Tuesday, October 26, 2010

7 Common Website Redesign Mistakes

The following list is from my own personal experience building a website and are things I wish I knew then.  This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it should act as a good primer.

Website Redesign Mistakes to Avoid

1.  Do not use your domain name in your page title.  Instead use keyword rich text separated by |(pipes). Put your most important keywords first.  If you want to include your company name and you have characters remaining, put it at the end.  Here is an example of a solid page title that includes the company name.  Plumbing & Heating | Emergency | South End Boston | XYZ Plumbing Company

2.  Do not make your page titles and your H1 tags drastically different.  Once you’ve created your page title, make sure your URL and your H1 tags align thematically.  You don’t want them to be exactly the same, but make sure you give the search engines all the information they need to confirm what is on that page.

3. Do not make your page title and your meta description a mirror image of one another.  The page title will be seen on your actual web page.  Your page title is essentially for the search engines and your meta description is to draw a searcher in.

The meta description will show up in the search engines organic search results.  Think of this as your 30-second elevator pitch.  Why should the searcher click on your link? Just make sure it is fewer than 150 characters.
Below is an example of the page title and meta description you would see if you typed HubSpot in the search box.
HubSpot Page Title resized 600
4.  Do not include another company’s name in your blog URL.  Blogging platforms are perfectly good services, but you don’t want your hard earned SEO credit to resolve itself with anyone but you.  It can be difficult to migrate large amounts of blog content after the fact.  That’s not to say it can’t be done, but save yourself the hassle.  Make sure you either create a sub-domain or a sub-directory right out of the gate.
Examples of a sub-domain and a sub-directory are blog.trusstechnosofts.com or www.trusstechnosofts.com/blog.  This way you will get all the SEO juice that goes along with creating a killer blog.

5. Do not use Flash.  Flash is great looking for sure, but search engines can’t read flash.  If you have an entire flash site, in the search engines ‘mind,’ you have a blank site.  A blank site equals zero indexed pages. Zero indexed pages equals very little traffic.

We did a review of a site that used flash last week.  There were actually 234 pages, but when run through WebsiteGrader.com , there were zero pages indexed by Google. If you want to use flash in some places, use it sparingly.


6.  Do not skip over the step of implementing a 301 redirect.  If you don’t do this, you are splitting up your SEO credit in two different places.  You want www.yourcompany.com and yourcompany.com to resolve to one domain.  It only takes a matter of minutes to do and it will give you points in the eyes of the search engines.


7.  Do not insert images without telling the search engines what those images are.  Search engines can’t tell what images are and it just looks like blank space to them. As smart as they are, you need to direct them a little bit. There are three ways you can do this.  The first is to use alt text when you upload the photos to describe what the image is.  Type in a few descriptive words to let those crawlers know what the image is all about.  The second way to help the search engines is to use detailed files names.  Lastly, putting a caption around the image will help too.

Hope this list of tips will get you off to a great start with your website.  If there are any lessons learned that I have forgotten, please feel free to add them in the comments.


Saturday, October 23, 2010

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO), a subset of search engine marketing, is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. SEO can target contextual search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of raising the amount of visitors to a Website by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The top a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. SEO helps to make certain that a site is easily reach to a search engine and improves the probability that the site will be found by the search engines.

SEO is the common acronym used by internet professionals for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the art of modifying and promoting websites to help get higher rankings on major search engine listings like Google, Yahoo and MSN for target keyword phrases. Search Engine Optimization is a complex procedure and its requirements are constantly changing and evolving. In this fiercely competitive industry, a company needs to give utmost attention to the basic structure of search engine dynamics in order to achieve and stay in the top slots.

On Page Optimization

On-Page factors are related directly to the content and structure of the website. On page optimization is one of the first step of SEO because every web master use it the first step for his site. It is a way to get neither a good look nor ranking in a search engine.these factor is depend on you because these factors are controlled by you or by coding on your page. Examples of on-page optimization include actual HTML code, meta tags, keyword placement and keyword density.

  •  Keywords Research 
  •  Title Tag Creation 
  •  Meta Tags Optimization 
  •  Heading Tags 
  •  Website Link Structure 
  •  Internal Link Structure 
  •  Content Optimization 
  •  Robots.txt Sitemap 
  •  Google Sitemaps 
  •  Yahoo Sitemaps

Keywords Research

Whenever you will not use the keyword research you will not get the desired ROI if your website does not make it to the search engines. It can be all the more frustrating if you cannot get the desired traffic to your website even after spending money on optimizing your website for the search engines by the so called top SEO companies. In the keyword research when you get listed for the keywords match your business profile able to see the necessary conversions otherwise you will only be attracting stray traffic that is really not interested in your services.

This can depress many website owners because they fail to see any good returns on the investment. What is lacking here is an in-depth research on the apt keywords and keyword phrases that will attract target visitors to your website. What these website owners need is a comprehensive keyword research service that will understand their business model well.


Title Tag Creation

Title Tag Creation is the title and words what you watch when you are searching or watching on search engines. The results when will appear it’s usually in blue bar and at where you would click you want to visit that site from the search results page. Title Tag Creation is also the phrase or groups of charters you look at the top of your browser when you are actually on the site. It is neither on the website itself nor in the body. It is incredibly misused or even ignored by website holder and web developer. It is true that search engine algorithms are constantly changing in how they determine where your pages rank.


Meta Tags Optimization

A few years ago, had meta-tag content as the secret weapon of the top of popular search engines. Although professional search engine market knowledge useful (or not), are, no doubt. Many business leaders, entrepreneurs and other decision makers still cling to misconceptions META tag. Heck, even search engine marketing professionals have strange ideas about optimizing meta tags.

Today, I will dispel some of the mythology and meta tag may be another twist to the optimization of the meta-tag.

Meta-Tags 101
A meta-tag is an HTML tag that provides information on the website provides information to the HTML specifications, following a web page or a content description. A meta tag has no effect on a Web page that is displayed in a browser window.

In Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the most common uses for meta tags keywords, description, and the robot exclusion are attributes.

Here is an example of a description meta-tag:
content = " Description
Once upon a time, fill the meta description tag with keywords often resulted in a memory of leadership in Infoseek ads engines (search?). Today, the strategy works no longer works. little search engine meta tag content relevance.

Why meta tags for greater exposure on search engines? Because the meta descriptions are often used in the SERPs (define).

META tags and positioning
Because some major search engines display meta descriptions of search results is important to have a description meta tag report two objectives:
* Help to get a good ranking in search engines use meta tags to determine relevance
* Build a call to action, which is to encourage people to click on the link to your website
Many so-called SEO (define) practitioners to use the description, a list of keywords in the meta-tag. This not only promoting the strategy of the border on spam is also a bad way visitors click on the link to your website.
Some search operators title tag in HTML content meta description again. This is ridiculous. If the contents of the tag of title is automatically displayed as a link on a SERP, why exact repetition (as described) to encourage people to click on the link to your website? A repetition is difficult to understand, but it would be more effective, the qualifying words (such as adding local rating) and a call to action?
Sometimes I find it quite difficult to change marketing enthusiasts are looking for, and Web developers "Keyword stuffing behavior. However, I always see a radical change of perspective is used as a meta-tag content of other reasons that the range of Yahoo.

Meta Tags and Search Engines site
One reason for my meta view differs from other search marketing "because our society is to build places to live. Create large sites to maintain and search pages online: a search form (or form of the element ) help pages, search results pages, and so on.

Even the monitoring of user analysis and research sites on pages that are not designed. So even if we do not work as an architect of the site search engine, we can analyze the effectiveness of site search pages.
What to do with meta tags? Site with many search engines, the information displayed on search pages comes from two places: the HTML title tag and description meta tag. Meta title and content of labels on a new meaning to the owners of the places in a search site is in the image.

Suddenly, the site owners want their search results pages and correct, and aesthetics. How many characters should be extracted from the description meta tag? Site owners do not want the description of cut in the middle of an important word, of course. As often as to rewrite the descriptions are accurate and (dare I say? Click). No keyword stuffing. No duplication. Only users brief, concise, compelling invited to visit the better.
This goal is different from the goals of Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, Teoma or any other major search engines? Not at all. Search engines want the same thing your audience wants. You want users to do research, view results, go directly to the page with the information they seek.

I look at the bulb, when people will get it. If Google, Yahoo and the other does not soon a prime concern, meta descriptions and keyword lists to improve miraculously.


Off Page Optimization:

  •  Directory Submission 
  •  Search Engine Submission 
  •  Classified Ad Submission 
  •  Article Writing 
  •  Article Posting 
  •  Social Media Optimization 
  •  Social Bookmarking 
  •  Google Local Listing 
  •  Yahoo Local Listing 
  •  Blog Optimization 
  •  Blog Commenting 
  •  Press Releases 
  •  Forum Posting 
  •  RSS Feeds

Directory Submission

If you searching to improve search engine highe rank & traffic, then Directory Submissions is the most effective & safest means to gain quality & quantity one way links.we offer Internet Marketing Services to help you rank higher in the search engines and drive major traffic to your website.It's a proven fact that if you get more links to your Website, your Website will climb in the search engines. Manual Directory submissions is one of the best ways to promote your website and achieving good visibility in search engines.We are the internet marketing specialists with a proven track record for success to carefully add your web site into hundreds and even thousands of important web directories to get you PERMANENT Website Links!

  # All Directories are High Quality & Search Engine Friendly
# Manual Submission Process Ensures Inclusion
# Careful Category Selection
# Modified Text per Directory
# Gradual Submission Process Ensures Natural Link Growth
# Hundreds/Thousands of Permanent Links Pointing to Your Site
It is a time consuming process, but by submitting manually we can make sure that your submissions are approved and appear in the appropriate category.


Link Building Services

Link Building
A growing number of search engines use link popularity in their ranking algorithms. Google uses it as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas. Eventually every major engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining it are essential to your search engine placement. Link popularity can do a lot for your site. Not only will many search engines rank you higher, but links from other sites will also drive more traffic to you. Link popularity is much more than a measure of how many links point to a site.

One-Way Links
The highest ranking sites in the world have mostly inbound links and few, if any, outbound. One-way links are just what it says. You get a link without having to give a link. One-way links count a lot more than swapping links. They appear to be a truer endorsement of your site, an endorsement that says your site must really be good because there was no quid pro quo (i.e. no reciprocation).

Many of you already have the most valuable one-way link on the internet, a listing in the dmoz.org directory (Open Directory Project). The dmoz link provides a highly relevant, on topic, one way link. That is one of the main reasons people pull out their hair over trying to get in there.

Reciprocal Links
In the last couple of years webmasters have worked very hard to develop reciprocal links with other sites. The reasoning has been that although one-way links (inbound only), they are almost impossible to get, but we can do that for you in very cheap prices. In Reciprocal Link Services we will exchange links on your behalf with other theme based websites and do Link exchange with theme based web sites, we do Link Exchange for 4 to 6 targeted categories related to your web site.

Anchor Text Optimization
Anchor text is the text a site uses to link to your site, basically it is text describing your services or products or why the site is linking to you. Anchor text optimization can be deployed throughout your site to enhance the relevance of most of the web pages based on individual page content. we offer suitable instances of hyper linking structures to make use of optimized anchor text .We Use right keywords in Natural Text to Create Anchor Text.                      

What benefits you will get by choosing us for your website maintenance?

• We free you from overhead of keeping your site up-to-date and making necessary changes as business workings evolve.

• We understand that you site is your world so we try our best to get right at first time but development is a refining process so corrections are heartily acknowledged and fixed at our expense.

• We refine your site to make necessary amendments and modifications to keep it in line with standards and functionality.

• Quicker implementation of updates within 2 to 24 hours (apart from holidays and weekends.)

Companies are mainly of the view that by making their staffs do the necessary changes into website they can save money and time but they lose both, a serious mistake which can lead to disastrous consequences. Same job if done by our professional team will be done in much better way because they daily do work of modification of sites and have deep understanding of the procedure.

We seen this thing take place with many of our clients, the staff of clients company perform the upgrading work and soon end up in broken links and navigation structure was also shattered. We keep an eye on your site on an ongoing basis and self modification can lead to unintentional damage to site like files exposed or deleted, broken links and many others.

Your website will be kept up-to-date just email us the information, files or pictures and we will upload it keeping an eye on whether it is causing any unwanted effects on site. We have created and successfully maintained 100’s of websites. It is our passion not only our job.

We have made website maintenance an easy and hassle-free work. You don’t have to start every time from scratch and explain every detail each time to a new person instead we allot a single contact person who is aware of every bit and byte of your project. As we have provided personalized well suited service therefore our clients are satisfied and are with us in long race.

Website maintenance work can be easily and quickly displayed by a private web address to view the modification at your convenience. Once the amendments have been agreed, then we upload the modified files onto your web server. We have website maintenance projects from all over the world with clients from United States, Europe, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, UK and the Caribbean.

We also have quality control process which ensures that the website gets proper attention and accuracy necessary for site’s success. Any emergency changes from our clients are seriously considered and incorporated within a short notice in one business day. Communication lines are always open via e-mail, fax and telephone.

Mostly website maintenance job involves one of the following:



  •  Adding/modifying/removing pages. 
  •  Substituting images or graphics. 
  •  Newsletter & email list maintenance. 
  •  Content renew, latest news or announcements, articles, etc.
  •  Shopping cart content updates. 
  •  Reassigning misplaced or correcting broken links.

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Friday, October 22, 2010

Yahoo, Bing Who?

Normally I don’t pay extra attention to Yahoo and Bing because they take care of themselves automatically. You just do your SEO and they all pick you up sooner than later. But how about the traffic?
To tell you the truth, there’s just a fraction of traffic in those search engines as compared to Google. But that doesn’t mean you should discard it. Any targeted traffic is good traffic and sometimes when the competition is too fierce in Google, it is less in the other two. That means traffic opportunities that otherwise is not available.
My advice is to track Yahoo and Bing and turn up your link building a notch if your rankings are much lower in them than in Google.

Is Content King in SEO?

You are probably familiar with the term “content is king” which basically means that if you create a website with good content, you will get traffic and everything will be just fine. Many SEO experts, however, say that it’s just a myth and backlinks is what you need if you’re to get traffic from search engines.
While I definitely agree that backlinks are what decide where you rank on Google and other SEs, I disagree that content is a myth. If you look at it from purely SEO perspective in terms of ranking by any means necessary and regardless of the benefit you get from it, then yes, quality backlinks will get you there even if your website has one page and that with a sentence worth of content.
On the other hand, how much money do you think that site will make you and how long do you think you will rank high until Google catches up with you? Crappy sites are getting de-indexed regardless of backlinks, it’s just a matter of time. People will not buy anything from you and you will get pennies for ad clicks on such a site. Additionally, you can forget about natural links as people will spend but a split second on your site and will never come back, let alone link to it.
Normally, your website should have decent content if you’re genuinely selling something but this issue usually comes up with lazy affiliate marketers who are trying to pull a cheap one with Adsense or some banners.
So yes, content is king because it’s what sells and makes you money, and keeps you in the position that backlinks get you to.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Online Branding and Click-Through Affiliations

 Online branding consists of how you go about differentiating your company and your product from your competitors in the marketplace. The online part implies that you will use the World Wide Web as a key component in your branding strategy, regardless of whether your company’s primary business is online or whether your online presence is merely another dimension of your branding strategy. The goal of branding, simply put, is not to build customer awareness but to build customer loyalty.

The first thing you need to do in order to build your brand is identify your customers. What is the most likely demographic for you to draw your customers from? Once you know that, you will need to figure out your message. How will you make your online content both relevant and engaging?

It does no good to engage your customers without being relevant. No doubt everyone has seen commercials that succeeded as entertainment, yet five minutes after watching them, you couldn’t remember the product or the company. Being engaging is useless if you’re not relevant. In order to be relevant, you must know who your customers are likely to be, know your unique business style, personality, and the culture and tone of your company, and use this knowledge as the basis for building a connection between your company and your customer. In this way, you can provide your customers with an experience that rewards the time they spend on your site—and rewards you through the effect your content will have in terms of building customer awareness of, and eventually loyalty to, your brand.

Site visitors will want to know how you are going to add value to their professional and / or personal lives. In addition to the content your site provides to the visitor, you will most likely want to affiliate with other companies. You’ve seen it before—a website with a bunch of other company’s logos across the top or the bottom, often with a message admonishing you to be sure to check out these affiliated companies.

These click-throughs can be immensely useful in cementing your brand in people’s minds. By affiliating your company with other services, you create a customer bonding opportunity. The key to this, however, is relevance. If, for example, your company makes taillights for motorcycles, it would be perfectly sensible to link to the site of a company selling motorcycle safety products. It would be an utter non sequitur to link to a site that sells wedding favors, regardless of the company’s popularity. Your goal in forging these alliances is to enhance your brand; whatever you provide in terms of links must complement your brand’s strengths.



Bearing in mind that the key attributes of successful online content are that it is engaging and relevant; bear this in mind when you choose to affiliate with other companies via click-through links to their websites. Remember, your website should not just be engaging, but relevant through and through. This applies to all the content of your website, including affiliated companies you supply click-through links toward.

Brand Development and The Value of Case Studies

Brand development is, quite simply, the evaluation, construction and maintenance of your company’s brand. There are a lot of approaches to brand development. Some are better than others. Your company’s brand is essential in differentiating yourself from your competitors in the marketplace. The goal of brand development is to built customer loyalty; poor brand development will inevitably lead to failure.



The first and most important aspect of brand developing, is realizing that you have a brand, and need to be conscious of your brand and its development. Many companies are surprisingly haphazard about this, and have disjointed or unbalanced marketing plans that fail to focus on defining and strengthening the brand.

Speaking of brands, you’ve heard of Harvard Business School, haven’t you? One of the things that revolutionized Harvard Business School and turned it into the premium brand of business education was its shift from vague, abstract theories to real-world based case studies of actual business and management success stories. This approach can be useful in developing your brand.

Are there brands you trust? Would you, for example, buy an iPhone without bothering to compare it to competing phones? If so, then Apple is worth looking at as a brand development case study. The rise of Apple, like a phoenix from the ashes after the return of Steve Jobs to the fold, is one of the great success stories in branding.
Looking at personal computers objectively, it’s hard to see them as anything but a commodity. Sure, some are better than others, but most people will buy according to which computer offers the best combination of performance, reliability and price. That’s how commodities work, isn’t it? Yet in this vast sea of un-differentiated, commodified personal computers, Apple stands out as a beacon of successful branding.

How did they do it? Firstly, when Jobs took over, he took a hard, honest look at Apple’s position in the market. The company’s zealous pursuit of profit margins, lack of clear brand message, and lack of concern over long-term atrophy of their market share was steering them toward a disaster in the long run. Once a serious competitor to Microsoft’s hegemony, Apple was losing market share at a rate that would suggest a strong long-term prospect of extinction.

Jobs assessed Apple’s market position, strengths and weaknesses. He took a look at who Apple’s loyal customers were, and developed the brand accordingly. Apple’s tremendous success is a story of brand development. He created a brand that would appeal to Apple’s core customers and grow from there, distinguishing his products from those of other companies as much through branding as through genuine differences.

To better understand the real-world impact of brand development, don’t stop here. Think about what products you trust and rely on, and do your own case studies. Do you like Starbuck’s coffee? Then that would be an ideal case study for you to learn from. Choose case studies based on branding that has been effective on you as a customer in your further studies in brand development, and you can’t go wrong. After all, if you want brand development to work for you, you should understand branding that has worked on you.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

How to Use Document Sharing Websites

Great link building really requires utilizing all corners of the search engines and really strapping down your marketing hat to get things done. Document sharing websites are clearly a great way not only acquire nice links but also create a pathway for a steady stream of website traffic coming in your direction.
Here are some items you can place in the document sharing sites to generate new visitors:
Popular Blog Posts: Do you have a blog post or a series of blog posts that have responded very well in the social space and the search engines? Put that blog post in a Word document or a PDF and submit it to the document sharing websites. Hyperlink a few keywords in the document to generate traffic to which ever pages you would like to send them to and build up some nice links. If someone embeds the post into their website you will generate some nice links that way.
Old Presentations: Do you have some old PowerPoint’s sitting around that are being unused? Are they presentations that could be timeless pieces of information with only a few minor tweaks? Edit them and submit them into your document sharing accounts to help generate some nice targeted traffic.

Recycled Articles:
 Do you have an old article or articles that are not time sensitive information that you can re-write and upload into the document sharing sites? Try restructuring some old content and insert it into your document sharing accounts.
How To Guides: People like to download information they can re-use later on down the road and how to guides are perfect for that. If your how to guide is written so that it can really help your audience they will download it and use which could lead to some new business heading your way.

Top Document Sharing Sites:
 New document sharing websites are popping up all of the time, but these are the ones that I use and recommend: Scribd , DocShare,Docstoc and Slideshare. Please feel free to share any other niche or broader useful document sharing sites that you use below.
Document sharing websites are a great way to build your brand and also pull in some really targeted traffic. Always remember to include a few links pointing to your website from your uploaded document and never spam the document sharing sites. Remember to give your document your personal stamp of approval when uploading your document because the last thing you want is your audience to frown upon your approach.

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Google Updates “Updates”

Ever want direct access to what the masses are talking (or tweeting) about? Sure you do, it opens your eyes to other peoples’ reactions to hot topics or new products, always a good thing. Instead of waiting for the talking heads to tell you what is going on according to their “expert opinion,” you could go straight to the masses and get the scoop on what everyone is saying. This all sounds like a great idea, but for a while now it’s been a bit of a pipe dream. Facebook and Twitter both have features similar to this, but  both have cracks in their armor. Twitter is restricted to Twitter updates and results only go back four days, and many call out Facebook on simply not being effective.
Fortunately, there’s another route, and unsurprisingly enough Google is behind the wheel of yet another shiny new program designed to help out the public. Last year Google already had a nifty little option that supplemented regular Google searches. Much like how you can sort out news articles from other search results, they have an option labeled “Updates” that sorts out Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, and blog updates.
However, Google just released a new and improved version with its very own URL athttp://www.google.com/realtime. In this newer version, updates refresh the page constantly giving you up to the second updates on whatever topic you want to search. There are other features such as, at the moment search results can go back  from February of this year, you can localize search results to see what people are saying about a topic in specific areas, view whole conversation threads that deal with the topic of interest, and even set it up so that emails are sent to you when something new is reported.
With yet another direct line of contact, getting public response is getting quicker and easier all the time.  A smart, savvy business owner could use this to their advantage by utilizing instant knowledge of what people are thinking, instead of waiting for polls or reports on what the public wants. You now can do a little quick research on your own and find out exactly what the public wants, just make sure to double check sources before printing anything concrete.
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Why Cross Channel Marketing is Important

Marketers have endless tools to help a company understand their customer base whether it is email lists, Facebook Fan’s, or hard sales data. However, even with all this data, many companies keep these customers and potential customers in separate databases. Just as your company integrates IT with Management, Marketing and Sales may be just as important to integrate your digital channels with one another. Failing to integrate Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and email opt ins may be a holding your business from fully optimizing its marketing mix.
Gib Basset, a marketing specialist at Interactive Mediums writes “Cross channel marketing is a rather breakthrough idea, because it takes this notion a step beyond the mutually exclusive targeting of customers within channels. Cross channel marketing instead seeks to utilize each channel’s strength in unison to create a better outcome more efficiently than could otherwise be possible using multiple, disconnected applications and databases.”  Cross channel marketing software will be able to offer more holistic approach to marketing efforts. Since all of these media silos are essentially being pooled, figuring out which consumers are both email opt in, and or followers on Facebook and Twitter can be very useful when tailoring your social media outreach.
Coordination amongst digital marketing channels is certainly important. The process of integration may not be as simple as it sounds when large email databases reach thousands of people.   Scott Rhodes, group director of operations for Razorfish points out how this could be beneficial, “The rewards of slogging through this process will be significant”. Ultimately the process will allow the business to understand their most engaged customers and that will determine what they offer to them.
Business owners and IT may not immediately see the functional benefit, but “nearly 9 out of 10 senior level marketers think channel marketing coordination is important,” according to eMarketer. Nearly 80% of people used at least 2 digital channels to conduct market research. Its obvious consumers consult multiple sources in their quest to fulfill needs, but marketers are currently tailoring their offerings from independent channel data.
ExactTarget recently released software that allows marketers to see integrated data in an user-friendly dashboard. This will help marketers overcome the logistical complications of email surveys and will help achieve coordinated campaigns. It’s obvious we will see coordination amongst digital and non-digital channels become a useful tool for marketers to customize their value propositions in the future.
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Small Business Stimulus Bill Won’t Help Small Businesses

Earlier this month the Senate passed the much-delayed Small Business Stimulus bill that is expected to become law after receiving approval within the House of Representatives. Supporters of the proposed legislation claim that the combination of a $30 billion fund that the government would invest in independent community banks to encourage lending to small firms as well as a package of business-related tax breaks, will encourage both hiring and business investment.
But, according to the results of a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Credit in Deep Recession, there is little reason to believe that the bill will have even a fraction of the intended impact.
Here are a few reasons why:
  • Small businesses are not in the market for small business loans. Only 8% of small business owners responded that access to credit was a major concern.
  • Of those business owners who are seeking loans or lines of credit, the majority are using the funds to help ease their cash flow- a fact that is not surprising given that sluggish or declining sales is the number one concern among 51% of small business owners. In short, hiring and business investment is not likely to change as a result of the new legislation.
  • According to the survey, the vast majority of small businesses choose to bank with either the major commercial retail banks (46 %) or regional banks (18%).  The problem is that the new stimulus bill is specifically targeting small, independent banks to get money out into “Main Street.” According to the survey, only about a third of small businesses use a local bank as their primary financial institution.
  • The underlying theme throughout the NFIB’s survey was the sense of mistrust and uncertainty small business owners are harboring towards the economy and the new health and financial reforms that are set to phase in over the next few years. The proposed tax breaks are unlikely to have much impact on hiring or investment while this economic precariousness persists.
In short, it is questionable whether the new stimulus package will be able to breathe any life into our ailing economy.
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How To Monitor Your SEO Results

Monitoring the results of your search engine optimization campaign might not be as difficult as you think. Chances are if you have done your search engine optimization correctly it is working and its success depends on how much. Everyone has a different definition of success when it comes to SEO so make sure you are dealing with apples to apples when trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Search engine marketing is a slow process that takes time so make sure you understand that results will take time as well.

Analytics: If you don’t have any analytics tracking on your website that should be the very first thing you do. We recommend Google analytics because it is free and very powerful. You can track the progress of your SEO campaign by analyzing new daily traffic numbers directly from your search marketing campaign.
Phone Calls: Has the phone started ringing a bit more at your business? If you see an uptick in phone calls coming into your business chances are your company is starting to receive more traffic which is most likely a direct result of your search engine optimization efforts you might have recently executed.
Leads: Is your website really starting to produce more leads through your lead form? If you have more leads funneling through your corporate site chances are your search engine optimization and marketing efforts are really starting to take shape. If you are looking to start search engine optimization for your website only with anticipation of seeing ROI immediately you won’t. Search engine marketing is a long term investment that takes time to see especially if you are in a slightly competitive market.
Movement: My advice is to not get greedy. If you have a website that has been sitting around far back in the search results for a very long time and you all of a sudden see movement from your search marketing efforts be happy. Every space and niche grows increasingly difficult to obtain rankings in each and every day so if you are starting to see good movement be happy about that. Don’t be angry because you are not on page one yet.
Search Results: Are the search results for your business name starting to fill up nicely? You do realize that many people search online for branded keywords before they decide to make a purchase with someone so it is important to have the search results for your business name filled up at least a few pages out if you can.
Website Activity: Has your analytics information received a jolt of power after starting your search engine marketing and SEO campaign? If your SEO is starting to work you are going to see some activity in your analytics software.
SEO is a long term process where every month you have certain elements that compound on top of each other which eventually drive power to a certain destination point which is usually a website. Everyone has different idea of what SEO success means to them or their business. Some understand that it is a long term growing process and others don’t seem to get it at all. The good thing is that your efforts will always stay visible in search results of you continue to push them out the right way.

Steps to Build Your SEO

Search engine optimization is one of those things that require certain steps in a specific order to really work well. I often times see many people putting the buggy before the horse really just wasting time, energy and money by not putting the puzzle together in the right sequence.

The following are a few SEO steps to consider. I mention FEW because there are so many involved but these are a few to think of:
1st SEO Step: Everything starts with your website. Your website is the foundation for everything else you do online so you want to make sure it is running at 100% efficiency. This means having a well optimized website with unique meta info and optimized well written content. You also want to make sure that your conversion aspects are all in place and your user experience is tip top of you want to really maximize your online marketing efforts.
2nd SEO Step: Once your website is fully optimized with all conversion aspects in place now it is time to put together a link building strategy. You want to try and do it in a way where you can visualize it at first. Put together a 12 month outline of what you plan on doing every month to market your business so you can visually see it.
3rd SEO Step: Once your website is complete and you have started the process of building links to your website it is now time to dive into the social space and start speaking with people online. Don’t worry about stirring the waters too much when you first arrive. Set up your Facebook fan page and make it visible along with a Twitter account and start using them. Each platform and business is going to have a different approach so just get in there and have fun with it. All it takes is just becoming visible sometimes for your audience to find you and initiate conversation.
4th SEO Step: Once you have spent some time establishing yourself online it could be time to think of some viral marketing efforts. When done correctly they could really help you generate some very targeted one way links to your website.
This is a general outline of what we think is a nice approach to building up your SEO efforts. If you want to contribute to this list, please feel free to leave a comment.
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Friday, October 1, 2010

Website Design — Online Business Promotion is Essential for Success

Having an online business and having a successful online business are two different things. While an online business is almost always a clean slate, if you don’t promote your business, there is very little chance for profiting. This is simple and basic business sense, but when it comes to finding the most accurate methods of promotion you might end up not quite sure which direction you should go.

There are a few basics for online business promotion that you should make sure become your priority. You want the search engines to find you, and there are only so many ways that you can do this. Using keyword indexing to make sure that the web crawlers can find you is a simple and basic step. If your sitemap is well indexed, your search engine results are often much better. Adding in articles through article submission site and a well thought out keyword density indexed right on your website all play into your search engine ranking.

Beyond this, there are other aspects of promotion that you should consider. Using social network sites to promote your website is easy, and it can even be fun. Many people understand the social value but often don’t see the potential for their business. You don’t have to know someone personally to add them as a friend. Your daily comments and even going as far as carrying all of your blogs through all of the social networking sites help people become more familiar with you.

This familiarity helps you build trust, which can turn into business for your site. After all, most of us will make a purchase from someone we trust well before we will make a purchase from someone we don’t know at all. Sometimes that trust is nothing more than branding. Once you understand this element, Twitter, Facebook, and connected blogs start to make much more business sense.

Website Development — The Recession Hits Hard but Online Businesses Soar

Internet ordering is still climbing despite the recession. With more and more consumers trying to save every penny possible, good deals on must have items and shipping can be more cost effective. The cost of fuel, coupled with the need to spend more time working or at second jobs, has created a very nice internet retail industry that is highly beneficial to just about everyone.

While it is true that brick and mortar stores are suffering many of these same stores are making up for lost profits through internet sales. The internet makes it easy to shop around. Just a few clicks of the mouse and you can compare prices from numerous other websites. When comparison shopping in brick and mortar stores, consumers often have travel at least 15 to 20 minutes in between stores which chews through fuel and time.

Internet markets are managing to hang onto profits and even soar into a whole new realm of profitability by keeping overhead costs down and offering reasonable shipping deals. This makes it quite likely that those who go about internet marketing with some consideration to the economy have the potential to prosper despite the recent down turns.

Economic strife does not need to cut into the profits of internet businesses. When consumers stop spending on extras they tend to stop spending on meals out, ice cream treats, and trips to the amusement park. They are just as likely to buy the necessities. Clothes, school supplies, electronics, and household products are not considered to be expendable in most households.

Marketing in tight times is simply easier on the internet. You have a larger market to draw from, and you end up with a demographic that is seeking you out. If you offer good prices for your products or services, and can keep your shipping fees under control, you might be completely surprised by how well you can fare the recession.

Custom Website Design – What Makes a Profitable Domain?

Choosing a domain name can determine your website’s future profitability. There are certain aspects of any domain that can help make it more profitable than you might expect. No matter what you sell on your website (product, service, or membership) you can count on selling a straightforward domain for much more than one that is not straightforward.
When you choose your domain name, go for simple to remember but relevant words. If your website sells snacks, including snack in the domain name makes it more potentially profitable. Using the word snack instead of the word food is more direct and highly recommended.

Moreover, keeping your domain name short and sweet is also advantageous. The rule of thumb is the fewer the words, the better. Three words or less is often much more easy for the general public to remember and is considered to be especially prone to being more profitable. For instance, Snacks.com it easier to remember than abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com. This is why those domains that can be crafted out of less than three words are much more concise and profitable.

Using the more common word is also another general rule of creating a solid domain name. There are some very common words that we use to describe items and then there are some not so common words. For instance, we use the word cars in place of auto in the United States. Automobile is practically unheard of in our common everyday language. Thus, using the word car in your domain name is more profitable than using the word auto, but auto is still a more profitable choice than automobile.

These very simple principles are the basics to making a domain name more profitable. It also makes it much more likely to be found via search engine entries. If a consumer can remember the basic gist of your domain name without remembering the specifics (and it is in common terms) your website is much more likely to show up when they go and search for it. Profitable and easy to locate are the tickets to creating a solid domain.