Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Description of ‘Internet Marketing’ Category:
The union of the creative and the technical characteristics of the Internet to promote your website by enhancing it’s design, development, advertising, and sales. Using techniques such as banner ads, email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), and search engine optimization (SEO).
Friday, November 11th, 2011
In any type of business there is always competition, some industries just face more of it than others. If you are like most people then you probably have a hard time dealing with the stress brought on by your competitors. If you feel this way about competition it is completely normal but if you know how to use your competitors to your advantage you can almost always turn this into a positive feeling. Competition isn’t all bad because it helps us to better ourselves or our business because it plays off our relentless desire to be the best that we can be.
 With Search Engine Optimization the goal is to have your website ranked the highest and receive the most traffic or conversions. Being the most prominent and relevant website is crucial to the success of most businesses. The competing websites that you encounter when performing your SEO may seem like a bad thing, however they can almost always assist you in making better internet marketing decisions. It may seem sneaky to spy on your competitors but it has become a common practice and competitive analysis is a crucial component to website marketing. Knowing who your competitors are and how they are conducting their SEO can provide you with some very valuable marketing data. Below is a short list of how you can benefit from exploring the trends and movements of the top competitors for yours or your client’s website.
Social Media:
Social Media is probably the easiest place to start. Check out what social networking sites that your competitors are using and see which ones would be beneficial to your website. In addition see how they are using these sites to communicate with their audience and what type of content they offer on their social pages. Identifying how your competition is using these platforms is a great way to get an idea of what people like, what they don’t like, what is successful, what isn’t successful, and what you can be doing that they aren’t.
Meta… Read the rest
Tags: backlinks, competition, competitors, competitve analysis, Internet Marketing, keywords, seo
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | 7 Comments »
Friday, November 4th, 2011
A lead capture form is often the highlight of a landing page. These forms are the most important elements to driving customer contact and capturing new leads. The lead capture form is an absolute necessity and can often make or break your landing page. Without a lead capture form the landing page remains just another hurdle between you and your prospective clients. If you don’t already have a lead form posted on your landing page then we advise that you make creating one a top priority. 
The following are some of the critical elements that every lead capture form should have along with some extra tips for improving your landing page:
Basic Landing Page Tips:
The real measure of a successful website isn’t the number of visitors but rather the number of conversions. A conversion is when a visitor comes to your site and performs a certain task. These desired actions could be purchasing a product, getting a quote, signing up for a newsletter, or any other specified goal. Upon landing on a page, customers consider if they are in the right place, the trust level they have for the site, the amount of time the process will take, and the potential benefit from the conversion. The landing page should address these concerns and then proceed to display your introduction copy, any media content, product information, customer testimonials, and lead capture forms.
- Create a headline or tag line that really captures the interest of your visitors. A strong headline should urge potential customers to stay longer, learn more, and influence them to provide their contact information.
- Have a strong call to action that stands out and instructs your visitors to perform your requested action. A good call to action is found above the fold and will help urge your visitors to take immediate action.
- Makes sure that your landing page is visually appealing and easy to understand. Use visual cues to
… Read the rest
Tags: call to action, conversions, form fields, landing page, lead capture form, lead form, website forms
Posted in Internet Marketing, Web Development | No Comments »
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
As we have mentioned numerous times before one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization is accumulating high quality backlinks. Backlinks are incoming links to your web pages and serve as an essential building block of a successful SEO strategy. Also known as inbound links, backlinks are important because they help indicate the popularity of your website and help to direct or drive in a high amount of new traffic. Websites are determined more relevant depending on the types of website as well as the quantity of websites that provide a backlink. Search engines like Google will often contribute more credit and place a higher rank on a website that contains a higher number of good quality links. 
Search engines determine the relevance of a website associated with a keyword according to its collection of backlinks and the anchor text used within the backlink. The anchor text of a back link is very important when gathering these links because it denotes the subject of the page and helps target your specific audience. One of the ways to acquire a backlink is guest blogging efforts. As we briefly mentioned in our past blog post, guest blogging is when another website hosts one or your articles or when you showcase an article from another blogger.
Why Guest Blogging:
Guest blogging is a great device to drive in traffic to your website and allows you to network with other bloggers from your industry. Besides driving in new traffic and networking with other bloggers, guest blogging also helps with branding and getting your name or company in the spotlight. Guest blogging is also helpful in building your social media profile and gaining more industry experience.
When to Guest Blog:
How do you know when you are ready for guest blogging? You should wait until you have established a well written blog and have confidence in your blogging abilities. When you guest blog you should do it… Read the rest
Tags: anchor text, backlinks, blog, blog post, guest, guest blog, guest blog post, guest blogger, guest blogging
Posted in Backlinks, Blog Hints, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | 3 Comments »
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
An RSS feed or a “really simple syndication” is a media format that pushes frequently changed web content to subscribers. RSS feeds are mostly used to provide updated content such as blog post, news headlines, audio, or video. RSS channels are read using an RSS reader, software that can be web, desktop, or mobile based. RSS feeds allow web viewers to access content that has its presentation and formatting stripped away. In essence, an RSS feed removes useless clutter and leaves only relevant and easy to understand content. 
RSS feeds allow users to stay informed by receiving the latest news and website updates. In order to access RSS content, a user must first subscribe to a websites RSS feed. Most websites will have an RSS feed subscription button displayed prominently on their home page or blog. To subscribe, simply click on the RSS icon and select the RSS reader that you wish to use (If using Firefox you can also open the bookmarks menu and click “Subscribe to this page”). After subscribing to a feed, the reader will routinely check for new content. The RSS reader provides an interface where users can view the latest content from their favorite websites, all in one location.
The Benefits of an RSS Feed:
RSS feeds can be beneficial for both web publishers as well as web visitors. The following are some of the benefits for each.
Publishers:
- Improves Search Engine Optimization
- Enables Faster Web Crawling and Indexing
- Publicizes your new content automatically
- Helps Reach New Audiences
- Free Marketing and Easier to market than sending out email campaigns
Visitors:
- Provides the latest content and updates all in one place
- Saves time because the content is delivered to you
- Easy to subscribe and unsubscribe
How to use it to help your Internet Marketing:
One of the benefits of an RSS feed is that it helps with SEO. The following are a few examples for how an RSS feed can… Read the rest
Tags: content, Feed, feeds, Really simple syndication, rss, RSS Feed, RSS Feeds, subscribe
Posted in Blog Hints, Internet Marketing, Web Tips | No Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2011
Constructing a website for a business is only the first part of attracting your online customers. There are many factors that determine your position on the search engine results page, one of them being the quality and quantity of your inbound links. In order to increase traffic and gain a good web rank your website should have a significant amount of backlinks. These backlinks should connect with valuable, authoritative, and industry related websites. Gathering backlinks should be a top SEO priority because without them it can be extremely hard to move up in the search engine results or generate more website visibility.
There are a number of ways to build backlinks to your webpages, one of which we mentioned in our previous blog entry, “Reciprocal Linking”. Reciprocal or two way linking is when two websites agree to exchange links with each other. However linking doesn’t always have to be mutual, this type of linking is called one way linking. The following list provides some popular sources and methods of obtaining one way links.
Create Superior Content and Resources:
In addition to creating a visually appealing and easy to use website you will also need to have high quality content or linkbait to draw the attention of visitors. This content is used to influence visitors to link back to your website by sharing your content. When other websites share your content on their website they will typically link back to the original source.
- Create 101 articles that describe the basics of your industry related subject.
- Create Top 10 or 100 lists.
- Lists the top professionals from your industry.
- Create an infographic that displays industry information in an intriguing and exciting way.
- Create free helpful online tools or downloadable software programs.
Start a Blog:
A blog is a handy instrument when it comes to gaining momentum and popularity over the Internet. A Blog has many benefits for example it is an excellent way to reach existing clients and find new… Read the rest
Tags: backlinks, blog, content, inbound links, Links, search engines, Social Media
Posted in Backlinks, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | 2 Comments »
Friday, September 9th, 2011
If done correctly anchor text and reciprocal links can have a tremendous positive impact on SEO. These two concepts work together to provide valuable link value to your website and have the potential to increase your website ranking.
In our last blog entry “Creating Infographics to Build Links and Increase SEO” we briefly touched on the topic of Anchor text. The anchor text is the hyperlink or clickable text that is found on a web page. Using accurate anchor text is essential for good Search Engine Optimization and when used appropriately it can drastically boost your rankings in the search engines. The anchor text provides descriptive and useful information for the page that it links with.
The anchor text enables websites to use cleaner looking text rather than displaying an unpleasant and distracting hyperlink. For example a hyperlink for Internet Beacon.com would look like <a href=”http://www.internetbeacon.com”> Internet Beacon</a> however by using anchor text it would present as Internet Beacon on the page.
The most common mistake when dealing with anchor text is using the dreaded “Click Here” anchor text. Click here not only causes you to miss out on the possible SEO benefits it also neglects to describe the content to the page visitors and the search engine crawl bots. At one time Anchor text was heavily manipulated and was referred to as Google Bombing. Google Bombing used large amounts of anchor text to influence the rank of a link that directed visitors to unrelated content. For example during the 2004 United States presidential election the anchor text of “miserable failure” was linked to the George W. Bush‘s White House biography so many times that when users searched for the terms miserable failure the link to the biography appeared in Google’s search results. However in January, 2007, Google created a new algorithm which reduced the impact of Google bombs but none the less anchor text still remains important… Read the rest
Tags: anchor text, hyperlink, link, reciprocal links, search engine
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO | No Comments »
Friday, September 2nd, 2011
What is an Infographic? An infographic is a pictorial representation of specific data or knowledge. Infographics can be a great way to showcase information on a particular subject area and can prove to be a good source of link value. Infographics have the ability to transform plain material into interesting and exciting web content. Over the past few years the value of infographics has grown tremendously because many have begun to recognize the potential they have to connect with their target audience.
from http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-essential-seo-infographics, September 2011
Link value or link juice is a term often used in Search Engine Optimization and refers to the amount of value that the search engines like Google attribute to a website or link. Link juice is assigned to web pages and is dispersed throughout a website based on how well your website is optimized. The more links and most importantly the more high quality links a website has directly translates into the more link juice a website is likely to have.
When talking about Links it is important to understand some important fundamentals. Total links quantity indicates the total number of links that your website or webpage possesses. The merit of these links can vary which brings us to the linking source. The linking source describes who is linking to your content and how credible or trustworthy they are. The sites that have a higher rank will pass on more value than those with a lower web rank. Even though the websites with a higher rank may provide more value it is also important to have diversity among your links. It’s ok to have links from lower ranked pages as long as there is a balance between link values.
Another major factor with links is anchor text. The anchor text is the keywords and descriptions other websites use when linking to your content. Accurate anchor text is essential for good SEO. You want something that describes your content well and not something like “Click… Read the rest
Tags: anchor text, backlinks, content, infographics, link juice, link value, linkbait, Links, seo, seo infographics
Posted in Backlinks, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
Friday, August 26th, 2011
One of the most important elements of creating a website is selecting a proper domain name. A domain name is commonly part of a larger Internet address called a “URL”. Having the right domain name for your website can significantly help establish an online reputation and generate greater visibility. Domain names give both the human visitors as well as the search engines the first description or impression of the website. Choosing a domain name can often be just as important as deciding the name of your business and should not be taken lightly. Finding a successful domain name will require time, patience, and creativity. The following tips are designed to assist in creating successful domain names.
Best Practices for Creating a Domain Name:
- Describe Your Website by Matching Your Domain, Website, and Company Name
A domain name is one of the first elements of a website that visitors see. Matching your domain with your company name will help target your existing as well as potential customers. Having a company and domain that describes your website will also let people know what the website is about and draw in targeted traffic. For example with the domain www.DeliciousPastries.com Delicious Pastries is the company name, website name, domain name, and also highlights Pastries a major descriptive keyword.
- Keep it Short and Readable-
There are several incentives for keeping your Domain name short which include it being easy to type, easy to remember, and easier to travel by word of mouth. A domain name that is longer than 3 words should use hyphens. However a domain name with more than 3 words and hyphens will raise the websites level of spamminess.
Having a keyword in your domain name will help rank not only because it is part of your domain but also because it is the anchor text that others will use to link back to your website.
- Alternative Domain Top Level Domains (TLD)
It’s recommended that you only purchase the .Com version of your… Read the rest
Tags: domain, domain names, internet, keywords, seo, url, urls, website
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Web Development | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 19th, 2011
One of the most important and easiest Search Engine Optimization concepts is keyword placement. SEO Keyword placement refers to the integration of targeted keywords into locations on and off the webpage. Keywords or key phrases are generated to represent the terms that users search for when trying to locate your company and website. A website using the wrong or inaccurate keywords is as equally bad as a website that ignores keywords all together.
Keyword Cloud
Having accurate and descriptive keywords however is only the first part of the equation. Once you establish a list of relevant keywords they then need to be strategically placed throughout the website in order to increase traffic. Each individual page of your website should be optimized for one to three unique keywords. Selecting keywords along with the placement of these keywords is crucial in order to increase your website’s visibility and guide targeted traffic directly to your website. Below are the 10 most important positions to consider when performing keyword placement.
Where to Use Keywords:
It is recommended that you always place your keywords near the beginning of the title tag. Not using your keywords in the website’s title tag can make it extremely difficult to rank for your targeted keywords. Keyword placement in the title tag is thought to be the most important search engine ranking factors, each page title should be unique to that page and optimized for that specific keyword.
Although the Meta Description Tag seems to play a very little role in the actual search engine ranking it can still be used to influence potential customers to visit your website. Any keywords that your description tag has in common with the search query will appear bolded in the Search engine results page (SERP). Similar to the title tag each page should also have a unique description tag that targets only 1-2 keywords.
… Read the rest
Tags: Internet Marketing, keyword, keyword placement, keywords, Links, search engine, seo, website
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Web Tips | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
Most people can agree that social media has drastically changed the way businesses perform online marketing. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have provided businesses with the resources to create detailed portfolios and interact freely with their customers. Some companies even believe that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no longer important and social media should be their main focus.
Does SEO still matter? Social media sites have done a great job of connecting businesses with customers. However even with all the advantages that social media has to offer it shouldn’t replace SEO. Instead social media websites should be thought of as a complement to SEO rather than its substitute.
There are many benefits to using social media like attracting new clients, staying in contact with clients, and the ability to build a positive reputation. It’s clear that due to its popularity social media has begun to push other key SEO elements into the background but that doesn’t mean those elements are not still important. As important as Social media is it remains only one portion of the SEO puzzle. The following is a list of reasons why SEO still matters.
1. SEO Finds The People That Want to Find You!
Social networking will put you in front of other social media users but that doesn’t mean they are customers. With SEO you have a better chance of being found by buyers. Social media is often used to communicate with users that are already part of your circle whereas SEO can be used to draw in users to your circle.
2. SEO Provides More Relevance to Customers!
Social media can increase awareness of your company but with Search Engine Optimization you can specifically target customers seeking your product or service. SEO helps you rank for relevant searches which increases the chance of conversion. Additionally each keyword can be optimized to target a different group of consumers.
3. SEO Enhances The Conversion Process!
As mentioned, SEO focuses more on increasing the chances of conversion. SEO focuses on streamlining the conversion process. Every step… Read the rest
Tags: Internet Marketing, marketing, media, search engine optimization, seo, social, Social Media
Posted in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »
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