people who know, like and trust you those are the people will do business with you.

Now, how are you going to get all of this done? Well, there are virtual assistants in the work force like myself who will schedule tweets and status updates for you. A virtual assistant can also submit your articles to different article submission sites. This way you can do your work while your status updates and tweets get posted.  Don’t be leary about outsourcing these tasks to a virtual assistant, we are just like an administrative assistant, but just do it virtually from our fully functional office.

If you would like to know more please feel free to email me by clicking here.