However, the rapidly increasing growth of social media has also given rise to multiple misconceptions or myths. You, as a smart business owner, need to break out of these myths as quickly as possible.

Given below are 3 biggest myths about social media marketing that you should reject right away to realize the true potential of powerful social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linked, YouTube and the recently launched Google Plus.

#1. Social Media is Optional

Thinking that social media marketing is only optional is a huge mistake that businesses can make. As mentioned above, around 43% of all online consumers use one social media website or another.

If you think social media is optional, you should consider these mind-bending statistics –

According to HarpSocial, 53% of people who use Twitter recommend a service or product while tweeting. An Econsultancy report, on the other hand, indicates that around 200 million Facebook users use this social media site via a mobile device. Nuvvo finds out that 1.4 million new blog posts are published everyday.

Businesses should, therefore, quickly reject the myth that social media is not mandatory. No matter what the size of your business is, you can always find and target your audience on the popular social platforms.

#2. Social Media is Tough

Certainly, social media is not going to give you results overnight. Social media marketing is all about connecting with consumers on a personal level. To engage your target audience, you really need to earn their trust, provide solutions to their day-to-day problems and gain credibility for your brand. If you aren’t ready to dedicate yourself to building a community of loyal followers around your brand, you shouldn’t use social media.

#3. Social Media is Free

Anyone who thinks social media is free has, most probably, not used social media yet. If you own a business and want to grow it through social media marketing, you should quickly reject this myth.

Definitely, social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus are free to use. However, social media marketing requires an adequate investment of both time and money. Whether you are a small business with just two employees or a company with a thousand employees, you’ll need to spend time on social media. You may also need to spend thousands of dollars on social media marketing depending on the business objectives you want to fulfill.

Beware; such myths can prevent you from using the social media tools effectively! What other social media fears are you still holding onto? Please feel free to share your views and comments below.

The post 3 Biggest Social Media Marketing Myths That You Need to Break Out Of Immediately first appeared on StayOnSearch.

When a start-up company thinks of creating a website, having to compete with this staggering amount of web pages for the attention of people numbering less than half of that seems like a futile task. What makes the seemingly monumental feat of capturing the astounding but limited number of people’s interest is Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

It is true; there are already tons of articles online giving tips and lessons on the basics of SEO. But with the ever-changing and dynamic world of the Internet, of search engines and of online marketing, there’s no other way to rise above the competition than to hire an experienced and highly-skilled professional, or a company filled with such.

Why hire an SEO company?

Through good SEO, a website will have increased Internet visibility, as it will turn up in the first couple of pages in search engine results. This is crucial as a majority of Internet users do not bother go past the third page.

If the SEO is done properly, the amount of visitors for the site would increase, and these visitors would eventually turn into actual customers who will spend on the product or service being sold.

The problem is that some companies look to cut costs, having their web designers or programmers use what little they know of good SEO. Some just try to learn it by themselves while balancing their main workload. This results in poor returns, costing more than hiring SEO specialists with years of experience and updated knowledge.

SEO is Not Cheap

What should be made clear at once is that SEO does not come cheap. It takes plenty of time and effort to come up with an efficient SEO plan, and for that plan to come into fruition. To illustrate in detail, here are seven major reasons:

1. Strategy Development

Before starting any money-making endeavor, there first needs to be a well thought out plan to ensure profit. SEO consultancies will want to discuss what exactly a company aims to achieve.

It is not simply about getting to the first page of a search engine result. Identifying the precise target market, understanding what the target market is looking for, and finding the best way to deliver what they want are just some of the things that need to be discussed during the consultation.

2. Website Design

Much like any structure, the foundation of the website will dictate how high it can go. The SEO will have to check each page in the entire website to see its potential faults and strengths, and this can be a time-consuming process if the company has a huge network.

If a website is designed first before an SEO consultancy is hired, it might be done without having crucial components like proper page linking in mind. The worst case scenario would mean having to tear down the whole website and create an entirely new one.

3. Keyword Research

One of the essential elements of SEO is knowing which keywords will get picked up by search engines and will lure eyes onto a certain website.

Certain keywords are highly competitive, which means that much bigger and more established websites have already staked their claims on them. To use those same exact keywords for a new website would invite disaster, unless the company can match or exceed the resources of those on top.

SEO consultancies will be able to point out which keywords should be used in content, in author bios, and in HTML tags to raise a website’s profile.

4. Content Creation

Once people have decided to visit a website, they need to get what they are looking for. Search engines have a way of checking for relevant and original content, so they can direct searchers to helpful content while they filter out useless information.

Providing content that people will find useful requires highly competent individuals. Getting quality work from such individuals also requires financial investment.

5. Search Engine Registration

Having a website appear in one popular search engine can be simple, but knowing which search engines can be harnessed to deliver more visitors requires the expertise of an SEO specialist. They recognize the possibilities of smaller search engines, the system updates of the bigger ones, and the changes that need to be applied on a website to rank in all known search engines.

6. Link Building

Another important process in increasing prominence for a website is through finding other relevant sites that can link back to the website being promoted. Being part of a larger network multiplies the number of visitors to one, as it is exposed to a bigger audience. It also strengthens its credibility, as it has been given the trust of other credible sites.

SEO specialists do the hard work of indicating which websites are relevant and reputable but not directly competing with the one being promoted. They also have to cooperate with the other businesses, giving and taking to guarantee both sides benefit from the partnership.

7. Traffic Checking

Getting visits and generating interest on a website is different from earning money from the number of site visitors. The underlying reason for hiring SEOs is to profit off the attention given to the website by converting curious visitors to paying customers.

Professional SEOs can track the quantity of people visiting and how many of those have started shelling out money as proof of their effect on boosting sales.

It also does not necessarily come at a fortune. What companies looking to hire SEO consultants need to know is that they will be paying for what they want to accomplish.

The danger lies in going for SEO “companies” that charge very little and promise much. These companies often employ inefficient and/or unethical methods to artificially improve a website’s page rank. These can cause more harm than good, as search engines are now penalizing websites and pages that make use of improper practices.

Disadvantages of Hiring Unreliable SEO Practitioners

• Outsourced Content Writers

Labor overseas is much cheaper, so these companies outsource their content development team to cut costs. In the process, they end up with numerous fast writers who have little to no grasp of the niche, target market, or nature of the website or business.

Some even end up with writers who do not have mastery of the English language and culture. Articles abound with typographical and grammatical errors. Search engines have ways to detect such content and filter them.

• Spam Generating Software

Because of how little they charge, it should be expected that they do not put in much work. They utilize software that can produce hundreds of automated emails, comments or forum topics that link to the website they are “optimizing”.

People will be able to tell that these are spam as they are mostly incoherent, repetitive and irrelevant statements linking over and over to certain websites. This builds a bad reputation for that business as they will be known for spamming. Search engines will then start penalizing the website.

• Black Hat SEO Techniques

These are techniques that try to cheat the systems of search engines. They require knowledge of how search engines operate, but only very little effort in carrying them out.

Examples of which are the use of programs to plagiarize content from other websites wholesale with simple rearrangement; keyword stuffing or the practice of using keywords repeated innumerable times in one page; and hiding keywords in backgrounds and cloaking pages with different content to deceive search engines.

Again, search engines are continuously evolving and upgrading to be able to catch such unscrupulous practices, banning websites that commit them.

In a nutshell, cheap SEO services only result in costing a business, either through no returns or through strict website penalties. Legitimate SEO companies might cost more initially, but their long-term effects offer handsome returns not only in sales, but in the company’s overall online reputation.

The post Why Invest on SEO Even Though It Isn’t Cheap? first appeared on StayOnSearch.

Why HubPages out of all of the other article directories and income sharing content generation sites? HubPages gives you dofollow backlinks to your blog on a PR 6 root domain, once your profile reaches a certain score. They also allow you to directly connect your affiliate accounts directly into their site so you can see the revenue you are making through each on your hubs. While Squidoo is another great site to make income off of, it does not allow you the in-depth anlaysis into your income generation like HubPages does. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

Setting Up Your HubPages Account

First, if you haven’t already, you will want to setup. The signup process is pretty standard, so there is nothing to really get excited about. What you do want to do, though, is get your profile and affiliate settings setup. Simply go to your profile and edit, and in the bio box, enter as much text as you like about yourself and your blog with keyword anchor text links to the homepage, favorite posts, etc.

Then, under Affiliate Settings, add in your Adsense, Amazon, Ebay, and Kontera account numbers and identifiers.

This is also where you will want to add your Google Analytics tracking code so you can monitor more in-depth statistics about your hubs.

Last, but not least, be sure to create a custom URL / referrer tracker so you can make money off of anyone you refer to HubPages as well.

Boosting Your Profile Score

Now, to get dofollow links back to your blog through your hubs, you will need to get a profile score of 75 or higher. With a semi-passive approach, it took two weeks, two hubs, and about 13 comments on other hubs, forum posts, and questions to get the score needed. I’m sure that can be done faster with a little more time spent on the network, but as you can see, it doesn’t take too much to get there, activity wise.

Building Great Hubs

To build great hubs that make money, you will want to do some keyword research based on your topic. Use tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool and be sure to enable the Estimated Avg. CPC column so you can see the keyword phrases that get the highest dollar amount to ensure better Adsense earnings.

Great hubs consist of multiple elements – text, photos, video, Ebay, and Amazon modules will give your hub an overall higher score as well as more revenue options.

Monitoring Your Adsense Earnings

One way to see how your hubs are coming along in the monetization department is to always remember to create an individual URL channel for each of your hubs individually. To do this, go into your Google Adsense account and click on the Adsense Setup tab, then Channels. Switch to URL channels, and Add a New URL Channel which will be a direct link to your hubs.

This way, you will see which ones specifically get clicks and how much they make.

Promoting Your Hubs

Part of your hub’s score and profile score comes from the popularity of your hubs. Therefore, it is important to do things such as build a few links to them via blog commenting and social bookmarking, especially on sites that drive a lot of traffic such as StumbleUpon. Also, if you have a Twitter account, be sure to tweet it out to your followers, share it on Facebook, etc.

Your Take on HubPages

Do you use HubPages for link building and making money online? Share your experience in the comments!

The post Using HubPages to Make Money Online and Build Backlinks to Your Blog first appeared on StayOnSearch.

Some have felt that deep links cause visitors to bypass the site’s main advertising or branding page. Others have felt that visitors are more likely to interpret the linked page as part of the website that linked to it.

Despite this mentality, albeit dwindling, deep links can actually be really good for a website. Here’s a list of five benefits provided to a website by deep inbound links:

1. Deep Links Improve your Search Engine Rankings

If you are serious about optimizing your website, you likely know that inbound links can boost the site’s search engine rankings. The more high-authority sites that link your way, the higher your site will appear in search results pages (SERPs). Well, your rankings can improve even more dramatically if other sites are linking to a variety of your site’s pages, not just the home page. This indicates to the search engines that the content throughout your site is worthwhile. Google and other search engines will reward you by improving your standing in the SERPs. Also, having deep links implies you are getting links the natural way (editorial links) as opposed to paying for them. A fair amount of the paid link services will only perform link building to your site’s homepage.

2. Deep Links Increase your Site’s Traffic

If deep links can increase your search engine rankings, it’s pretty much a given they can increase your site’s traffic. The higher your site appears in search engine results, the more people who will know about your site, and the more people who will visit it. Those who find the site through a deep link are more likely to return to the site than those who find the site through a generic homepage link. That’s because a deep link, being more targeted, is a more likely to give people what they want. If a blog mentions the new type of organic dog treat your online grocery store sells, for example, you’re probably better served by a link directly to a page featuring that product than the store’s homepage. If the visit easily fulfills its purpose, people are more likely to return to the site.

3. Deep Links Let You Target Different Keyword Groups

If more of your site’s pages get inbound links, then more of your site’s pages will get indexed by search engines. If more of your pages are indexed, more of them will be crawled during Internet searches. That opens up many keyword opportunities for your site. Instead of trying to cram all of your site’s keywords into your homepage, or another main page, you can target different keyword groups on different pages. Going back to the online grocery store example, your main keywords for a page about organic dog treats might be “organic dog treats,” “buy organic dog treats,” “organic dog treats sale,” “organic puppy treats” and so on. Ideally for each different product page you have different target keywords.

4. Deep Links Keep Old Content Alive

Many company sites now maintain blogs as a way to engage and interact with readers and increase site traffic. Unfortunately, many of the older blog entries get buried within the site and are never read again. You can revive these old posts by linking to them in your new blog posts. Anytime you’re blogging about something relevant to a past blog post, add a link. A reader might click on the link, read the old post, and link to it himself. Good posts can go viral weeks, months, or even years after they were originally written. Another good way to keep older posts alive is by posting a monthly summary of the previous month’s top posts, and linking to them.

5. Deep Links Can Help You Learn About and Improve Your Site

Without deep links, people may rarely get beyond your site’s homepage. That doesn’t mean your site doesn’t have good content, it just means that people don’t have an easy way of getting to it. With deep links, people have a fairly effortless way to reach your site’s various pages. Once you have a substantial number of deep links, and a resulting increase in site traffic, you can really start benefiting from a Web or keyword analytics tool. You can see which pages people visit the most and which pages people spend the most time on. This can help you determine which of your pages are most appealing to readers or customers, and which can be improved upon. Determine which techniques attract visitors, and implement those on the appropriate pages.

About The Author

Larry Kim is the founder and VP of product development at WordStream, a provider of advanced SEO tools and pay-per-click advertising software for search engine marketing efforts. WordStream also offers a FREE keyword analyzer tool for conducting keyword research and discovering profitable head, mid- and long-tail keywords.

The post The Value of Deep Links first appeared on StayOnSearch.

• 39% of consumers plan to wait and see if the product they want to buy will go on sale
• 24% of consumers plan on purchasing lower-cost alternatives to brand they normally purchase
• Retailers plan on keeping smaller inventories, increase customer support, and enhance the website with greater usability and social media tools.

Coupon Usage During the Holidays

The number of searchers for coupon related searches is up from 2008.  That means that consumers are being more careful with every dollar they spend.

Sites like RetailMeNot, FatWallet, and SlickDeals aggregate coupons, promo codes, and special offers from hundreds of retailers to help consumers save money.  DealTaker.com is leveraging Twitter to promote their site and give online shoppers an easy way to find coupons to stores they are looking for.  Simply tweet @couponbot “store name” and DealTaker will reply to your tweet with the most current coupons/promos for that store.

Finding the Hot Products for the 2009 Holiday Season

There are a number of online retailers who are giving some insights as to which products they feel will be the hot products for the holidays.

Huge Toy Retailer Toys R Us created the 2009 Hot Holiday Toy List that have been hand picked to highlight the most popular toys throughout the year.

Amazon.com has a toy list of over 400 toys, games, sports gears, movies and gadgets to help you find great gifts for this upcoming holiday season.

Cyber Monday: November 29th, 2009

For those who are not familiar with the term “Cyber Monday“, it is the internet’s equivalent to Black Friday.  It marks the beginning of online shopping for the upcoming holiday season.   Online retailers offer amazing deals to entice online shoppers to purchase gifts for the holidays.

Historically, there has been an increase in sales on Cyber Monday, however from 2007 to 2008 there was a slight decrease.  To make up for the down economy and people spending less, retailers are trying to promote holiday specials earlier than normal to try and make up for lost revenue.

Resources for the Upcoming Holiday Season

YouTube and Target have partnered to give you Holiday Solutions.  Your one stop shop for house/party ideas, gift giving tips, party recipes, and holiday related videos.  This is a unique way for both YouTube and Target to engage with online shoppers, by offering a free resource for the holidays.  With useful content and holiday products built right into this Holiday Solutions YouTube channel, Target can take advantage of people looking to purchase products/gifts for upcoming holiday parties.

Tips on Increasing Online Sales This Holiday Season

The Google Retail Advertising Blog wrote a post about how to give incentives to your online shoppers. Even in a down economy there are still people buying, they are just more cautious.

• 87% of shoppers plan on taking advantage of discount pricing or holiday speccials
• 73% of consumers plan on taking advantage of free shipping

With that being said, over 260 retailers are participating in National Free Shipping Day to try and lure more buyers.

In another related post, Google talks about when people are likely to purchase during the holiday season.

• 46% of consumers plan on purchasing the majority of their gift during early or late December.

Sears is using their “Black Friday Now! Doorbusters” promotion to try and extend the busiest shopping day of the year, by offering black friday deals every Saturday through Christmas.

More Quick Tips for better Usability and Conversions

• Offer multiple payment options
• Offer a timely incentive (free shipping, discount, good until xx/09
• Decrease number of steps to purchase
• Make sure products are in stock
• Create pre-packaged deals or discounts for bulk orders
• Follow up email marketing campaign for complimentary products
• Leverage social media to engage users and promote sales

Related Videos

Retailers Share Their Holiday Tactics: Embrace Multi-Channel (Part 1)

Retailers Share Their Holiday Tactics: Embrace Multi-Channel (Part 2)

Retailers Share Their Holiday Tactics: Embrace Multi-Channel (Part 3)

Related Posts

• Search Marketing Now: Online Retail 2009: Tips, Tactics and Timeline for Success [Webinar]
• Forrester: US Online Holiday Retail Forecast, 2009 [$499 PDF]
• National Free Shipping Day, December 17th, 2009
• Retail Ecommerce:  Boost Holiday Sales – Convert Browsers into Buyers

The post Holiday Marketing Guide 2009: Hot Products, Tips, & Resources for Online Retailers first appeared on StayOnSearch.

1. Initial Keyword List: To start your keyword research you want to brainstorm a starter list of keywords, phrases, and terms that you feel people would use to find you. Since you probably have a pretty good idea about your industry, you could probably come up with 5-10 keywords that people would use to find you. That list that you just created will act as a starting point to find other keywords and phrases that you may have missed or didn’t think about.
2. Analytics Data: If possible, look through your analytics data to see which keywords people used to find you. Ideally if you have goals set up, for example, you are tracking a thank you page on your contact form, sort your keywords by contact forms submitted. This will help you find keywords that most importantly converted to leads or sales.
3. Keyword Research Tool: There are plenty of good keyword research tools that you can use to find additional terms, along with their search volume. Even some of the free keyword tools out there are almost, or as powerful, as the paid tools. Put your initial keyword list into these keyword tools and they will generate a huge list of related terms that you can add to your master keyword list.
4. Analyze Your Master Keyword List: Once you have come up with your master keyword list, find the words that are most relevant to what you do and the content on your site. Use those keyword tools to see how often each of those terms are actually being searched. Even though the tools give you estimates, you can still get a pretty good estimate.
5. Test in PPC (Optional): I made this step optional because some smaller businesses simply do not have the funding to spend on pay-per-click campaigns. However if you are able to, test out those keywords in Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. PPC advertising is great for seeing if those terms are actually getting searched. Once you have enough data that is statistically significant you can pull some hard numbers to show which keywords/phrases are being searched.
6. Implementing those Keywords: Once you have come up with your list and possibly tested them, you can then optimize your site for those keywords. Use those keywords in your title tags, meta tags, throughout your content, links, etc…

For more information on keyword research check out Back To The Basics: Getting Started with Keyword Research

Search Term: Chevy Cobalt

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

<< Part 1: Search Engine Friendly Site Structure Part 3: Website Usability >>

The post Your Website SEO Checkup: Part 2 of 8 – Keyword Research first appeared on StayOnSearch.

What is a Product Recommendation Engine?

A product recommendation engine takes into account the user’s previous internet browsing history and display a list of relevant products to them on their homepages. Two key players in this field are Amazon and Ebay – visit these sites and you’ll notice right away custom-tailored products delivered to the homepage for your viewing.  The entire product and service database of their website is accessed by product recommendation engines.

Product recommendation engines take into account not only the description of the product or service but information it can obtain from your own social environment and previous web history.

How Does a Product Recommendation Engine Work?

To come up with accurate results for a website’s potential customers, product recommendation engines take into account the following approaches:

Collaborative Filtering

With this approach, a product recommendation engine first gains access to a pool of users and collects data based on their behavior online, their activities, and their preferences. All the information collected is then filtered and submitted to a platform which categorizes them into products that a group of users may like or dislike. Upon entering the site, this recommendation method determines which group of users you belong to and provide recommendations on the assumption that your tastes are similar to users it had studied in the past.

Content-based Filtering

Activities, browsing history, and preferences attributed to you alone are considered with this type of approach. The more time you spend browsing the site, the more effective this approach will be as the product recommendation engine has little to base its recommendations on during the first few times you visit the site. You’ll find the first few visits produce results that aren’t as accurate the longer your visiting the site.

Hybrid Recommender Systems

The hybrid recommender system provides the best of the two aforementioned strategies, which many consider make it the best out the three approaches. Because the web behavior, activities, and preferences of similar users as well as those attributed to the actual target customer are both considered, the product search engine has more information to work with. The result is having a much better chance of improving the accuracy and validity of its predictions.

If you haven’t already, it might be a good decision to install a product recommendation in your own shopping website. A good example of the breath of work these engines provide is on Amazon, which utilizes a product recommendation engine to come up with different types of recommendations such as “Related Items” or “Items to Consider”. A list of “previously viewed items” is even included, which shows how you can apply a variety of predictions or recommended products to your own site.

The post Introduction to Product Recommendation Engines first appeared on StayOnSearch.

Manual Tracking

The simplest method with very minimal upfront costs (you just need a customer service representative and a phone) is to ask your potential client how they found you. The majority of all websites have a “Contact” link on their website through which users can access the company’s phone number and call them to get more information about a product or service. But how many of you as a business owner or employee monitor your phone calls? How many of you ask your potential client how they found you? Even if you do ask them these questions and they answer you with a substantive answer, such as on a Search Engine; do you take it one step further and ask them which keyword they typed to find you? The unfortunate reality is that many of them won’t remember.  This is an extremely crucial piece of data that you need to know if you wish to determine whether your online advertising is successful. Remember, people these days are very busy and want information right away. They don’t want to wait for a reply after filling out a form. It is easier and quicker for many to call and get the answers they want immediately.

Manual Tracking plus a set of phone numbers

There are a few different approaches one can take to tackle the issue of tracking calls. The most hectic method is by manually coding in different phone numbers on various landing pages of your website or within the different channels of your marketing campaign. For example, if you have a product page and a client calls your regarding a product, you would have to write down the phone number and the time that the person called.  You would then have to collect information based on how the client found you. Did they find you by referral, advertisement and/or search engine? If, search engine what keyword did they type to find you?

Multiple Phone Numbers

1-800-xxx-0001, 1-800-xxx-0002, … , 1-800-xxx-000n

One of the most widely-used methods is the automated and dynamic call number generator that presents a unique phone number on a given page of a website. These numbers are generated based on different mediums, such as traffic source, campaigns or even keywords. These softwares and systems have the ability to be linked with well known industry Analytics tool such as Google Analytics or Omniture. The biggest concern with this type of implementation is the amount and variations of different phone numbers.  This brings up issues of branding your phone number and the reliability of prospects using the same number to call in with.

One Phone Number plus Unique Codes

Another method that has also been started to use considering its cost effectiveness, is by placing a tracker code, similar to Google Analytics, and reference key. These trackers interlinked with analytic systems like Google Analytics can enable you to monitor the number of calls that were generated and view complete data that is readily available within the interface, such as time spent on the site to the keyword that generated the traffic.

Every software or system has different types of features available to target different types of businesses. Below are a few well-known call tracking system providers that we decided to showcase:

AvidTrak

• AvidTrak has been rated as the #1 Call Tracking Software & System by Top SEOs
• Provides phone call conversion tracking for offline print media, and online Internet banner ads, pay per click and other search engine marketing campaigns
• Starting price of $3.50 per telephone number per month
• Per minute toll charges range from 5.5 cents to 8.5 cents depending on the call volume

Mongoose Metrics

• Offers 2 primary solutions: the AccuTrack 1:1 and the AccuTrack Session
• ·         AccuTrack 1:1 is for organizations that want to integrate phone numbers into offline marketing campaigns, and for those looking for a high-level understanding of what online marketing initiatives drive phone conversions
• The AccuTrack Session incorporates all features of the AccuTrack 1:1 alongside the ability to track and record granular details about individual callers, such as keyword searched and last URL visited
• Starting price is $100/month

IfByPhone

• ·         Call tracking features are divided into 4 primary products, namely the SourceTrak Basic, SourceTrak Dynamic, SourceTrak Dynamic Groups, SourceTrak Session
• Pricing is explicitly separated into 3 packages – Basic monthly fees is $49.95 whereas the Complete package charges $74.95 per month
• Per minute toll charges range from 3.5 cents to 7.9 cents depending on the call volume per month

REF:CODE Analytics

• Call tracking analytics tool that is best suited for small to mid-sized businesses
• REF:CODE Analytics uses a reference key so you don’t need to change your phone numbers or display new ones
• Fully integratable with Google Analytics letting you track goals and comparing website visitor experience of online leads to direct calls, as well as extract analytics reports for specific dates and traffic sources
• Full website visitor history is recorded
• Currently in Beta mode so the tool is totally free to use

Depending on your company’s budget and the volume of phone calls that it receives, one may want to start looking into manually tracking phone calls in the initial phases of the marketing campaign. As your business expands and grows, you may want to upgrade to a service that caters better towards the volume of calls you receive. Ensure that thorough research is conducted before opting for any service and find out what they specifically offer and how they can help your corporate in particular. At the end of all this, your primary goal is to find out where your clients found you and whether or not your marketing strategies are working. Once determined, you are well set for making strategic marketing decisions for your businesses, based off the quantitative data that you now possess.

Have you had any experience with any call tracking systems? We would love to hear your thoughts and methods through which your business has been able to track calls metrics.

The post Call Tracking Systems for Your Internet Marketing Campaigns first appeared on StayOnSearch.

Finding Influential Twitterers

So first off, how do you find the most influential Twitter users? One way is to look at the number of followers someone has. It’s not a sure fire way to know how powerful they are, but it is a start at knowing how many people are listening to them. Here are a few free Twitter tools to start with.

Wefollow

Wefollow allows Twitter users to tag themselves with the categories they fit in. You can search these tags to find the influential users within that topic.

You can also change tabs on the results and see the users with the most followers, as you will find that sometimes the most followers does not equal the most influence.

TwitterCounter

TwitterCounter is a service that measures users’ Twitter following. It has a handy search feature that allows you to search people based on the information in their Twitter profile and see their follower and following count.

The downside to this search is you can’t sort it by followers, so people with a lot of followers could easily be on the last page of the results while people with only a handful of followers are on the first page.

Topsy

Topsy is a Twitter powered search engine. If you are interested in what people are talking about a particular topic, just search it. You can see tweets from the last hour, day, week, month, or all.

By clicking on the number of times a result has been shared, you can see the influential Twitterers that have shared it with their following, so if it is a topic you tweet about, chances are they are interested!

Hovering over their Twitter username will give you some additional information about them, including their follower and following count, bio information, and a button to follow them.

Benefits of Following an Influential Twitterer

If you’re just looking to learn more about something, following influential tweeps in that niche is a great way to start monitoring the latest news, conversation, and so on.

Thanks to Twitter lists and management tools like HootSuite, it is easy to follow influential users in a variety of topics. Just create a list, and setup a column in your favorite Twitter tool to keep an eye on it.

You can watch how they interact with their followers and what they share to see what you should be doing if you want to build the same kind of audience. You will also not miss out on the upcoming events, seminars, and conferences that are important networking events in your industry.

Ways to Get an Influential Twitter Users’s Attention

This is the tricky part. If you are looking to connect with a influential Twitterer, here are some great ways to get them to notice you.

Follow Their Blog

Many Twitterers are also bloggers. Follow their blog, comment and interact on it. Retweet the posts by them that you know your followers will like as well, and be sure to include their @username in the tweet so they see you’re interested in their content. If they don’t post often (the safe bet is at max once a day), and you know that their posts are always something you want to share with your followers, you can always set their blog’s RSS feed up via Twitterfeed or HootSuite RSS to have their latest posts automatically tweeted to your account.

Answer Their Questions

By monitoring some influential users via Twitter lists and tools, you can easily keep an eye on whether someone has a question that you can answer. Go for it! If you give them the answer they need, preferably first or best, they will probably notice and show some appreciation. If you can answer their question with a blog post of yours, you may even luck out in getting a thanks plus a retweet of your article to all of their followers.

Thank Them for Retweeting Your Posts

Grab the Topsy Trackback Bookmarklet and use it on your latest posts to see who has been tweeting them. If it’s only a few people, then you should probably thank everyone at this point, but if you are writing for a site where the posts get tweeted hundreds of times, definitely be sure to thank the influential users.

Why is this important? Sometimes people tweet stories without knowing who the author is – this is a great way to get them to notice you as an authority in a topic they are interested in which might lead to a visit to your blog or website.

Your Thoughts on Finding Influential Tweeps

Do you follow and interact with influential people on Twitter? What other tips can you think of to find them, and how can you learn from them in order to eventually become an influential Twitterer yourself?

The post How to Find the Most Influential People on Twitter in Your Niche first appeared on StayOnSearch.

One method of building links that large numbers of SEO’s used to use was article directory submissions. The deal was easy – write a piece of content at around 400 words, make sure a link back to your website was included in there somewhere, before finding one of the hundreds, if not thousands of free-to-use article directories available online and submit it – reaping the benefits as your rankings slowly began to improve for the keyword you were targeting.

February 2011 – Panda kicks in

All sounds very fluffy doesn’t it? And like the rare, fuzzy animal, Google decided that enough was enough. It shouldn’t be that easy to manipulate it’s ranking signals and times were about to change.

Panda initially targeted these kinds of article directories – those which hosted lots of poor quality content which had a sole purpose of building links back to people’s websites. As the effects of this kicked in, those who had been using this as a tactic found that they had lost ground in their rankings and that the links that were once working really well were now no longer as effective.

April 2012 – Penguin joins the fun

To make matters worse for those using article submissions, in early 2012 Google launched its Penguin algorithm. This was specifically designed to target links coming from poor quality sources – including places such as article directories which had purely been set up for SEO purposes.

Other things also came out of the Penguin algorithm and its subsequent updates, such as targeting backlink profiles which had been over-optimised. As it usually took a lot of submissions to article directories using the same or similar anchor text keywords to get noticed by Google initially, this new update provided Google with evidence that the site owner was partaking in activity to try and manipulate the search engine’s ranking signals.

Should I use article submissions or not?

This very much depends and it’s difficult to say that you shouldn’t use them completely as in certain cases they can still help. For those in competitive industries such as travel or finance then you should try something of a higher quality, but where things are less competitive and you are in a smaller niche then they can help ‘get you off the ground’ when it comes to building a backlink profile on a small budget.

The key thing – as with any form of SEO activity – is to do everything in moderation. Too much of any one form of link building can end up damaging your site, so if you are going to choose article submissions, only do a small amount or for a limited period of time.

The post Are Article Submissions for SEO a Thing of the Past? first appeared on StayOnSearch.