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Which Is Better – SEO or PPC?

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:19:25 +0000

Getting visitors to your site is accomplished in a couple of ways. By far the most popular and most effective ways of doing this is through SEO and/or PPC. However, as a site owner, do you know which method delivers the best results? The Costs Involved With PPC (Pay Per Click) you pay each time a person clicks on your advert and is directed to your website. Since you are paying per click, the more visitors you have to your site, the more money you need to spend. This is great if you are 100% certain of converting every visitor to a paying customer which will cover your costs. With SEO (Search Engine Optimization) you will be paying for a package which employs specific techniques to get your website on the top of search engine ranking pages. This means that rather than paying for results, you are paying for a process which is supposed to give you the results you want. The Final Results With PPC, you will be paying a high price for visibility. However, this does not necessarily result in paying customers. There will be a lot of people who are not necessarily looking for your products or [...]

Great Tips To Strengthen Your Local Marketing Campaign

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:11:58 +0000

Location-based marketing is accomplished using services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and SCBNGR. Engaging your customers using these services will increase customer loyalty, referrals and word-of-mouth advertising. These location-based services will help you in your local marketing campaign. Here are a few strategic and tactical tips to remember when using these location-based services. 1. Make sure you use the right platform. Each platform has its own pros and cons so make sure you use the platform that aligns with your campaign. 2. Make certain that your business is correctly formatted in Google Places. This is vital to any location-based marketing campaign. 3. Make sure you online business is worthy of visiting. 4. Get your foursquare venues merged or changed by a foursquare supersuser. 5. Decide on a budget and stick to it. It will help you measure the success of your campaign and keep you focused. 6. Make sure your staff is prepared and aware of all procedures. 7. Get your employees involved. 8. Use the badge options that reward customers. 9. Incorporate your loyalty program with the location-based services. Giving your customers more of an incentive to broadcast your message using [...]

Improve Your Website’s Usability And Readability

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:40:41 +0000

Below are a few tips and techniques that you can use to make your content more readable. This will impact on our website’s usability and popularity with your audience and get your readers coming back for more. The Objective Of User-Friendly Web Content In an effort to create readable and usable web content, the web page designers and writers need to pool their resources and work together. Web designers need to create a web design that will facilitate the readability of the content using colors, spacing and typography. It is then up to the writers to make sure that the information is quick to read, identify and internalize. You can achieve these objectives using these 7 easy practices 1. Keep Content Concise Most web users tend to skim pages rather than read the full articles. Make sure the relevant information is provided in short articles using short sentences and short words. Cut out any information that is not relevant (fluff), use short common words and avoid long winded sentences and paragraphs. 2. Make Use Of Heading In Longer Articles Most internet readers make use of block reading; looking for blocks of information they think contains what they are looking for. [...]

5 Original Ways To Use Twitter For Marketing

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:34:04 +0000

Twitter is a great tool for communicating with followers and engaging with them. However, the biggest mistake businesses make when using Twitter for marketing is using it purely as a sharing tool. For great marketing results, businesses need to use Twitter as a platform for open dialogues between themselves and their followers. There are 5 features of Twitter than can help businesses build their brand experience and make better associations with their followers. 1. To Locate Opportunities Use Advanced Search Options The advanced search opportunities on twitter allow you to find words that are commonly used by tweeters when looking for your products and services. You can then search the keywords and use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself to the person tweeting in an attempt to connect with them and start building a relationship. Also, you can search for tweets within a particular area which gives you the opportunity to reach out to a specific community. This is great for local businesses who want to connect to tweeters in the area in which they do business. 2. Boost Your SEO By Tweeting Often Tweeting frequently improves your standings in online searches and helps your business stay functional on [...]

Getting Your Content Shared On Social Media Networks

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:22:48 +0000

If you knew why your audience shared information on social networks, you would be in a better position to make your content stand out from your competitors and get it shared more often. To get your content shared you have to get exposure for your content, your audience must be aware that the content is out there and they must have a reason for wanting to share it. In this article we are going to look at reasons why people don’t share content. This is going to give you a better idea of how to create content that is going to be shared. These 9 reasons might be what are stopping people from sharing your information. You Are Not Seen As Trustworthy If people do not view you as trustworthy, they will not share your content. To turn this negative into a positive; be trusting and have open and honest discussions with your customers without being scared of negative feedback. Your Customers Don’t Remember Your Brand/Products Customers have short memories so they need to be constantly reminded about your products or brand. Make sure you offer your customers information that they want, fantastic deals and the opportunity to meet likeminded [...]

SEO Tactics To Steer Clear Of

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:15:48 +0000

While everyone is trying to maximize their search engine optimization using every SEO strategy they can find, there are a few SEO tactics you should avoid using. The strategies mentioned below will in no way help you reach your goal, in some instances they might even encumber your advancement. Do Not Try And Hide Links And Keywords On Your Web Pages There are a few methods that are commonly used to try and hide links and content on pages. However, Google and its web spam team are smarter than you think. You will sometimes get a little boost from some of these tricks, but more often than not, you could find yourself penalized. Don’t; • Use white text with a white background (or black on black for that matter) • Try hiding text over an image • Try and hide text with CSS • Try and hide links or keywords by using tiny text • Try and link from a comma, period or hyphen Don’t Partake In Keyword Stuffing Overdoing keywords is not a good idea. Besides trying to hide them (see above) others try and sneak them in using other methods. Don’t; • Make use of the Meta Keywords [...]

SEO Keyword Research Mistakes To Avoid

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:54:18 +0000

A large part of any successful SEO campaign is keyword research. However, this aspect is all too often overlooked and done incorrectly. Below are a few of the keyword research mistakes that are commonly made. 1. Being Unrealistic For a lot of businesses, high-competition keywords are not going to get them the results they need in a short to medium time period. It is unrealistic to target one keyword in the hopes of it being profitable. Targeting less competitive keywords, that have less traffic, is often the best way for a business to utilize their limited resources. Choosing lower traffic keywords that have less completion is one way of ensuring your website will dominate these areas in a short time period. This means seeing a lot more traffic from search engines than you would if you had targeted a more competitive keyword. 2. Using Broad Match Keywords Keyword research is measured by search volume; however, a lot of people are still looking at broad search volumes instead of exact match volume figures when using keyword tools. You need to make sure that the keyword you are targeting does not have a high broad match search volume but a very small [...]

Small Businesses – SEO And Keywords

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:13:30 +0000

Choosing the right keywords to use in your SEO campaign is imperative. Good keywords will directly influence the results of your campaign and deliver the results you are hoping for. Choosing the wrong keywords is going to get you the total opposite result. With any business, there are a lot of areas that you can specialize in and that you can try and rank for; however, it is impossible to rate for all of them so you have to choose the ones that will give you the best results. These are most often the keywords that have the least competition. Also, when you do not geo-target your keywords, people searching using these keywords are going to be searching nationally, giving you even more competition. It is therefore extremely important to geo-target your keywords since this will narrow down the customers who are more likely to buy from you and you will have fewer competitors to deal with. Using Keyword Research Different keywords and locations all affect the complexity of your SEO campaign. Using the SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool will provide you with the competitiveness of your proposed keywords. As you can clearly [...]

10 Tips To Increase Your Google+ Experience

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:24:55 +0000

By now most people are aware of Google+ and have had an invitation to try it out. If you have not had one already, don’t worry, it will not be long before you do. Here are 10 tips that will make your Google+ experience even better. Use Chrome The best browser to use is Chrome. Google+ looks, feels and works better when using Chrome which is not unexpected since they were both developed by Google. Download Google+/Chrome Extensions These extensions let you stay up-to-date will everything exciting, while you get on with your actual work. The Surplus extension lets you read, share and comment anywhere from the web and Google Plus Nick is offering short vanity URL’s – get them before anyone else. Deactivate E-mail Notifications The last thing you need is to keep getting notifications every time someone, somewhere, does anything. Once you have downloaded Surplus (see above) you will be notified anyway, so you won’t need the email notifications which can become downright annoying. Deactivate “Also email xxx people not yet using Google+” This feature is automatically selected and you will inadvertently send your Google+ status to hundreds of other Gmail contacts, besides your friends and work colleagues, [...]

Top Mobile Apps That Make The List Of Shame

Nerd Alert Czarine Cockerill — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:30:52 +0000

Mobile apps have become an integral part of how we use technology. An apps war is taking place between iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. This war is turning apps into silly diversions rather than applications that make our phones more versatile and functional. Below is a list of all the apps that are somewhat baffling to normal individuals looking for ways to improve their mobile experience. 1. Hurl This app is used in an attempt to get people to hurl shortly after they have eaten. This is its only function and it shows you changing degrees of spewing. It has identified itself as “disgusting” and I agree whole heartedly. Surely the world would be better off without this app. 2. Pickanexcuse Why in the world would anyone want to use this app to generate excuses? In my day, making excuses was part of the exhilaration when doing something wrong. “The dog ate my homework”, or “the computer crashed”; these are excuses that have been handed down from generation to generation; it disturbs me to think that people cannot even make up their own excuses these days. 3. Sex SMS Far worse than not being able to make up your own excuses, [...]