Archive for the ‘Blog Marketing’ Category
How To Succeed Online With Google Panda
Monday, January 30th, 2012
There’s been a lot of talk on the internet lately about something called Google Panda. While Google Panda remains a mystery, and a topic of little interest to many, if you want to succeed online, you must understand Google Panda and how to become its best friend.
Google Panda will have a direct impact on organic placement on Google guaranteed. It’s just a matter whether the impact is a positive or negative one. So, when determining how to advertise your business, you certainly want to make sure you are on the good side of Google Panda.
So, what is Google Panda? Google Panda is simply the new algorithm rolled out by Google. The engineer who spearheaded the project has the last name “Panda”, so there you have it. Now you know why it is called “Google Panda.” Unlike previous formulas Google has used, the criteria Google Panda uses to determine where a site ranks in the SERPs was decided on by human quality testers as opposed to a computer. These quality testers gave their feedback as to what they felt made a site search engine worthy or not worthy, and here are some of the new criteria that needs to be true of your site if you want to do well in the SERPs:
1) Have A Human Build Your Site
This won’t apply to most people, but if your site is built from a computer-generated template, bad news.
2) Limit The Advertising
Remember people go to a site to get valuable information in relation to a topic they’ve just searched. There not interested in just clicking on ads. Make your priority to provide valuable content. Having ads is fine. Just make sure that’s not the thrust of your site.
3) Bounce Rate
If you don’t have Google Analytics set up on your site, shame on you. You need it. It’s free. Bounce rate is the number of people who click on your site, and then quickly click off without going beyond the landing page. The lower your bounce rate, the better you’ll do with Google Panda.
4) Original Content
We all know that duplicate content is a no-no, so take time and create detailed, specific, unique content, and you’ll do well. Learning how to advertise your business is a process, but, just remember, if you always keep the best interests of your site visitor in mind, you’ll do well.
About the author
Brandon Jones is a Google Certified Partner who has been making money online since 2007. He writes on the topic of internet marketing on his blog www.mygooglemarketing.net
Optimizing Blogs for SEO
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
When it comes to blogging, you can’t simply write out your thoughts and expect it to be a success. Unfortunately, the world of blogging isn’t like the Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will not come. Instead, you need to find a way to get the public’s attention and draw them into your site. If this is a new website and you haven’t built up a following yet, use the internet to your advantage by optimizing your text for SEO.
What to do Prior to Launch
Sunday, January 15th, 2012
So you’re in the midst of building your website. You’ve got some content posted, maybe a widget here and there, you scored a deal with a $4.50 unlimited host and overall your site is starting to come together and you just can’t wait to launch. Well hold your horses because there are some things you may want to consider doing before launch that will not only make your launch more successful but also help you further down the line.
The Art of Finding Keywords
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
The Art of Finding Keywords
Several years ago, finding keywords was a breeze. Most of us can remember when coming up with a competitive keyword phrase was as easy as finding a niche market, buying an exact match domain name, and loading up pages with one- or two-word keyword phrases was about all there was to search engine optimization. Today however, things have changed. There is a definite art to finding keywords, which usually requires moving towards the long tail and getting a bit creative. But as long as you create a solid plan and pay attention to what other Internet marketers are doing, finding keywords isn’t really much more difficult than it used to be.
Using a Mind Map
In 2007, Google’s VP of Engineering, Ubi Mander gave a report on search volume and read one statistic that surprised quite a few Internet marketers. According to Mander, as many as 25 percent of the keywords that would be searched that day would be keywords that Google had never seen before. Today, the more than 15.4 billion searches that Google users perform each month haven’t yielded much different results — with around 20 percent being entirely unique each day.
For Internet marketers, this means that mind mapping has become one of the most effective ways to generate intelligent and profitable keyword phrases. Mind mapping is an excellent tool as it requires your own mind to generate keyword ideas, not other peoples’ publications or tools. In general, mind mapping is simply guessing which keyword phrases will gain traffic, based on popular phrases. Those popular phrases come with large competitors, and their large budgets. But you can target more specific phrases to get the smaller, and often more profitable, traffic volumes.
For example, consider the keyword phrase “wireless Internet” — a very competitive phrase. Now consider which searches are more likely to end in conversions. Many people that include terms like “buy” or “reviews” are in a buying mood. So, we can change up the keyword phrase a little bit to target a specific buying niche — like “2011 clear wireless reviews” or “clear wireless vs. AT&T” to cover wider buying areas and search trends. Finally, you can choose a much smaller niche within the same idea to narrow your customer base to even more targeted traffic. A keyword phrase like “CLEAR 4G reviews” would cover a niche area with a special interest in a current wireless Internet trend – without having to compete with the big box wireless Internet marketers.
Keyword Research Tools to Bookmark
Of course, there are also a variety of solid keyword research tools that you can use to generate high traffic keyword phrases, especially if you’re not the creative type. The Google Keyword Tool is fantastic for determining which keyword phrases get the most traffic. But there are a couple of tips to keep in mind when using it:
- Make sure you check the “Match Types” section on the left side of the screen on Google AdWords. You should always switch the Match Type from “Broad” to “Exact” for the most accurate results.
- You don’t have to enter any keywords at all to get solid keyword search data. Most beginners forget about the “Category” search available that can be used to check out search trends without having any ideas beforehand. Simply choose a “Category” just below the “Word or phrase” search box and check which keywords are getting the most traffic, with the least amount of competition of course.
- Pay very close attention to the “Global Monthly Searches” column to decide if you need to take a world view on your website. For example, searches that show high worldwide search volume but low local search volume may justify considering writing your website content with a world view (like not referring to the United States with phrases like “in our country”).
If you don’t get good results from the Google Keyword Tool, there are other similar tools that you can try, all of which either offer substantial free trials or are free to use. Some of these tools include:
UberSuggest — This tool is free and simple. Just enter a keyword phrase (we tried “wireless Internet”) and alphabetized ideas will be displayed. Some solid long-tail keyword options for the phrase “wireless Internet” were phrases like “wireless Internet for laptops pay as you go,” which could justify targeting some phrases containing “4G Internet plans.” Another solid phrase was a troubleshooting based one like “wireless Internet is slow.” Your lead generation website could offer your service as the solution to slow Internet.
Market Samurai — While you have to pay for the full version, the free version of Market Samurai is an excellent tool for identifying keyword phrases with low competition, and offers additional tools for analyzing your competition and organizing your website around your chosen keyword phrases. The people at Market Samurai also send out regular newsletters with keyword tips. But, as with all proprietary software, remember that anyone else with the program will have the same ideas as you get from the newsletters, so you might want to focus more on your own ideas.
Other Websites — Sites like SEOMoz.com, Viperchill.com, and SEOBook.com offer fantastic tips for performing keyword research. In fact, The Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research on Viperchill is one of the best guides to creatively finding new and profitable keyword phrases. SEOBook.com offers the best SEO forum in the world, although it does come with a hefty $300-a-month fee. However, I’ve been a member for two years and never regretted the fantastic tips that forum users have to offer. The fee also keeps the trolls and illegitimate marketers from spoiling the info on the forum.
News/Current Trends — If you run a news based site, or a blog for that matter, your best strategy is to keep your keywords fresh and current. Sites like Google Trends can help you identify keywords that people are searching for right now, that might not yet have much competition. One of the most profitable websites I ever owned involved checking Google Trends every morning at about 5 a.m. and checking which keywords had begun trending, usually involving celebrities or worldwide news, then writing a quick 250-300 word article targeting that phrase to get the maximum uptime throughout the day.
As you can see, there are many good options to find valuable keyword phrases without having to compete with large brands. The most important thing is to be creative when generating ideas. Your best ideas will come from your own experience and brainstorming sessions – so use those tools before resorting to any software or forums, which are open to countless other marketers. Remember to choose keywords that target searchers in a buying mood, not ones that simply draw non-paying traffic, and you should begin to see your website conversions slowly increase over time.
How to Market Your Green E-Commerce Business
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
Green is all the rage right now, and offering green and ethically sourced products is in itself a great way to market your business. Unfortunately, the web can sometimes be a very price sensitive place and it is often hard to be a green business and compete effectively with heavy discounters.
How then can you effectively market your green e-commerce business online?
Be green and proud!
By far your biggest selling point is that your products are ethical, so shout about it! It sounds silly, but it’s amazing how many businesses sell green products and don’t really make an effort to tell people about it.
Sometimes online, the difference between two competing businesses or products can be very small, and for many customers, remembering to point out that your products are more ethical can make the difference between a sale or not.
Be social!
Green products are absolutely ideal for social media. People love to talk about green issues, and most of your more social customers would probably be proud to tell their online peers that they buy green products.
You can also spend time blogging, tweeting and generally talking about the latest green trends and what you are doing about it. It makes great news and is good for your image.
Do PR!
You can take social media a step further and venture into PR – basically you need to position yourself as an expert and pioneer in green and ethical goods. A great way to start is by doing a survey on green products and find out some interesting stats about the greener side of your niche.
News sites, magazines and bloggers love to report on research – especially if you can include some interesting stats. It is easy to do if you already have a list of customers who you can ask for input from and can look great for your image.
Do PPC!
Because green products are generally more expensive than their mass produced alternatives, they can often be higher margin too – which means you might be able to make a profit from PPC where cheaper competitors cannot.
A great place to start is with Facebook ads, because you can target people with specific interests, so that your Ads are only displayed to green minded and socially conscious people.
Good business comes with good project management. Get an online project management degree to study the principles and best practices of project knowledge.
Summary:
Of course, marketing a green business isn’t all that different to marketing any e-commerce website, but the important thing to remember is that you are probably competing with cheaper alternatives, and you need to leverage your more ethical products wherever you can.
My name is Muzammil Bashir. I’m working with the Senior Editor of Net Effekt – A leading email marketing reseller.
If You Are An Affiliate Marketer – Making Twitter Give You The Results You Want
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
No doubt about Twitter being a challenge for many online businesses, but that does not mean you cannot do well using their unusual approach. Everybody knows about social media, but the thing about Twitter is that you will never get far if you violate the basic tenets of social marketing. You will need to understand what Twitter is all about, and then you have to work that into your business. You will need to start at the very beginning with following the right people so the right people follow you.
Be extremely aware of and careful about what you decide to promote in your Twitter campaigns. There are two main considerations with this; the first being your choice and if it is a solid product that people want to buy; the second has to do with what you do with it in your marketing. Product selection based on your research has to be first-rate because that is actually one of the greatest contributors to affiliate failure. The more seriously you take this one point, the better response you’ll get from your followers.
Any time your tweet is about something related to business or marketing, then be very sure they are designed to provide solid value. Be very careful about including too many sales copy elements in your tweets such as talking exclusively about product benefits. Anytime you tweet you want to offer something helpful and/or offer a link so they can check out something. Lots of things happen at Twitter, and you can use it as a springboard to other web properties. You can be a little bit more direct but only after you have been there a while and your followers know who you are and trust you.
Obviously Twitter and being there means you need to step out of your shell and interact with others. People flat-out will not be willing to do business with you if they have no idea who you are or what you are all about. Remember that there are many IM marketers and affiliate marketers who have been able to set-up their businesses at Twitter, and that means it can be done. If you do not mind making friends and speaking with others, then you will have an easier time of it.
As you can see, there is marketing life existing at Twitter but only if you learn how to play by the rules of engagement. You have to be consistent in your approach and practice patience, so that you’re able to see results coming your way. If there was any place that is more geared toward serious professional marketers, then it is this place simply because of what you need to do to make it work. If your business can benefit from a strong branding presence, then this is one site that can help you achieve that.
Dave has started web marketing since year 2003. In the event that you are searching for the office for rent in Singapore, his recent client who is located in Singapore is doing a commercial property business that’s about office for rent in Singapore.Visit the website.
6 Traffic Generation Tips for Bloggers
Friday, August 26th, 2011
If you want your blog to succeed, you need traffic. The best part is, you don’t need lots of money to sent people to your site. Traffic doesn’t come overnight; it requires time investment and a little beat of hard work.
Below are list of the twenty traffic generation tip your site needs to start generating reasonable blog visitors.
1. Attract search engine spiders
Write good search engine optimizable content at your site. These don’t only send you targeted traffic, but it’s free. When search engines indexed your site, you will get tons of traffic too your site from places like google, yahoo and bing.
When linking to pages within your blog, use keyword to hyperlink to any page. This helps explain that page and this may make the page rank higher for that page.
2. Submit your sites to search engines
There are hundreds of search engines online, but majority of internet users’ use the three most popular search engines, which are google, yahoo and bing. Submit each page you publish to this search engines and once you appear among the top three, your site will definitely appear in other search engine.
3. Comment on related blogs
Blogging is growing fast by the day and making comments in blogs has turn out to be one of the free ways of sending people to your blog.
Though not every one will visit your blog if your comment is not informative. If your blog comment is nothing to show, no one will visit your site.
To make the most out of your blog comments, it’s important to comment in blogs related to the theme f your blog and be among to the first five people to comment.
4. Guest post
One way to build your credibility and gain tons of traffic is via writing and submitting a guest post. This happens when you write post to authority site in exchange for link back to your blog.
This makes the site owner get some breaks from writing, while still updating its site on a regular basis and the guest author enjoys the exposure.
Look for sites under your niche, contact them and start submitting your guest post.
5. Utilize forums/message board
Look for forums under your niche, become a member and start posting. The great thing about forum is, you can create signature file and a link back to your blog will appear every time you make a post.
The key to becoming successful is when your forum post are informative, that people will click the link as they will tag you as an expert in that niche.
6. Give away free report
If you have some helpful information you want to give away, why not put it in an ebook format? You can create useful information imbedding links to your blog within the text.
When you have created a useful report with at least 10 long, you can give away for free with resale rights. When people sell your ebook, they make the money while you gain exposure.
Traffic generation is build over time, continues building of traffic helps you build credibility and visibility online.
14 Ways to Make Money From A Blog
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
When I explain to people what it is I do online, the first question I always get is “How do you make money from a blog?” Not everyone is familiar with how advertising on the internet works, so their curiosity is expected.
What really shocks me though, is that there’s also a ton of bloggers who still don’t understand exactly how to make money from their own blog. They’re usually stuck using Adsense alone, wondering when pennies will turn to dollars. If you want to earn six figures (or more) from blogging, you need to diversify.
Here are a number of ways to make money from your blog (both directly and indirectly):
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Why some blogs will never make money
Monday, August 1st, 2011
I think if most bloggers are honest they’ll admit that at some point they want to make money from their site, to me this is true even when blogging starts as a hobby. After all it’s supposed to be easy to earn money with the internet if you have lots of readers/visitors? Well no not exactly, just because you have lots of traffic doesn’t mean it’s worth money, just look at YouTube.
It’s hard to believe but in my opinion there’s only one reason why most blogs will never make a return, its targeting. Most bloggers don’t really care where the majority of their traffic comes from but understanding visitor intent is the key to making money. For example if you have a general personal blog that covers your daily thoughts on everything from where to eat to that time your car broke down then there’s zero targeting. On the other hand say you had a blog covering a specific niche like “gaming laptops” then your targeted audience will be very valuable to advertisers. It may sound like an exaggeration but I’ll take the laptop blog with 200 readers over “Paul’s personal blog” with 10,000 any day. Even with all that traffic the general site will make less, next time you’re on a “general” blog look at the advertising and I’ll bet you see banners on everything from “home loans” to “floor cleaner”, they have no target audience and so have to shoot for everything.
So if you’re reading this and thinking you’re going to have to start all over again with a new blog then don’t worry. It’s perfectly possible to re-define the target audience of almost any blog while still writing about what you love. The key is to find the niche within your site that you can expand upon. For example if you’ve written a lot of restaurant reviews in the past consider focusing your entire blog on this subject. You may choose to take it further by concentrating on a specific type of food or even city. The key principle is you want to be the big fish in the little pond and not the other way around.
I suppose some people are reading this and thinking:
“Why can’t I just write about whatever I want? I don’t want my blog to only be about one thing.”
Well I’m definitely not saying you can’t, after all that’s what makes the internet great. But the point I am trying to make is that when it comes to making money at this game the rules are different than when it’s just for fun. All advertisers demand results and it’s only when you deliver that your hobby can turn into a living.
For more blogging advice and ideas on how to earn money with your site check out Paul’s new webmaster blog.
3 Website Mistakes that Could Be Killing Your Conversions
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
When it comes to designing your business website, it is more important than ever to keep the customer in mind. All too often, site designers go for what looks good, rather than what is going to convert visitors into customers. The conversion rate of your website tells you a lot of important data that could potentially cost you in advertising. You also want to know, through your conversion numbers, how customers are interacting with your site’s elements, and what you can change about your site to increase that number.
Avoid Clutter
One of the biggest conversion killers is confusing clutter. When a visitor comes to your site, you want them to be able to know a few things immediately: what you are selling, why they should buy it, and how they can buy it. Those three things are the key to your site’s conversion rate. Unfortunately, too many site designers try to cram as much information as possible on their landing page. This, combined with useless information, pictures, animations, videos, links, and fireworks going off everywhere, can turn a visitor away in a hurry.
Check Your Links
Another trap to watch out for is links. If a customer finds your site using a search engine, and in the description, it says you sell widgets, but the link takes them to a page that has been removed, altered, or you no longer sell widgets, this is another visitor who will not become a customer. Checking your links, as well as your site’s pages’ metadata on a regular basis is a key to conversion success. Even the smallest, most seemingly harmless offenses can lead a customer to your competition. And as your business changes, so does your site. That is why it is crucial to make sure you are representing yourself accurately with your links, as well as your pages’ information.
Make Checking Out Easy
Perhaps one of the biggest conversion killers is the checkout process. As mentioned earlier, you want the customer to know right away how they can purchase your products or services, even if it is a simple checkout link. However, do not make the process cumbersome and difficult. If your site has a checkout system that is not working properly, consider hiring a professional to design a new one for you. Many sites use “out-of-the-box” checkout solutions. While these are not bad in and of themselves, they may not be right for your specific site and business. Consider going through, as a customer, and completing a transaction on your own site. With each click, think about how the process is affecting the customer and their experience with your business. You want the process to be smooth and easy, as well as memorable.
Eric Wyatt writes on internet marketing and social media. He particularly focuses on conversion rate optimization and landing page design.
5 Small Business Mistakes to Avoid
Friday, June 24th, 2011
We all know that mistakes are used to occur in running small business and in other works, its something we can’t predict that it will never happen. But, it can be avoided by being alerted in the way we perform our works, how serious we want to improve about it, learn from the previous mistakes and avoid to repeat.
While running small business there are certain things in which mistakes tend to occur, like building an asset for your business, dealing with your customers, sometimes out of touch with your business operations, etc. To avoid such situations, you can go through 5 identified mistakes with tips below which will give you an immense understanding and a clear idea to handle your small business prosperously.
No clarity with business definition
It is always better to have a clarity in what your aims as a business administrator and purposes of your business are. You can start with making a list of what you exactly want and expect, studying the interaction with your monthly visitors, tracking your sales to making partnerships, checking the comments given upon your business by your visitors and surveying on which route to make your new sales channels robust. Doing all these will help you in getting the clarity of your business definition.
Improper definition of target market
Sometimes, you get products in excess numbers that it often turned out to be lost for your business due to the idea that you want to sell so much to your customers. This is a wrong step and can be avoided once you learn the strategies of how much your target in marketing for certain periods are required. According to that, you can start putting your sales effort. Further, joining an online group or building a partnership that are related to your targeted marketing will boost your business profits.
No value in your products or service
Customers always feel happy and build trust if the products they bought proved to be of value and worth buying. So, it is wise to provide products or services like your pricing, your packaging and delivery that have a good quality. It will not only give them satisfaction but also build a good image of your business.
Poor in making commitment
Lack of commitment is one of the criteria that caused you lost your customers and partners and making your business fail. It is highly recommendable to keep the words you promised to your customers and partners and deliver it on time. Though, sometimes it proves to be in vain, it is always better to remain consistent with your efforts and never lose hope because the services you provided with hard work and commitment will not go unnoticed. There will be a reward in the end.
Absence of legal approach
Not using a lawyer in your business matters regarding about making a deal with your customers or partners will make your business look unprofessional. Since, every business sale requires contract, prior information of legal involvement should be highlighted to avoid the misuse of your business functions and other facilities. This will enhance the professional way of work, regulation and business transactions in fair manner.
By learning these 5 mistakes and remaining cognizant with the entire functions of your business, you will be able to control and run your small business smoothly. Therefore, learning from your mistakes and being alerted for not repeating are the best steps to climb up the success ladder with strong foundation.
Author Bio : This post is shared by Rachit Arora. He works as an E-Marketing Executive for Invoicera, an Online invoicing and time tracking software.
Firefox 4 Features To Look Out For
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
Once seen as a worthy alternative to leading web browser Internet Explorer, Firefox has lost a bit of its appeal over the years. The Mozilla Corporation is out to regain some momentum with the recent introduction of Firefox 4, the latest version of the popular open source web browser software. As expected, this update offers several features designed to improve the user experience, in addition to some enhancements that could also be useful from a business aspect. If online marketing is your thing, the following features may warrant your attention.
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