Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Articles - Who Actually Benefits?

Increase Visibility, a leader in the field of search engine optimization and marketing has reviewed a large number of search engine optimization advice articles and has discovered the authors usually receive more benefits than the readers. The typical SEO/SEM article for a given topic provides the same information found in numerous other articles. Many of the authors are seeking to take advantage of link building opportunities for their website and are not offering something of value to the reader.

Laguna Niguel, CA (PRWEB) April 25, 2009 -- Increase Visibility, an award winning search engine optimization and marketing company has reviewed a large number of internet based search engine optimization articles and has discovered that the writers of the articles often benefit more than the readers. A majority of the SEO/SEM articles basically offer the same information and new insights are not provided to the reader. Many of the authors are trying to benefit from the links they placed in their articles that point to their website. This is fine, as long as they offer something of value to the reader.

Some SEO experts actually do provide useful information that cannot be found all over the Internet and they should be commended. However, the majority of the articles simply provide the fundamentals of the topic being examined whether its link building, keyword density, meta tags, optimized web pages, search engine rankings, directories etc. Unfortunately, internet business owners often attempt to build their website and bring in traffic based on the information presented in basic SEO articles. This strategy often leads to failure or mediocre results.

By cranking out numerous link containing SEO articles and placing them at popular information websites, authors are typically attempting to increase their link count for search engine ranking purposes and thus content is not the main priority. Ordinary articles are also prevalent since a lot of the writers simply are not experts on the subject. In addition, many search engine optimization experts are simply not going to offer the public their unique, highly successful analytical strategies. They're concerned about loosing their competitive advantages and diluting the power of their tactics.

Professionals, with proven results, spend much of their time performing tasks such as multivariate testing, link building studies, search engine page ranking analysis, performance analysis and evaluating their client's competition. Effective search engine optimization, particularity for highly competitive keywords, usually consists of over sixty percent research and includes a large amount of time spent analyzing data.

In order for website owners to be successful, it's simply not prudent to base SEO strategies on a collection of articles regarding keywords, meta tags, optimized deep web pages etc. By utilizing insightful tactics that go beyond the basic tips found in Internet based search engine optimization articles website owners will be able to increase their search engine placement.

Currently, Increase Visibility is offering a free website analysis. Upon completion of a simple website analysis form, website owners will receive at no obligation, a thorough website evaluation. For internet business owners not satisfied with their current search engine ranking, the report provides an insight into what the search engines see when evaluating their website.

Increase Visibility has been ranked #1 or #2 for SEO firms from August 2008 - April of 2009 by the prestigious TopSEOs.com. The rankings are based primarily on client satisfaction and return on investment. The firm has also been honored by being placed in the top 3 in PromotionWorld's Readers' Choice Awards for the best Search Engine Marketing (SEM) companies.

Increase Visibility is a leader in the search engine marketing services industry. The firm provides organic search engine optimization, pay per click management, reputation management, press releases and social media optimization services. Increase Visibility offers search engine marketing plans to fit small, medium and large marketing budgets. Visit the Increase Visibility blog for search engine optimization tips and internet marketing information.

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A Few Ideas On Internet Marketing

Promoting your small business on the internet is crucial in today’s world.. The entrepreneur who ignores this gold mine of potential opportunity does so at his or her own peril. There is too much to be gained through marketing on the internet, and little to be lost. If you company is internet based to begin with, this is a no-brainer, of course. But things are rapidly changing on the Web, and those marketing strategies that worked a few years ago may not work as well today. Here are a few things you can do to expose your business to potential new customers that work today, but may not in a few years.

SEO. Search engine optimization. For the internet entrepreneur who wants their website to be a success, this is the first step toward ensuring that success. Unless you have unlimited funds with which to advertise your product, this is a step you cannot afford to skip. Optimizing your website is the equivalent of building your brick-and-mortar store in a major shopping district as opposed to halfway down a dirt road with an old rusty sign pointing in the other direction. Its importance cannot be overstated. There are many facets to SEO, and not enough room in this article to get into them. Fortunately, few topics have been as exhaustively written about. Do a Google search of your own, and you will find plenty to read.

Pay Per Click. This is another fine way to get your internet business off and running. This service is offered by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, to name a few. With Google AdWords, you’re going to have the most potential traffic, but you may also have the most competition for the best keywords. What does this mean? Well, AdWords (and the others) work by letting you create an advertisement (usually a headline and a couple of sentences). You then must choose the keywords that will activate your ad. Then you place a bid on how much you’re willing to pay per click of your ad, depending on each keyword. It all sounds a lot more confusing than it is. The benefit of this type of advertising (as opposed to, say, banner advertising), is you only pay when you have been ensured of a visitor. Of course, what you do with that visitor is up to you and your own marketing skills.

Articles and inbound links. Next to SEO, this is the most powerful section of strategy for the up and coming internet business owner. In order to move up in the search engine rankings, you must have incoming links (backlinks, as they’re called in the SEO world). When the deep web search engines see a website with a lot of natural inbound links, they begin to see the website as an authority on whatever subject the site is about. Thus, the site’s ranking begins to improve. There are many ways to go about getting backlinks, but one of the best ways is through writing articles. There are article “farms” on the internet, which host your articles for free and then sell them or give them away to other website owners, who are hungry for content. This benefits you because at the end of the article you will have included your name and a link to your website. Every time someone grabs your article to put on their website, you get another important link.

There are a million successful strategies for marketing on the internet, but these are the three building blocks. Go and research them, and your business will be the better for it.

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Tanking Internet Marketing Efforts the Result of Inhouse Inexperience & Scope Creep; Creative Agency Ignites Solution with Conversion-Focused eCampaig

A Western New York agency has stepped up to the plate to deliver a much needed service in these tight times. The combination and frequency in which they deliver their eCampaigns is what truly makes their clients shine and excel online. Blazing a trail into the fast paced internet world is no easy task. Most businesses lack the manpower, knowhow, and resources to benefit from it - so they're calling IC9design.

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) April 26, 2009 -- Combining a variety of web deployed strategies to increase business exposure and showcase businesses as experts in their fields is what sets IC9design apart from other internet marketing agencies. Search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) management, affiliate marketing, link building, social media optimization (SMO), targeted press release writing and distribution, white papers, eNewsletters, and microsites are selected and combined to deploy a conversion-based eCampaign. Each delivery method is enforced by the next, providing funnels that focus on converting standard web traffic to solid leads.

So how does this type of eCampaign work? We asked owner and creative director of IC9design, Ian Caspersson, for an explanation and here's what he said...

"The internet moves at a pace we can't even fathom. If a mother of two is looking for a pilates class do you think they pull out the phone book? Yeah, we know they don't. They're going to search for it online or call or text a friend. And, if they have their Blackberry, or iPhone, they won't hesitate to find it. And guess what, if you own a gym that offers pilates classes, you better be on their list of search results or you lose.

"Businesses are beginning to truly understand the power of the internet and they now want their website to do something more than just sit out in cyberspace. So we ask "What do you want your site to do?" Their answer is the catalyst that allows us to turn their website into a marketing machine. Our focus is on conversions, we must get visitors to take an action.

"So, using our earlier example, we would pull together an integrated eCampaign that includes health food stores, women's clubs, doctors, community sporting events, and mothers. Then we write and deliver press releases each month to these avenues and to local blogs, newspapers, bulletins, and social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.). Each delivery would tie back to a deep web search optimized microsite. The focus of the microsite is on the pilates classes and provides health, nutrition, and physical fitness information. A link to sign up for one free class converts a visitor to a solid lead. A link to sign up for your monthly eNewsletter is perfect for informing prospects and current clients about special offers, news, and events.

"So you have a complete solution that informs, converts, and provides constant contact with your clients. The perfect internet marketing solution just came full circle. Results improve over time. Businesses gain a handful of new clients in the first couple of months, but as we improve and fine tune each eCampaign, they start seeing consistent growth, ROI, and positive recognition in their community and industry."

If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Ian Caspersson, please call Ian directly at 585-662-8889 or visit www.ic9design.com.

About IC9design:
IC9design is driven by its founder, Ian Caspersson. Mr. Caspersson holds a number of design awards, degrees, and certifications. He has channeled his creativity into the evolution of IC9design as a powerhouse of design-based solutions for any print, emedia, marketing, advertising, or web project that comes across our desks.

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Aggressive Internet Marketing Can Happen

Aggressive internet marketing means full-blown marketing and promotions that exceed any business persons expectations. A business needs fierce internet marketing. No more, no less. But to make it low cost? Is that even possible? How can something so aggressive be affordable?

Luckily, you can avail of inexpensive aggressive internet marketing if you just look hard and good enough. Be keen and alert and know what’s going on in the online industry. The following questions will help you discern if your chosen internet site to do the marketing fits the bill.

1. Does the company offer free website design?

Even if you know your HTML, it is still more advisable if a professional team does it for you. Some internet marketing sites offer free web design to make sure that your site’s needs are met. It’s a must that marketing is integrated to the web design. If the company requires you to pay more than fifty bucks for the web design, then so much for straight-forward internet marketing! Look somewhere else!

2. How many keywords does your web site cater to?

Having too many keywords or key phrases to focus on will make your page ranking drop. Creating smaller web pages with content that emphasizes only a few keywords will serve Internet marketing endeavor better.

3. How search engine-compatible is your website?

Internet marketing is coined “aggressive” only if it is a hundred percent search engine-compatible. There are about 10 major search engines online and your site has to work accordingly with them. Find out if your internet marketing site is expert on search engine optimization.

4. Do you know your competitors?

Affordable aggressive internet marketing pushes your business forward by taking note of your competitors. Analysis and evaluation of the competition is mandatory to figure out your shortcomings and advantages over them. If this feature is excluded from your internet marketing plan, you’re getting a mediocre deal.

5. How efficient is the monthly marketing plan?

Usually, you’re asked to pay a monthly fee for the marketing plan. For a marketing plan to be efficient, it must zero in on the following things: webpage development, link exchanges, deep web content, updates and technical support. Of course, also included are the standard SEO, competition analysis and keyword density.

If you’ve procured the right answers for the previous questions, then you can finally say: “Now that’s low cost aggressive internet marketing.”

By: Terry Detty

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

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SEO optimization is a strategy in which a website is designed to obtain favorable search engine rankings from popular search engines.. This may be achieved in a variety of different ways and optimal SEO strategies combine a variety of different strategies to complete one well orchestrated SEO campaign.

There are several elements to consider when attempting optimizing your website for search engines. This may include keyword density, prominence, META tags, titles and inbound links.

Keyword density is one of the most common SEO strategies and essentially involves using relevant keywords often in the content of a website to demonstrate the relevance of these keywords to the website. This is important because search engines are likely to reward websites with optimal keyword densities with favorable search engine rankings in an effort to provide Internet users with the most relevant websites for particular search terms.

The prominence of keywords should also be considered. This includes how close the keywords are placed to the beginning of the website. The common mistake with this strategy is to believe the first opportunity to incorporate keywords is in the first line of visible text on the webpage. This is not true because search engines look at the code of a website as opposed to the visible content on the website.

This means there are multiple opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords long before the actual visible content on the website. This might include the code for the title as well as the META tags. Business owners who realize the potential for incorporating keyword into the code gain an advantage over competitors who only incorporate keywords into the content on their website.

Another area of concern which is very important for those who are interested in SEO is inbound links. Inbound links are essentially links which reside on other websites and direct traffic to your website. These links are considered important because many search engines place a value on inbound links because they are essentially an example of one website recommending another website.

However, when obtaining inbound links it is important to do so from other websites which rank well with search engines because many search engines consider the rank of the original website when determining the value of the inbound link.

Now that we have briefly explained some of the main concepts of SEO, we will illustrate why it is important to optimize your website in the first place.

SEO is so important because most Internet users highly value the results of search engines and are likely to only visit to ranking websites when they search for a particular keyword in deep web.
Internet users trust search engines to serve the most relevant content first and are therefore not likely to visit websites which do not fall on the first or second page of search results.

This means websites which rank well essentially are receiving a great deal of free advertising from search engines which places these websites in a key position. website owners who do not invest time into optimizing their websites miss out on a great deal of potential web traffic.

Sheila Berg of Turbo Marketing is a savvy internet marketer who specializes in the mastery of pay per click and list building tactics. Grab a copy of her weekly edition of ‘Turbo Marketing Profit Booster’ Newsletter here http://www.turbotakeoff.com/newsletter
You can also connect with her at http://www.SheilaBerg.com

Article Source: ArticleRich.com

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Athletic Footwear Retailer eFootwear Launches Upgraded Web Site

Pennsylvania-based athletic footwear retailer unveils an upgraded eCommerce solution from Maryland web designers Groove Commerce

Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) April 17, 2009 -- eFootwear, a Pennsylvania-based athletic footwear retailer, launched their newly redesigned and restructured website last month. The site, http://www.efootwear.com, was built in response to eFootwear's growing product inventory and customer base's needs.

The site was designed and developed with the help of the Baltimore web design company, Groove Commerce. eFootwear and Groove Commerce developed a site plan that aims at taking the company's web site to that next level, to complement eFootwear's two established brick and mortar storefronts. With Groove Commerce designing a professional and custom online storefront, eFootwear expects to increase its presence on the web, and ultimately become a trusted source for athletic footwear on the web.

As part of their new eCommerce website design, eFootwear moved from the Monster Commerce platform to Groove Commerce's customized ASPDotnetStoreFront eCommerce platform. One of the main features of the redesigned efootwear.com is the integration of Nextopia's eCommerce site search. The custom search is used as the main navigation, allowing customers to shop the site with ease, narrowing their search and shopping by subcategories.

eFootwear's online store was established in 1997, and has been growing steadily since its inception, thanks to its loyal customer base. The move from Monster Commerce to Groove Commerce's custom ASPDotnetStoreFront will allow the company to focus on selling shoes online, instead of working around limitations in its previous website incarnation.

eFootwear can be found at http://www.efootwear.com, as well as two physical storefronts in Brookhaven and Prospect Park, Pennsylvania. Both the website and brick and mortar stores feature some of the best selection and prices on the net, with superior customer service, and excellent specials. eFootwear encourages everyone to visit the website and browse the selection, and to call their offices at (888)-333-3668.

Groove Commerce is a Baltimore web design company building sites for both eCommerce stores and service oriented businesses. In addition, Groove Commerce serves its customers by offering ongoing web marketing to help grow traffic and sales in the form of search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, and social media marketing. Groove Commerce can be found on the deep web at Maryland web design company to contact Groove for a free quote.

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Rosemont Media Attending American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry AACD Conference in Hawaii

Rosemont Media, LLC, a dental website design firm based in San Diego, California, will be joining top medical professionals from around the globe who are gathering to showcase the latest advances in cosmetic dentistry. The American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry’s annual Scientific Session held in Honolulu, Hawaii is the largest of its kind in the world.

(Vocus/PRWEB ) April 18, 2009 -- The world’s largest association of top professionals in the field of cosmetic dentistry is getting set to hold its yearly trade show, exhibiting the latest technological advances in the industry. From April 28th through April 30th, exhibition spaces will be open for the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry at the Hawaiian Convention Center in Honolulu. The AACD is comprised of more than 7,000 members from across the globe, holding an annual conference for the past 25 years. The team from Rosemont Media, a company specializing in dental website design and search engine marketing, will be occupying booth number 537 at this year’s conference, working with thousands of dentists, researchers, educators, students, and corporations. Keith Humes, Rosemont Media’s Chief Executive Officer, has attended eleven AACD trade show’s in the past, and he says the caliber of professionalism he sees every year is one of the reasons he keeps coming back. “The members of AACD are the most innovative cosmetic dentists in the world, setting the bar for cosmetic dentistry. Our focus is to work with the best of the best.”

Rosemont Media is a Medical & Dental Website Design and Marketing firm in San Diego, California. The organization specializes in providing expert consulting and web design for dentistry professionals, utilizing top designers and writers to craft effective marketing strategies in the ever-evolving world of the internet. Humes says he hopes to impress upon members of the AACD the uniqueness of Rosemont and what it has to offer. “Because we work under terms of exclusivity, we are ultimately looking to find partners to form a long-term business relationship and establish exclusivity in their particular market.” Humes says exclusivity and expertise in creating customized, all-encompassing internet strategies are two of Rosemont Media’s hallmarks, using the most up-to-date internet tools such as web video, flash technology, personalized blogs, and deep web search engine optimization to provide a sleek and user-friendly design while at the same time giving his clients a powerful competitive advantage. “Combining SEO and overall search engine marketing consulting, and our ethical, unbiased approach make us unique. We don’t provide a directory service or dentist locator service, which allows us to be objective in our evaluations for all media buying opportunities.”

Humes says attending the AACD conference for eleven years has given him a great deal of education and confidence in the seemingly limitless possibilities of cosmetic dentistry, particularly because of the level of expertise and skill represented by AACD professionals from so many areas around the world. “This is a class act organization, which is extremely helpful. Certainly some of the best meetings I’ve attended over the years because of the quality of its members and dedication to excellence by the AACD.” A view that’s likely to bring Rosemont Media back to the annual AACD conference for many years to come.

For more information on Rosemont Media and the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry’s annual Scientific Session being held in Honolulu, please check out our Dental Search Engine Marketing blog, located at 1010 Turquoise Street, Suite 201, San Diego, CA 92109 - (800) 491-8623. www.rosemontmedia.com

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GetMeOnTop Earns the Title of #1 SEO Marketing Firm in Midtown Manhattan

(April 18, 2009) GetMeOnTop is a business that was solidly established 17 years ago and is a company that continues to thrive as a leading SEO marketing firm. In the early years, GetMeOnTop started off as a VAR-Solution Provider, but has since grown to offer a plethora of superlative Internet Marketing Services including but not limited to web development and design, keyword services, ethical SEO services, Internet marketing, and site analysis/comparisons. Get Me On Top also supplies to small, medium, and large companies services related to the analysis of business evolution, click to call integration, monthly reports, business consultation services, lead tracking, phone marketing services; broadcast, radio, and print integration services, website usability testing, and more.

How did GetMeOnTop become a leading provider of web development services, web design, deep web search engine optimization copyrighting services, keyword enrichment services, business development and consulting, organic search engine optimization services, and link building/campaigning services? The success of GetMeOnTop is due, in great part, to Mr. David S. Josephson, the present CEO. Josephson has a number of strong organizational affiliations and an incredible amount of experience in the IT industry. Josephson, in turn, combines his vast experience with his strong affiliations and his understanding of business marketing needs to offer the best IT management and marketing services imaginable.

At present, in addition to his work with Get Me On Top, Josephson is the Executive President of Remote-Storage.net, and the Founder and Executive Officer of FrugalFlorist.com and FlipProperty.org, the CEO and President of GVP.DSJ Inc, CEO and President of TheNewsGrabber, and he has been a member of the ChannelLine Advisory Council since 2005.

Josephson has vast experience with launching and collaborating with many successful companies in the past including BestDeal.com, The Online MacinStuff Times, BehindTheBuy.com, B2BExcite.com and others. Most recently Mr. Josephson has been selected as part of an elite group of VAR’s to Lobby Congressional Representativesrks in Washington DC on May 12, 2009. The select group will discuss issues such as tax breaks for small business purchase of IT, making healthcare more affordable for VARs, the importance of Green IT, and other areas that affect IT industry Solution Providers bottom line.

Josephson gained his education at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He then attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and earned a B.S in business. This part of his education was followed up with his attendance at the University of Delaware where he earned the title of Dealer Designate. Presently, Josephson has aligned himself with several prominent and esteemed organizations including the ChannelLine Advisory Council as well as the Council Trusted Business Advisor Steering Committee. Josephson also remains an active contributor to the Channel Advisor, ConnectIT Daily News, the Linkedin Trusted Business Advisor Group, the Trusted Business Advisor Blog, and the Trusted Business Advisor.

GetMeOnTop has supplied its superlative services to a number of different businesses and organizations which are a testament to the outstanding web design, development, and SEO marketing techniques used by the firm. The company’s portfolio currently consists of businesses

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Twazzup: New All-In-One Twitter Search Engine

While the major search engines continue to sit in the proverbial driveway, real-time search is in high gear and speeding along without a speed bump in site. And with Twitter offering what’s becoming the default real-time web experience (more so than Facebook or FriendFeed, in my opinion), it’s no wonder that Twitter search engines are starting to pop up on a regular basis.

Earlier this month I profiled the new OneRiot Twitter search engine, and now via Louis Gray, we learn about Twazzup, another new entry into the Twitter search race. Where OneRiot is focused on sorting through the Twitter noise and helping users find just the links and web content that people are talking about, Twazzup takes everything Twitter has to offer — noise and all — and lets users find what interests them most.

Here’s a look at the Twazzup interface (you can click to see the larger version on Flickr) after a search this morning for “U2″:

A stream of tweets shows up in the main content block on the left. These are shown in real time, although it appears that Twitter is running slow this morning — both Twazzup and Twitter’s own search engine are showing tweets about 15-20 minutes delayed as I write this. Twazzup shows recommended deep web search refinements in small, gray boxes above the real time stream; a series of U2 concert tickets went on sale today, so some of the refinements include “vegas,” “houston,” “tickets,” and “muse” (one of the opening acts).

Twazzup’s unique content is to the right:

• Popular Tweets - this needs work; the example in the screenshot is from a coupon service and has nothing to do with U2. It’s there because ‘u2′ appears in the shortened URL. (Seems like an invitation for spamming via custom short URLs.)
• Top Trendmakers - accounts whose tweets are driving conversation
• Related Photos - related photos from Twitpic, updated in real time
• Most Popular Links - links most often included in tweets related to the keyword

Aside from the “Popular Tweets” issue I mentioned above, Twazzup provides a good Twitter search experience — and one that’s different enough from others to make it a valuable addition to the real-time search engine field.

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Twitter Tips and Etiquette

Coverage of the Twitter Tips & Etiquette session by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and Twi Tip at SMX Sydney 2009.

Darren starts by stating that 6 million tweets a day are going out on Twitter at the moment. He began as a skeptic towards Twitter and is now an addict [sounds familiar!].

Benefits of Twitter for Darren:

• Networking and collaboration
• Research - Darren received 50 responses in 2 mins and 100 responses in 10 minutes to a research question. Therefore he says the potential to capture data from an audience is incredible. He gave an example of a poll he ran on Twtpoll.com “Have you ever tweeted from the toilet?” 59% of respondents hadn’t but scarily 41% said they had!
• Branding
• Driving traffic - Twitter is the #3 referrer to Darren’s blogs
• Water cooler
• Humanizer
• Deepens relationships
• SEO

The Twitter Opportunity:

• Twitter is fastest growing community site on deep web
• Twitter has had 1,382% growth in the 12 months to Feb 09
• The largest user group on Twitter is 35-49 year olds

Twitter has tweaked their title tags in past week or so. News agencies are talking about Twitter all the time these days.

Twitter Usage by Top 10 Countries:

United States = 47.9%
Germany = 9.2%
United Kingdom = 6.8%
India = 5.9%
China = 2.9%
Australia = 2.9%
Canada = 2.7%
South Africa = 2.0%
Japan = 1.6%
Netherlands = 1.2%

Twitter is the 85th most popular site in Australia at the moment but the trend is increasing.

Business are using Twitter too. They’re letting employees tweet or even making them do so. There are pros and cons to this. The pros are that it makes the business seem more personal and more approachable. The cons include the risk of fallout if the employee managing the Twitter account leaves.

Businesses are also using Twitter as an Internal communications tool, for promoting internal news, mentoring, project status updates, social interactions etc. Similar tools for this include Yammer and Present.ly

We’re seeing more businesses use Twitter as a monitoring reputation management tool as well - watching keywords, tracking brands, reputation management and damage control. Twitter usage by businesses deepens and reinforce relationships and it’s also an opportunity for sales and marketing. Savvy businesses are using Twitter alerts to track mentions of their brands etc. Now some businesses are monitoring their target keywords to see who’s talking about them and then sending them suggestions and tweets that are targeted directly to their interests etc.

Tips for businesses on Twitter (via @pistachio):

• use manners
• dress nicely
• be a good conversationalist

Darren recommends creating a purpose-built Twitter landing page that introduces you and your brand to Twitter followers. Don’t link to your home page, he says.

Before You Start on Twitter:

• Reserve your Twitter accounts NOW
• Learn the culture and language
• Find a tour guide who speaks “twitterese”
• Identify key players
• Listen/ monitor
• Identify objectives

Smart companies have multiple channels on Twitter, says Darren e.g. Dell has 34 Twitter accounts

Tips for Finding Followers:

• Provide value, solve problems, fill needs
• Leverage other profiles and networks
• Ask questions
• Be conversational
• Be active (especially at peak times)
• Offer incentives

Darren uses some automated Twitter tools to auto-tweet while he’s asleep to reach his US audience, but is careful how he uses these. As an example of incentive offering on Twitter, Sitepoint offered a free ebook to anyone who followed them on Twitter and raised 20,000 followers in a short period.

Other Tips:

• Use direct messaging where possible (can damage your brand otherwise)
• Re-frame questions for your followers instead of the one word answer - adds value to your followers, brings everyone into the conversation
• Be playful
• Work with rhythms of your followers
• Be careful of automated tweets because some people unfollow those who use automated “thanks for following” type messages
• Be a thought leader
• Leave room in your tweets for ReTweeting by others (room to add your @handle and “RT”)

Recommended Twitter Tools:

• TweetDeck (Twitter platform)
• CoTweet - (Twitter platform)
• Bit.ly (URL shortener)
• Monitter (monitoring service)
• Twends (monitoring service)
• Twitter Search (Twitter’s internal search service)
• Twitter Hawk (monitoring service)

Good Use of Twitter by Aussie Businesses:

- BigPond

- Commonwealth Bank

- Dominos Pizza

- EMI

- Fairfax Digital

- Jetstar

- RioTinto

- VirginBlue

- Vodafone

Darren says that Twitter are open to being approached if someone is squatting your brandname as a Twitter account. See Darren’s Twitter blog Twi Tip for more Twitter tips.

[Added by me: If you have an issue with spam on Twitter, direct message @spam with the name of the account doing the spamming. If you have an issue with impersonation, TOS violations, TM violations, etc. on Twitter, file a ticket rather than messaging @spam. You can file a ticket by visiting help.twitter.com and clicking on "submit a request".]

* Photo courtesy of Andrew Ballard of ReBusiness

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Free Internet Marketing Methods That is Blogging

Many teenagers have resorted to blogging as an outlet for their emotions, a little online nook where they can blurt out whatever just bugs them or whatever makes them feel elated.

It's been years since blogging has been practiced. But it's just recently that it has been considered as one of the addicting fads.

What exactly is blogging? Blog is the widely used term that refers to web log. Basically, a blog is an online journal. A blog could be set up to no cost at all, and can be used for just for the fun of it or for business reasons.

Blogging for your Internet business is one surefire way to boost the visibility of your products and services. Here are a few ways to boost your internet advertising with the help of a blog:


1. Make your clients or customers abreast on your website's alterations. Your new products and affiliate websites could also be announced through your blog.

2. Keep track of your business goals and plans through open writing. Your blog content can be easily stored through archives. What could be better than searchable information that could be easily accessed by anyone browsing the deep web, right?

3. Publishing is a very easy process with blogging.Air your opinions, advice or reviews on specific services or products that are related to your business.

4. Include links that will carry back links and consequently improve your ranking on search engines. This could be better executed through putting well-written articles in your website. Affiliate links could also be included in your blog to earn more extra income.

5. Collect reaction through the capacity of blogs to fetch comments from your blog readers. You can learn and improve your products and services through with the feedback from your readers.

6. Connect easily with other bloggers. When other bloggers notice that you have something good in your blog, they will put you in their favorite lists that will automatically link you to their blogs.

So, how do you set up a blog? Here are some of the options you can make use of to take advantage of this fun way to advertise your Internet business.

Either you load a blogging software or let a blogging hosting service do it for you. Host services such as LiveJournal and Blogger.com are the most popular in this field. Those hosts will provide you with easy information on how to put up your blog.


http://www.articlesnatch.com

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Online Optimization, Like Parenting, Never Ends

At around 1:20 p.m., while presenting at the "Survival of the Fittest 2.0" session at Search Engine Strategies NY on March 24, I got a text message from my wife. It read: "I am in labor." At 11:32 p.m., Matthew David Eisenberg joined our family. Baby and mom are doing well. My daughter and other son are enamored with our new addition.

Driving home that night from the hospital brought up memories of my Mom and Dad and their great parenting wisdom: "Your job as a parent is to screw up your child the least possible." We are human and we will make mistakes; no child, no parent is perfect.

It's easy to look back and see where we made poor decisions, but the value comes when you start identifying those things in the moment and are able to make the changes so as not to repeat the past. It isn't uncommon to find a first-time parent who took the time to read the books or take the classes on the grand theory of parenting who was rudely awakened by the real-time results.

Why am I providing you with parenting advice on ClickZ? Because the lesson applies equally to your online marketing efforts. There's just no sugarcoating it. It will happen.

You'll screw up.

And just like we shared during the "Survival of the Fittest" session, to succeed you must learn to be nimble and make changes on the fly. The key is to plan on optimizing; you don't succeed with a set-it-and-leave-it mentality. You must have a plan for continuous improvement. And you must learn to make the best of each so-called screw up.

My first example of this lesson is a ClickZ classic I shared back in 2003. A reader called a little bit freaked out. After making a change in his shopping cart, he saw his conversion rate plummet nearly 90 percent. We applied a bit of learning and easily turned it back around. While you should never screw up on purpose, don't let the fear of making a mistake paralyze your efforts.

A Recent Example

When training new staff, we work hard to instill the idea that the only thing worse than a test with negative results is a test with no results at all. You will always learn something valuable when you move the needle either way, and with a negative test you can always set things right back to the original control. A neutral test typically wastes time and resources.

Last summer we took on a client who was eager to optimize and test. We began by recommending a multivariate test of a few common elements on the home page. In the first test, the two variations lost to the control by 6 percent and 5 percent. The second test was an A/B and the variation lost to the original control by about 32 percent.

About this time, most clients would have seriously questioned hiring us. While this client may have privately discussed that, they didn't show us a lack of faith. In fact, we were able to convince them to run a third, more costly test. Throughout the first two tests, we had began narrowing down some unique factors that would influence conversion on the site, and we had evidence that suggested exactly what we needed to do next.

We had the client bring hire both a copywriter and a graphic designer, and we went through the process of developing a single test centered on developing a unique value proposition. In the end, the client realized an increase in business worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The Lesson

I could repeat stories like this all day. But the lessons are the same:

• Stick with it.
  
  
• Remember, you will make mistakes (or at the very least, not everything you do will be a home run).
  
  
• Learn from your mistakes. Having a learning process in place pays off.
  
  
• You'll be in good company.

So like parenting, online optimization never ends. It takes hard work and the cold, hard realization that you won't do it perfectly.

As we face the online world together, please join me in wishing my new son, Matthew, much success in his life and in hoping I screw up as little as possible. And if having a bigger family wasn't enough, I'm also having a birthday this week. In lieu of parenting advice and birthday wishes, please send share your story of an online marketing screw up with the rest of us.

Join ClickZ Expert Julie Batten for a new Webinar: Leveraging Outsourced Online Marketing Services for Your Web Site, Thursday, April 16, 2009, at 1 pm (EDT). Learn why outsourcing your online marketing activities -- including deep web search marketing-- can help you save money and achieve better results.

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WordStream Launches 'Keyword Management Blog'

BOSTON, MA, Apr 10, 2009 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- WordStream, Inc., a provider of keyword management solutions for continuously optimizing and expanding PPC and SEO efforts involving large numbers of keywords, today announced the launch of a company blog, "The Keyword Management Blog."

The blog provides search engine marketing news and advice for Internet marketers and business owners alike, with topics that range from conducting effective keyword research, to pay-per-click marketing best practices, to detailed reviews of the Web's best keyword tools.

"There's an amazing thirst for search marketing knowledge on the Web today," says WordStream Marketing Manager Ken Lyons. "Our objective for this blog is to provide quality content for a broad search marketing audience. So whether you're a PPC veteran or a newbie who wants to learn about search engine optimization, you're going to find a range of search insight to help improve your marketing efforts."

Since launching in early 2009, marketers worldwide have embraced the productivity benefits of WordStream's suite of keyword management tools, which include dynamic PPC tools and SEO tools. WordStream's ability to increase efficiency and relevancy for deep web search engine marketing campaigns helps marketers better manage their time, generate more qualified leads, and achieve higher Quality Score results for PPC and better search engine rankings for SEO, which results in more traffic and conversions at lower costs.

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Vayu Media Atlanta Search Engine Optimization Company Goes Dark in Support of Earth Hour

Atlanta, GA, April 8, 2009 The Global movement of Earth Hour garnered millions of support from people all over the globe. Young and old pledged to turn off their lights for one hour starting 8.30pm to prove a point that switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming.

WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009 as this meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Atlanta Local Internet Marketing Company Vayu Media pledged its support and committed all of its offices to Earth Hour. The offices in Atlanta, Kansas City and Bogota, Colombia went dark for an hour. Already Vayu Media operates a virtual environment in all of its offices that focus on search engine optimization and local internet marketing which saves the company 10,650 kWh per office.

Every single bit counts and virtual office environments are the wave of the future. The move is in line with Vayu Media's long-time commitment to environmental protection, which over the last decade has seen the company make sustainable energy efficiency a core part of its business strategy particularly in its virtual office environment.

The management of the company ensured that its team enjoyed the event. Search Engine Marketing work in the dark with candle light and a disco ball was a hit with the team. The event was extended from one to four hours and was very well received. “It is great to be part of a company that embraces green causes and lets the employees enjoy their time at work. Not sure how much work was done but we had a great time” said Carlos Gonzalez Operations Manager of the Bogota office.

About Vayu Media:
VayuMedia.com Vayu Media is the premier company for local internet advertising using deep web search engine marketing and local search engine optimization. Vayu Media is taking advantage of the consumer shift from traditional media to internet based marketing. The company’s focus is local online business marketing and web design services. The company’s strategy to get out into the market place and consult with local businesses face to face has allowed it to make local business owners aware of the opportunity that exists online. In order to stay relevant in today’s market every local business must have an online marketing strategy and Vayu Media can help. Media Contact: Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563, info (at) vayumedia dot com

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Marketing must: Start now to make SEO work for small business

How do you know if you’re visible to others if you can’t see yourself? That’s the challenge for some of manufacturing’s smaller businesses in today’s world.
Many small businesses are trying out new marketing strategies on a daily basis. It was once considered a significant feat to be found on the front pages of Google through whatever means possible. But today, companies are diligently embracing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for heightened Internet brand recognition.
First, a definition
SEO simply translates to increasing—and more important—improving Web site traffic from search engines through organic search results. It looks at how and why search engines find your site, and how relevant the search term is to your global content.
The nation’s prolonged economic scare is leading some manufacturing companies to believe that additional expenditures for marketing campaigns and SEO in a down economy can be a waste. With the right tools and a lot of patience, however, SEO can play an important role in allowing your small business to be seen on the front pages of popular search engines just like the big players at a cost that is reasonable, considering the potential return.

Take, for example, KLH Industries, a precision manufacturing company based in Germantown, Wis. Last summer KLH was organically listed on Google a handful of times, depending on the search term. While KLH does not generally have a product to sell, its focus is on selling a service. And the services it provides are not by any means typical. KLH makes critical parts and components for aerospace, medical, energy, automotive, and electronic equipment manufacturers.
With a limited budget and facing a downturn economy, SEO became a cost-effective way for KLH to put its capabilities in front of potential customers on a much larger scale. For KLH, this has proven to be very effective.
One important aspect that you must understand about SEO is it doesn’t happen overnight. If you already have a Web site, that’s a start—but SEO primarily focuses on content. Content is the best way to gain search engine ranking through organic search.
When writing content for your Web site, keep your customers in mind. Make sure the information is not too technical, simplistic, or wordy.
Keywords play one of the largest roles in SEO, and it is up to you to label your products or services so that search engines can find relevance to your site rather than your competitors.
Asking questions and evaluating answers are key measures to find which methods work for your business type but again, don’t expect this to happen right away. Like any business model you have to put something into place, track it, test it, and analyze it to determine if you have found the optimal strategy.
KLH is constantly exploring new methods and improving on current methods of SEO. Even through this downturn, KLH’s marketing team has developed effective SEO strategies increase brand recognition, lead generation, and customer retention in all market sectors.
Final thought:
Be sure to remain patient, determined, and open-minded while implementing the right SEO package for your small business. Do your deep web research and don’t be afraid of failure. Remember to focus on what works for your potential customers. SEO is a continuous challenge and perfecting the strategy is only half the battle: The true challenge is maintaining effectiveness.

By Matt Stefanski, contributing editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology

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SEO, Web Site Usability Drive Conversion Rates

Effective search engine optimization (SEO) can improve query rankings, but companies also need to give consumers easy-to-use Web sites to boost conversion rates and close the sale. More visitors to the site is great, but if the price of average orders drop, marketers should rethink strategies, according to panelists on a Webinar Tuesday.

Search Engine Land Executive Editor Chris Sherman moderated the Search Marketing Now Webinar, "SEO and Conversion Rates: Hand-in-hand," sponsored by Range Online Media. Herndon Hasty, senior SEO evangelist, Range; and Chris Knoch, principal search engine marketing (SEM) consultant at Omniture, presented and fielded questions.

Bringing online the keywords that do well offline might not work in pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. It's important to consider offline data driven by online interactions, and that could mean "you're optimizing to the wrong metrics," Knoch said.

Companies need to become more aware of the keywords driving consumers to the site and those that prompt an interaction with blogs or forums. Looking at page views and tracking bounce rates provide insight into when consumers left the site.

Making sites accessible to consumers has become critical. Some are paying the price for being a bit remiss by opening their wallets." Target recently had to pay a $6 million settlement over the accessibility of their Web site," Hasty said.

While SEO has been viewed as a strategy to build organic search engine rankings to drive traffic, Hasty said it's important to add content that appeals to shoppers who want to quickly find information. Changes to SEO affect how easily consumers navigate the site, and one is dependent on the other.

A site that ranks well in deep web search engines but can't convert customers from browsers to buyers is just as bad as a site that provides a great user experience but search engines cannot index it, Hasty said. So, he suggests starting with a foundation to ensure that both search engines and customers can move through the site intuitively.

Making the site accessible to people who search on mobile devices and without Flash or JavaScript is important. Header tags that subdivide pages will make it easy for customers to find information. Images and videos also play a more important role, but make sure they are accessible to search engines.

And when it comes to keywords, don't invent new words for familiar products. Search engines won't rank them among similar products or services. For example, consider the picture of the product for sale on the site. While lip color typically comes in one type of applicator, lipstick comes in another. Also consider Blu-ray vs. DVD player. It can make a difference in how well the terms rank in search engines.

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E-Quipped: Case for microsites: When Web success no longer is enough

You finally have a Web site that makes you proud.

A lot of thought, time and money went into getting you to this point. You've spent hours developing an information architecture that delivers the highest level of usability. Your content fully tells your brand story and addresses the needs of each visitor. You have a search engine optimization (SEO) plan in place, and your rankings have soared.

It's been worth every hour and every dollar you've spent to get to this point. You're already seeing return on your investment.

So why would you need a microsite?

You may not, right now. But because a microsite is a small, highly focused Web site -- anywhere from three to 10 pages -- and is relatively inexpensive to produce, the time might come when one that complements your main Web site makes real business sense.

Here are some of those situations:

You need to deliver a specific value proposition to a very specific audience, and you don't want those people to get lost in the content of your main Web site looking for that message. A microsite helps make the exchange of information a highly personalized experience, one that builds brand loyalty.

You want to conduct online testing of new products, Web-based functions or advertising campaigns with a select test group. A microsite offers a pure test environment that doesn't distract the user and offers you anonymity when you want it.

You want to promote a short-term event or campaign. Microsites work alongside a specific advertising campaign, event or promotion. You're able to feature different themes, visuals and messages without confusing customers with the branding of your main Web site.

You want to make full use of Deep Web media technologies, such as Flash technology, for your product or service demonstrations without affecting the success of your main Web site SEO program. Flash is not SEO-friendly.

So, even if your main Web site is really doing its job, it's not easy or cheap to add pages that fully satisfy these more-targeted or short-lived initiatives. This is when a microsite strategy can be a great addition to your overall Internet marketing strategy -- complementing, not competing with your main Web site.

Next Sunday's E-Quipped: How white papers can help keep you in the black.

Pam Ouimette is director of strategic services at TMA+Peritus: A Strategic Interaction Agency. Find them online at www.tmaperitus.com or offline in their offices in Wausau and Madison.

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New features from Google

Google is continuously making small improvements to its toolbox. Here are a few from the last couple of weeks.

Color search in Google images

You may restrict you image search to pictures with a particular color scheme.

The Google Blog gives a “tulip” search as an example: “On the results page, click on the ‘All colors’ drop down [menu] in the blue bar and choose a color. ”

There is also a drop down menu that lets you filter images according to types of content. These are:

• News content
• Faces
• Clip art
• Line drawings
• Photo content

Furthermore you may restrict your search to different image sizes. Here’s an example of how you can combine the various filters.

More and better search refinements

Google has improved its algorithm for suggesting alternative search phrases. You will find these phrases at the bottom of the search result pages.

A search for “search engine marketing” will, for instance, bring up links to the following alternative searches:

search engine optimization marketing, social media optimization, search engine submission optimization and google adwords optimization.

It seems the list is based on how other searchers refine their queries when they can’t find what they are looking for.

For search engine marketers this is good news, as they can use these refined search queries to identify new keyword phrases for search engine and text ad optimization.

Google expands descriptions in search results for some keywords

Given that you make use of longer search queries combining more than three words, Google may now expand the description (or “snippet”) of the results to help you better understand what the pages are about.

Normally Google will restrict the number of characters to 156. Now the snippet may be longer.

Most often Google will fetch the snippet from the web page itself, but it may also make use of the description found in the Open Directory.

Google becomes more local

Normally you would have had to include your location in your search query to make Google understand that you were looking for a restaurant in — let’s say — Oslo, Norway instead of San Fransisco, California.

Now Google will make use of your IP address to identify your location and give you local search results for all queries of this kind.

They will also add a map with pins for the nearest relevant locations.

Inserting images in Gmail

Google’s online email too is a good one, but its way of entering images is primitive to say the least. You normally add them as attachments.

Just turn on “Inserting images” from the Labs tab under Settings, and you’ll see a new toolbar icon that lets you insert images into the text itself.

Google Blog Search has been improved

Google recently changed its blog search algorithm to include information from the web pages themselves, and not only what is found in the RSS feeds of the blogs.

This did indeed make the search results more comprehensive, but it also meant that it would include stuff like blogroll links, page headers and footers. Bloggers trying to find blogs linking to their own sites, therefore got hits on every blogroll that had a link to their site, and not only on regular links found in the text of the blog posts.

Jeremy Hylton of Google had this to say over at Google Groups:

“We have launched a ranking change that reduces the number of results that are returned because of blogroll matches. There are still problems to work out, but this change appears to be a big improvement over our earlier fix.”

Google Blog Search is a useful for finding out what is the latest buzz in the blogosphere. Combined with searches in Google News and Twitter search, it can give you a pretty good picture of what is happening right now.

Google Docs gets a drawing program

It will take some time before Google’s online office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool etc.) will become a real threat to Microsoft Office and Word.

Still, Google is a patient company that makes long term plans. In a couple of years Microsoft probably will feel the heat.

Now Google have added a drawing program to the free suite. Open a new Google Docs document and click Insert -> Drawing. It is a relatively primitive drawing program, but it can, for instance, be used for adding figures and flow charts to text documents.

The Google Docs blog says that the drawing feature relies heavily on a relatively new capability in browsers: the ability to render vector graphics.

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Dallas Small Business Website Design company offers Organic Search Engine Optimization

Catering the needs to small business owners all across the nation, Dallas-based OneSEOCompany has developed a reputation in the industry for helping clients properly marketing and successfully generate traffic

Dallas, Texas (WiredPRNews.Com) — Small businesses are big ideas come to life. In getting the gears moving on a small business, the business owner must develop a strong web presence including professional web design and online promotion and marketing.

It is no secret that a business can bolster their spot in the marketplace with a strong brand, helping to catapult that company to new levels of success.

Catering the needs to small business owners all across the nation, Dallas-based OneSEOCompany has developed a reputation in the industry for helping clients properly marketing and successfully generate traffic using tried-and-true web-based solutions.

The new OneSEOCompany specializes in affordable web design solutions, custom e-commerce development and online web marketing by utilizing organic, Google-approved optimization practices. The marketing experts and design team at OneSEOCompany is experienced in a vast array of Web 2.0 techniques with the strategic use of blogs, online press release distribution and YouTube video optimization.

About OneSEOCompany

Since 2002, OneSEOCompany has perfected their online design and marketing strategies, having developed a specialized niche in lawyer marketing, including the generation of leads using the innovative, effective search engine optimization techniques. The company provides out-of-the-box graphic design services, diverse e-commerce solutions, and professional search engine marketing and deep web site solutions for small businesses nationwide.

Are you interested in achieving a powerful online presence through web design and search engine marketing? Contact a OneSEOCompany Dallas SEO expert at 214.675.1016 or visit http://www.oneseocompany.com/.

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SEO Or Nothing At All - By Lawyer Search Engine Optimization Company CepacLaw.com

Dallas, Texas (JusticeNewsFlash.com) Even if the your law firm has a comprehensive marketing program and does not rely solely on your website to generate leads, you must adopt SEO or suffer the consequences of web anonymity. The difference in exposure between a page one ranking and a page two ranking can be the difference between success and failure for your new business program. The only way to increase unique visits and page views for your law firm’s site is to raise your page rank with Google and other search engines. Your website can no longer just function as an online brochure.

SEO best practices are in a constant state of evolution, as Google and the other engines change their algorithms on an ongoing basis. There is no doubt that having fresh relevant content on your site is a good starting point, but SEO is increasingly focused more off-page than on. Your SEO marketing partner must keep pace with the changing environment, constantly analyze which key words work the best by using web analytics and clearly understand your target audience.

A web-marketing program for your law firm requires a labor-intensive effort virtually on a daily basis. We typically start with the installation of web analytics to create a baseline, an evaluation of your site for spider friendliness, uniqueness of content and to ensure that your code is compliant from a search engine perspective.

These tasks are designed to make the most of link building strategies that include crafting and distributing news articles and press releases, optimized web-videos and the creation of new pages for your site. Our firm utilizes proprietary online news portals that include an optimization feature to give every press release the best possibility of being picked up on the deep web.

We also recommend the inclusion of social media in our search marketing programs since Google and others have given more weight in their algorithms to sites like YouTube and Facebook. Now is the time to invest in the future of your firm.

As the web environment evolves, your law firm must adapt or become extinct, because when it comes to developing new business the stakes are Darwinian.

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Yield Software launches automated suite for SEO/SEM

Online technology company Yield Software has launched a new suite of products for search engine marketing and optimization and is backing up the suite with a free 30 day trial for marketers. The suite, geared for small and medium sized businesses, gives marketers an economical solution to search engine optimization and the problem of lagging traffic.

by Kristina Knight

Yield Web Marketing Suite automates paid search, natural search and landing page optimization in one platform for the Big Three engines - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. Including geographical targeting, the suite allows marketers to buy search campaign keywords and optimization from all three search engines or one at a time.

"Search marketing is the most effective way to attract new traffic and revenue, especially in such a tough economy when ad budgets are lean," said Matt Malden, co-founder and CEO of Yield Software. "Because each of the major search marketing components have been treated as separate and distinct disciplines, and with the rise of three separate search engines claiming nearly 100% of the deep web search advertising market, businesses have been forced to piece together a range of tools...to address the totality of their Web marketing needs."

For paid campaigns the system continuously optimizes keyword bids and watches the budget. For natural campaigns the suite analyzes content pages for SEO and helps marketers better understand the discipline. The suite also helps marketers optimize landing pages by experimenting and testing different page versions of a landing page to find the right mix.

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Top Web Design Company to Develop New York Technology Firm Website Presence

Andy Robson, Managing Director of dzine it, has announced that his firm has been awarded the contract by FJC Technology Solutions to develop their new corporate web presence and search engine marketing.

New York, NY - (WiredPRNews.Com) — Andy Robson, Managing Director of dzine it, inc. (http://www.dzineit.net), a leader in web design, software application development, and organic search engine optimization, has been awarded the contract by FJC Technology Solutions to develop their new cutting edge website presence.

FJC Technology Solutions is the tri-state region’s largest privately owned and locally operated provider of technology solutions for the security industry.“We here at dzine it are very pleased with FJC’s decision to hire our company to develop their new web presence.

Their new website will be a state of the art marketing tool that will take the security industry by storm,” said Mr. Robson. “The design and creative team at dzine it is extremely talented and understands exactly what FJC wants. Working with our customers, we know that we can create the perfect solution.”The FJC Technology website will have a cutting edge design with a flexible content management system develop for FJC Technology.

In addition, company executives recognize the value of search engine optimization as a way to better leverage their firm against the competition, particularly online.The first order of business for the team at dzine it, is to focus on strengthening FJC Technology Solutions web presence.“From small businesses to large, dzine it delivers the quality service that companies need to excel,” said Mr. Robson. “FJC took a step in the right direction by hiring us to do the same for them. We are excited to be working with New York’s leading security Technology provider.”Established in 2003, dzine it, inc. is a leader in Custom web development, programming and design solutions for small and large business, agencies.

The company offers a wide range of business-centered visual communication solutions, including deep web-based content management, web design, graphic design, custom web software applications, ethical white hat search engine optimization (Organic SEO), Video Encoding, and print media solutions. For more information, call 718.336.2660 or visit www.dzineit.net.

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Search marketing, especially optimization, is a buoy in the economic storm

By Bill Siwicki

Since September when all hell broke loose in the U.S. economy, retailers have been looking for any competitive edge they can find to grow sales—or in some cases maintain sales at a level that keeps the company afloat.

During this highly volatile period, paid search and natural search optimization are two strategies that have been helping retailers achieve their goals, according to Internet Retailer’s new search engine marketing survey of 211 web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers.

Since it became clear in the fall that the country was in a severe economic recession, 41.9% of retailers say paid search advertising has been outperforming all other forms of marketing, the survey finds. 35.6% say it is performing at least as well as it had been prior to September, while 22.5% say it is performing worse.

“This recession has forced many retailers to be more efficient with search and its integration with other online activities. This provides a partial explanation of why 42% say they’re getting better results with paid search,” says Daniel Yonts, president of PayingAttention.net, an Internet marketing consulting firm that specializes in search engine marketing and optimization. “For those that stayed the same, this could rightfully be called a victory in a down economy, which required making major strides to keep up.”

Another reason paid search is serving retailers well in the sour economy is because it’s highly flexible and scalable, says George Michie, principal, search marketing, at Rimm-Kaufman Group LLC, an e-commerce consulting firm.

“The fact that day to day you can scale your paid search efforts more, less, whatever, means you can respond to sudden changes in the marketplace very rapidly,” Michie says. “Paid search is very quick and responsive, and that’s in its favor in a volatile market.”

Looking to optimization

But the survey reveals something some search experts find surprising: More retailers are investing in search engine optimization as the economy worsens.

Moving forward through the severe recession, 55.3% plan to increase spending on search engine optimization to achieve better natural search results. 35.9% will keep this spending about the same, and a scant 8.8% plan to decrease spending. Only 24.2% plan to increase spend on paid search; 45.9% plan to keep it about the same while 30% plan to decrease spending.

These numbers clearly show that retailers are turning their attention more to optimization to improve natural search results than focusing on getting the best keyword mix in paid search.

The reason in part is because natural search is reaping rewards for retailers: In the past year, 46.3% of retailers say their natural search conversion rate went up, according to the Internet Retailer survey of IRNewsLink e-newsletter readers conducted last month with e-mail marketing and survey firm Knowledge Marketing. 43.8% said natural search conversion stayed the same while a mere 9.9% said it went down.

But the emphasis by retailers on natural search during a period of economic volatility confounds search experts. This is because paid search enables retailers to change search strategies at the drop of a hat while search engine optimization is a process that takes time to build and hone.

“In paid search, you get that sense of what the next dollar is doing for you both very quickly and through experience,” Michie says. “With natural search, it’s a little more smoke and mirrors. But there is this feeling: ‘If we got ranked very high on all these keywords and got that traffic for free, that could be huge for us. We know that spending money now will not result in immediate return on investment, but the return can be gigantic, so let’s do it.’”

So what’s better?

One way or the other, retailers view search engine marketing as a key strategy during the hard times ahead. At the same time, though, some have greater faith in other forms of marketing to boost sales—some of which astonish the experts.

55.2% of retailers who responded to the survey say e-mail marketing will perform better than search during the severe recession. In a down economy, turning more to existing customers, such as those on opt-in e-mail lists, is a reaction to uncertainty, says Yonts of PayingAttention.net.

“Most retailers counting on e-mail to outperform search are probably right,” he says. “They are marketing to an existing customer base that’s already had an experience with their brand and who volunteered to receive the messaging.”

On another front, 24.3% say affiliate marketing will outperform search in the year ahead. But success in affiliate marketing these days might be a double-edged sword, some experts say.

“The reason affiliates perform well in a bad economy is people are searching for coupons,” contends Michie of Rimm-Kaufman Group. “Before many consumers go to an e-commerce site to make a purchase, they’re going to look for coupons. Is this driving incremental traffic or just taking margin off of an order you were going to get anyway?”

Social networking? Really?

When it comes to outperforming search, though, one of the survey results astounds the experts: 30.5% of retailers say social network presences will perform better as a marketing vehicle than paid search or search engine optimization. Social networking is very new to retailing and remains an unproven method. But something about this new style of marketing is inspiring great expectations among merchants.

“These folks are smoking some funny stuff,” Michie says. “It’s aspirational of them. Most folks at this point in paid search have gotten to the point of diminishing marginal returns. They know they can’t double their paid search program anymore. It’s getting really expensive to generate more top-line sales out of search. So what’s out there? Well, they haven’t done much with social networks, so perhaps they think that’s the answer.”

Yonts agrees that retailers saying social networking will outperform search is stunning, but he says social networking is not a pipe dream.

“People listen to trends and the big news recently was that social networking sites surpassed personal e-mail sites in online use,” he explains. “Now, more Internet marketers are beginning look at e-mail and social media as similar marketing channels.”

Mobile versus search

As with e-mail and social network messaging applications, marketing text messages can be aimed directly at consumers known to retailers to be interested in a product category or brand. Showing that m-commerce is beginning to take root in e-commerce, 5.7% of survey respondents say text messages will perform better than paid search in the down economy.

“If you’re texting an opt-in list, you’re probably texting your best customers, folks who buy from you often. I can see a lot of sales being tagged to that—whether they can become incremental or not, I don’t know,” Michie says.

He adds that when it comes to driving incremental sales, no form of marketing in web retailing compares with deep web search.

“Text messaging, e-mail marketing, social networks and affiliates will never be as good at that,” he contends. “Paid search is No. 1 for driving new customers.”

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Getting your feet wet with marketing online

By James Pennington, consultant at the National B2B Centre (NB2BC)

Plan your Web site

Many people sit down and start working on their Web site but then stop and never get started again because they haven't thought about what they are trying to achieve. Remember, that your Web site is another sales medium. Understand your proposition and unique selling point and have a strategy for using the Deep Web. The following resources can help:

• NB2BC Web site Planning Guide (12-page PDF file)
  
• Web site Planning Workbook (Word doc)

Characteristics of effective Web sites

When it comes to designing your Web site or drawing up a spec for your design team or agency, it can help to initially think about what it's going to say and how it's going to support your Web strategy:

• Show visitors the benefits your site will provide
  
• Make it interesting, relevant and informative
  
• Keep it simple and jargon free - each page should be short and to the point, for example by limiting text to 250 words
  
• Give visitors a reason to come back
  
• Use keywords and descriptive page titles and descriptions to help search engines list the site effectively
  
• Include contact details and telephone numbers.

Define what each page will say

Another good principle to apply is that if you can't think of a reason to have a page on your site, it shouldn't be there. Every page should have a purpose and call to action. To help apply this discipline, the NB2BC Web site Planning Workbook, includes a page definition template that sets out for each page:

• Name and title
  
• Purpose of page
  
• Call to action
  
• Content summary
  
• Keywords, description and links

Drive traffic to your Web site

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you build traffic to your site. There is no magic to SEO, it's based on simple principles that you can implement while you're developing the content and design for your site. Some of the work you do in the planning phase will already help you.

Internet search engines examine each page's title, content, and links. The art of SEO is to construct each page so it will be found by sites such as Google and Yahoo! for specific phrases. One of our clients who based his SEO strategy around the phrase "plastics west midlands" doubled his revenue in three years, mainly through search-engine friendly directories such as DMOZ.

The NB2BC search engine optimization tool can analyze the current performance of your Web site and where it ranks in popular search engines and give you a starting point for how you can make your Web site more search engine friendly. The following Word resources can help you undertake a more thorough, step-by-step SEO process:

• Search Engine Optimization Flow Chart
  
• Search Engine Optimization Action Plan
  
• Search Engine Optimization Workbook

Review and improve how your site is performing
If you build it, they may come... but do not just leave your site to fade away through neglect. There are numerous free tools such as those at Google Webmaster central that can help you analyze site's traffic, design, coding and accessibility. Use them to see how the site is performing and to devise improvements that will make it better. Recent articles looked in more detail at SEO on zero budget, and Using Google services such as Google Analytics. Further links and tools are listed on the NB2BC Web site and search resources page.

James Pennington was speaking at a recent seminar organized by the UK Chartered Institute of Marketing.

For more information on the National B2B Centre please click here.
(Editor's note: Online registration is required to gain access to the NB2BC materials, but there are no other conditions or costs.)

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Marketing Strategist Rick Russo Joins SEO Marketing LLC

A new perspective to search engine marketing and website optimization.

Woodstock, Georgia (PRWEB) April 3, 2009 -- SEO Marketing LLC announced today that industry veteran Rick Russo has joined the company's team of organic website optimization professionals. In his new position as a seo services provider, Russo will assist in maintaining relationships with SEO Marketing's clients as well as to develop relationships with new clients seeking natural seo or pay per click services.

"Moving to SEO Marketing provides an excellent chance to use my improve my website optimization skills and have a more personal interaction with clients," said Russo. "The ability to provide website owners with quality seo services, a belief in what we are doing and a relaxed work environment are the main reasons for making the move," Russo continued.

"I am very excited to have Rick Russo join our web services team," said Kris K., CEO of SEO Marketing. Adding Rick helps expand our seo consulting services and grow the deep web team's natural seo services. He has extensive knowledge of organic search and proven ability to understand his client's needs," Kris continued.

Rick Russo graduated from Kennesaw State University with a degree in Business Marketing in 2005 and has been working within the technology arena ever since. Russo previously worked as Account Director at What's Up Interactive. Prior to What's Up Interactive, Rick worked as an Account Representative for Northridge Systems.

Company Information:
SEO Marketing LLC is an USA based SEO company specializing in social media marketing, search marketing and search engine optimization service. SEO Marketing is currently working with multiple developers on open source FireFox tools and plug-ins for WordPress Blogs. For more information visit http://www.seocompanyservices.com/blog/

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Steps That Are Must In Getting Top Search Engine Rankings - Ethically, Naturally

High search engine rankings – that’s what every web master and domain owner on the Internet wants. But it’s only the truly experienced who know that there’s no magical talisman or secret technique that will get you a good rank immediately. Top rankings are achieved with diligence and the use of a variety of SEO methods. If you want to get started on your climb up the ladder, after a complete on-page optimization, here are your first steps for off-page optimization to get that top rankings.

1. Use only high-ranking article directories. Remember, Google calculates your page’s ranking based on the rank of the other pages that link to you. Unless those linking pages have high rankings themselves, the benefits for your page will be nearly insignificant. Good marketing service providers have minimum limits – usually set at about PR5 – to ensure that you’ll get maximum benefits from your articles.

2. Market with unique articles at least thrice a week. Content is the critical element in unique article marketing, so you have to add new articles regularly in order to beef up the number of links to your site. At the same time, you have to keep it consistent and fairly low-key so as to keep Google from getting suspicious. Thrice a week is the typical speed for most providers in the SEO industry.

3. Use social media for marketing. It’s probably the most SEO-friendly technology in the whole of Web 2.0. With the use of d0-follow and high traffic sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, a single article or page of yours could spread like wildfire throughout the whole deep web. Social networks have the potential of multiplying the results exponentially, which is why they’re worth considering.

4. Do contextual link building by the second or third month. It’s a strategy that’s particularly effective if your page is already somewhere towards the middle, but isn’t reaching the top just yet. Timing is a critical factor for contextual link building because it bulks up the SEO work that you’ve already done. It is effective if you hire a professional SEO agency or provider that has a well-maintained blog network set up on unique class-c IPs. Make sure that each blogpost is unique if you really want to get the best out of it.

5. Maximize Squidoo, Hubpages and other portals. These portals are very useful if you want to do contextual link building, not the least because they’re free. They’re also a great place for you to establish your company’s name as a force to be reckoned with in your niche. Besides, they make for great one-way links. And needless to say, an awesome targeted traffic for your website.

6. Comment on blogs, but be sure that you include do-follow links. This is another cool method for adding to your link building campaign without spending a cent. With the comments that you put on blogs, you can bring your company to the attention of people who’ll most likely be interested in what you have to say. Of course, you can’t expect the author to approve your spam. Be sensible and people would love to approve you and follow you.

7. Make YouTube your tube. With the advent of user-generated multimedia content, it’s become easier than ever to market your company or site. An interesting video along with a link to your page at the end would already be effective for link building; a catchy video that’s associated to your page will have you shooting up the search engine result pages.

8. Post and advertise on forums. This is yet another method of free advertising. You can effectively target your specific niche market without having to spend thousands on advertising costs. It’s the ideal SEO combination. Not only have you got enough knowledge about updated stuff but also quality backlinks.

9. Create text links from related sites. No matter how much you advertise, none of it will be worth anything if your market doesn’t see it. The whole point of using text links coming from related sites will be to target your market specifically, and thus minimize your SEO costs.

As you can see, you have a whole grocery list of things to do and goals to achieve. It takes time, yes, but it gets easier once you’ve laid out the foundations for your site. With a good service provider at your side, you should get that top spot in no time at all.

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