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Showing posts from 2012

How Guest Blogging Can Grow Your Brand

by Kyle Blasco For all the aspiring or current blog writers out there looking to expand their audience and web presence , look no further than guest blogging. Guest blogging carries both good and bad connotations. Guest blogging enables you to build an audience around your brand , establish new connections in and out of your niche, and earn links back to your site (for SEO.) However, guest blogging has also brought low-quality spam content, which rots all over the web. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s possible to produce high-quality content and benefit from posting it on a website that is not your own. In this article, I will highlight the key strategies that will make guest blogging worth your time. Be Methodical in Your Research We all want to get out there and take action immediately, but that may not be the best idea with guest blogging. First, take time to research which blogs may be a good idea to contribute to. You want to target something with a...

The Social Integration of Search Engine Marketing

As time passes and social networks become more circular than ever, the thought should dawn on business operators and marketers alike that search engine optimization is becoming eerily similar to real marketing . We all know the days of implementing as many keywords as possible into an irrelevant piece of content hoping to achieve higher rankings. Those days are gone. Now search marketing all about getting social and sharing worthwhile content with a desired audience. People are searching in their World We live in a great big World, but for the most part we stick to our small, personal circles. Google + holds a lot of cards in determining how a business can rank. Though not super new, Google’s Search Plus Your World remains a game changer. The feature, launched in January earlier this year, makes all the social activity on Google + directly valid in terms of search engine listings. It’s up to the user to have their search results tailored personally to them—but who wouldn’t...

Pinterest as a Marketing Tool

The New Kind of Window Shopper Pinterest is an elite online photo sharing website, designed for people to organize and share all the things they love on a virtual pinning board. Once you join Pinterest , you have access to millions of “pins,” the images that have been posted by a user. People use Pinterest for a number of different reasons. Some are looking to collect delicious recipes, share their favorite books, movies, music, quotes, and get great ideas for a new hairstyle or DIY project. However, one of the most common uses of Pinterest a virtual kind of window shopping . Users seek images on the web or use their own digital photographs of clothes, furniture, art, jewelry, technology, etc. that they would love to own. Then, others who share the same passion for their style ideas can “like” the image or “re-pin” it onto their own board with the simple click of a button. Instantly, a limitless amount of images are available to millions of potential clients. A Snee...

Why Google+ is a Must for Small Businesses

 Many entrepreneurs are inquisitive to know whether Google+ can help them. Some of them feel already successful after using Twitter and Facebook hence they don’t see the need for a third social platform. The failures experienced while using Google in the past is among the reasons business owners are still raising questions even after the launch of Google+ . Well, the truth is Google is the leading search engine that is now integrating Google+ social activity with Google Search. Although Facebook has made a name as a social networking company, Google is establishing what some people think is an arduous alternative for small businesses . Below are just some of the cues to get you inspired: The Social Factors are Huge – Google is devoted to being social since it understands social sites generate greater traffic. You will start to see several integration pages among the search results. This trend of building loyalty in the social sense for those using Google+ can easily gain...

Discovering Your Ideal Customer: How to Build a Group of Passionate Fans from Nothing

Too many small businesses picture their target market to be everyone in their local proximity. This fallacy can lead to loss of focus, and potentially, a loss of business. For small businesses and start-ups, finding and catering to your target market as soon as possible will minimize time spent lost in the dark. Without a precise target market, your business plan will be spread too thin and you won’t be able to be everything to everyone. A good word in marketing is empathy , which is defined as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. Marketers need to be empathetic in order to cultivate a following of people who find value in your products and services. Below I offer some insights to help you discover your ideal customer and overall target market . Starting with the Smallest Market Possible Don’t get hung up only focusing on one customer, or one message. When starting out, there’s little to hang you...

Where will SEO be in 2013?

The World that Once was, Is, and Will Become The generation of our grandparents has lived without the Internet, cell phones, and social media for most of their lives. The current generation, labeled the Internet or Net Generation, has been fully immersed and utterly dominated by this technology. They carry it in their purses, school bags, and in their pockets. It’s in their homes, classrooms, and cars. No one knows and understands technology better, or can use it to cultivate and share information faster than ever before. But, what’s next? As we come to understand and speak with technology more and more, does that mean we become less in touch with how to talk to and influence our own kind? The Ways of the World Tend to Repeat Themselves Just like the current generation, SEO has become more about speaking with computers, teaching them how to deliver information to human beings through a set of codes or list of keywords. But, like most things in this world, a shift can begin that...

5 Tips for Google+ Socail Marketing

When it comes to social marketing, Google+ is one of the most powerful social networks that you can use. It is not only great for personal networking, but it can also work wonders for your business by connecting with like-minded consumers, vendors, and partners. Having a business that is successful online is not simply about writing content. You should also build relationships with your target demographic. Here are some tips for Google+ social marketing ; 1. Construct highly focused circles. When it comes to Google+, you connect with people through circles. To make the most of this circles-system, you'll want keep your circles organized and highly focused. So what is a focused circle? This is a group of people who have similar interests and aspirations, whether in their personal lives or business-wise. Before including people into a particular circle, you should establish what mutual benefits and aims you have in common. By using circles, you get the opportunity to det...

14 Awesome Tools from Google, for Righteous Business People

Over the years, the products and tools that have been created by Google labs have offered many benefits for righteous businesses . However, most of these Google tools are quite underutilized despite the fact that they come at no cost (and promote exceptional efficiently). So to enlighten the righteous business people of these great tools that Google has to offer, below we share 14 of the most popular tools for businesses. 1. Analytics : This is a solution to business owners who would like to keep track of their web traffic. By analyzing the web traffic to your site, you are better placed at creating ads for your target demographic, coming up with content that would be useful to your web traffic and more. 2. Alerts : If your type of business is dependent on staying up to date on the latest information in that particular niche, this would be the Google tool for you. All one should do is key in the topic or the keywords that you would like to keep track of, the kind of data th...

How to Attract New Google+ Followers

Google+ is one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the Internet. The greatest benefit of this platform over other social networking sites is that Google+ activity can actually appear in organic search. Additionally, Google+ is emerging with more players and individual consumers, and is projected by many experts to be the next (if not replace) Facebook. As a result, having a strong following on Google+ will only help your business and its marketing efforts. There are several ways that can help your business capture more Google+ followers. We outline many of them below. Write and Share Posts Regularly Writing and sharing posts regularly is important because it shows your followers you are active and can encourage recommendations. This is also an effective SEO technique, for your posts can appear in the search results on relevant keyword queries. A good way to help you post become found by new eyes (non-followers) is to use hashtags (#) in front of keywords in your ...

SEO Tips for Real Estate Professionals

For real estate agents, as is the case with other righteous business professionals, it is important that search engine optimization (SEO) is an integral aspect to their marketing efforts. SEO can result in a high ranking in the search engine results, which can translate to more hits and consequently greater sales potential. Although SEO employs the same concepts and strategies almost all righteous business professionals, there are always unique qualities per campaign. For real estate professionals, there are a number of components that must be included to best ensure a successful SEO strategy. Below we outline several SEO tips for real estate professionals: Define your goals : Your SEO campaign will not be effective if you do not have clearly defined goals. Your goals should not be high Internet traffic or big commission checks, it should be such things as a particular number of monthly newsletter subscription and search registrations and increase in certain parameters over the...

Is Your Local Business Righteous for Pinterest?

In its very essence, Pinterest is a socially-oriented image sharing site. This pinboard-style website allows for the creation and management of theme-based image collections like interests, events, and hobbies. You can browse the pinboards of others, re-pin images to your own collection, and like images that you may like. Pinterest was created by Paul Sciarra, Ben Silbermann, and Evan Sharp, and launched on March 2010. Twitter and Facebook are the undoubted leaders of the social media marketing world, but consider tapping into the power of the relatively new Pinterest. Some of the greatest advantages of using Pinterest for your business, according to comScore, are: Pinterest is one of the fastest growing standalone sites ever with 19 million users in March. The average user spends an average of 89 minutes on Pinterest, higher than LinkedIn and Twitter and only second to Facebook. You will get a targeted traffic of young females who are relationship-ori...

6 Tips for Writing Compelling Blog Titles

Blogs form an integral part of any good Internet marketing campaign. Blogs are key to keeping loyal consumers and readers informed and engaged with your brand. Quality and relevancy of your blog content is crucial. However, before users get to read the great content you have on your blog, you have to attract them to it in the first place. In order to achieve this, you must have a catchy, compelling blog title that makes users want to read what is in the blog post. There are several ways through which you can write blog titles that will attract many readers to your post. Below we offer 6 tips for  writing compelling blog titles : 1 .You should be precise, clear and to the point. From the title, the readers should instantly know what they are going to get when they read the content of your blog. If the title clearly captures what they are looking for then they are definitely going to read that blog post. 2. People will always be looking for blog posts that tell them how ...

Adapting Your Business to Evolving Trends

The digital landscape changes every day. It is important that businesses keep up with the latest changes since there is intense competition over the Internet. Every business should take advantage of social media, and the most righteous businesses use these channels strategically and creatively. Be Social & Start Learning About Your Target Market Having a presence in social media allows you to interact with customers and potential customers. This will help you in gaining more awareness of who your target market is , and the things they appreciate. In essence, a social media presence is an effective and cheap market research tool. Create a Facebook brand page, a Twitter account, and Google+ profile page. Start asking questions and starting getting insights. Sound simple? It is. Your business should take advantage of such geo-location check-in services as Facebook locations and Foursquare. These services are important because you will help potential clients/customers find ...

Competing with Cloud-Based Businesses

Accenture, a global management consulting, outsourcing and technology company that has a presence in over 120 countries (and a staff of over 246,000 people) recently released a report titled ‘Where the Cloud Meets Reality: Scaling to Succeed in New Business Models’. The report was based on phone and in-person interviews with 40 IT executives, operations executives, and business unit executives in 30 high-tech industry companies. All the businesses interviewed are Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service cloud-based businesses. The Interviews started in May 2011 and ended in November 2011. According to the research findings in ‘Where the Cloud Meets Reality: Scaling to Succeed in New Business Models’, high-tech companies are having a hard time transforming their traditional business models of shipping packaged software or hardware products to business models that provide new services based on cloud computing, the latter being more complex. The go...

The Mobile Future of Search Marketing

Many people are increasingly using the search engines to find information, products or services that they need. In the past, most of these searches have been performed using personal computers, but the trend is now changing. There has been an influx of mobile devices that allow users to access the Internet from just about anywhere, especially when they are on the move. The social networking sites are also very popular and are being used by millions of people all over the world. Many people now use their mobile internet devices to make searches online and also to access the social networking sites. This combination presents a great platform for the future of internet search marketing. Mobile + Social Infusion Businesses that are tech-savvy have recognized the role that mobile internet devices and the social networking sites are set to play in terms of internet marketing. Already, more than 50% of all online search activity occurs from mobile devices. This is because people con...

Google Drive Evokes Content Ownership Concerns

Google Drive is a new product by Google that enables users to upload content to a central platform where others can use and share the content. With all of the other Google products out there, like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calender, etc, it would be sensible to drop one's DropBox (a similar content sharing platform) for the new Google Drive. But before you accept this new product by Google, there are some notable implications that you might want to consider. Below is summary of the terms of DropBox and Google Drive (summed up Internet marketer by Jay Dahl.) So as you can see, any content you upload to Google Drive is essentially theirs. For many businesses (especially those in the SEO and website optimization professions) sharing their information with the big G is not in their best interests. Google Drive might still serve as a fine product for individuals and personal use. However, these terms are somewhat alarming, are they not? What do you think?

The Essence of Pinterest for Your Righteous Business Strategy

Social media sites have evolved from simple networking and friend sharing platforms to major marketing tools. As a result, businesses off all types are taking advantage of the immense popularity and marketing potential that these sites have to offer. A rising star in the line-up of social media players is Pinterest . Launched in 2010, Pinterest has grown to peak the interests of many people. The rich media-based social platform has grown at an alarming 4000% over the past six month alone. Furthermore, Pinterest has shown a greater influx of traffic over other social media sites like Google Plus and YouTube. The astounding growth of Pinterest must not go ignored, even by the small business marketers. Now rated the 3rd most popular social media network on the Web, Pinterest offers a unique platform that helps brands build awareness and customer acquisition. The Power Behind Pinterest Pinterest centers upon the sharing of interactive media, primarily images and videos. The ...

Why Internet Marketers Need to Ready Themselves for Industry Consolidation

The Internet marketing industry is on the verge of a significant movement toward consolidation. After years of developing niche specialties in the industry, many SEM and Internet marketing providers are under pressure from clients to offer a fuller range of services. In short, clients do not want to deal with a bunch of niche website specialists to meet their needs. Many prospects, particularly larger scale brands, want companies that can support a number of specialties , such as web design , SEO, copywriting, and Pay Per Click, to name a few.. Internet Marketers Moving Forward In order to meet this challenge, there will be two options for companies in the SEM and Internet marketing industry. The first one will be mergers by small companies to form larger, more viable entities. Such an approach will work for companies like Havas and GroupM, which offer niche specialties in the web world. The other strategy will be the acquisition of smaller website companies by larger organizati...