Web Marketing Strategies by a Web Marketing Consultant

10 Ways to Ensure Effective Blogging – Stop Wasting Your Time

Justin McGill — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:31:07 +0000

This is a guest post by Harmony Thiessen, a communication specialist who owns SEO Small Business. If you are interested in being a guest contributor, contact me!

No one wants to have an ineffective blog. Time is too precious to waste, so why not maximize the creative investment and manage a blog that you like, people read, and Google pays attention to?

In highly competitive genres it can be a challenge to captivate your audience. Here are a few tips we have used to help our clients identify ineffective blogging symptoms and turn a dozy blog into a crowd pleaser.

1. Write to the right audience – be sure you know who your reader is. Understand them and target your words to their thoughts.

2. Appeal to their problems –Identify reader problems and share the facts, strategies, or tools to help solve the problem. Similar to this article, help people out.

3. Identify their needs – I read all the time about how we should live, work and write relative to our passions. While this is a great objective, let’s be real; we can’t always write about our passions. It is the reader’s passions we must also consider and address – or they won’t keep reading.

4. Offer solutions – We live in the microwavable and intranet connect world where things are solved quickly and efficiently or people feel cheated. As often as possible, include solutions in your writing. Show how a person could take positive steps towards creating change.

5. Create texture – show different strategies – There is nothing wrong with some differences of opinion. Your articles need not always be a bandstand for your perspective. While we hope you are educating with facts and interesting views, you can enhance your writing by presenting the views of those who may differ from your opinion. Note: You don’t have to slam them in the process!

6. Give examples – There are so many great places to learn how to write on the internet. You can go to YouTube and catch some great writing tips, or study some of your favorite blog authors. I find magazines also help me learn what the audiences are looking for, and some very interesting writing techniques that season my offering and add flavor to the script.

“Consider the reader while you write. Ask yourself;” Will this sentence be of benefit to the person who is living the problem I am addressing?”

7. Show pictures- I don’t always include photos – but they do reach a part of the brain our words will never traverse. You can maximize the impact of your words with a strategically chosen photograph. But please, and I know this may not be popular, don’t overdo it. Most readers want a quick message, and too many pics are distracting and take time to scroll through. (Unless it’s a photo blog obviously!)

8. Don’t be afraid to quote others. Pulling in to your text some words from others, especially if it’s from a source that your audience respects can add to your credibility. Also I find taking some of my own words and making a quote out of them gives a variety to the eye and helps drive a point home.

9. Connect to other relevant topics – There are several plugins available to help you connect your articles to other articles on your blog, or somewhere else online where the topics are related to yours. You may want to practice a synthesis and take examples from seemingly distant topics and explain how they relate to yours.

For instance, I have tried to teach painters to remember – paint with the heart, but if you want to make a living, remember to paint for the client too. Be ready to help them feel the feelings they want to reach within themselves and they will reward you for your trouble. Painters and bloggers can both benefit from the same principles.

10. Take time to walk away. It doesn’t matter if you think you are the next Shakespeare – leave your work alone for an hour or more. Go busy yourself with something else, especially if it is not words. Activate a different part of your mind, (I like to get physical and go for a run), and then come back and read your work.

Author Bio
Harmony Thiessen is a communication specialist who owns SEO Small Business – an optimization company in Vancouver BC Canada. Using her 20+ years in offline and online communications, she helps her clients build optimized marketing plans that convert searchers into buyers and search engines into friends.

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Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

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3 Tips for Crafting Killer Blog Titles that People Want to Read

Justin McGill — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:46:43 +0000

This is a guest blog post by Katheryn Rivas. If you are interested in writing a guest post for this blog, contact me.

The title of your post is one of the very first things your readers will encounter when establishing their relationship with you and your blog. This first impression is vital to the success of your blog. It is your blog post title that grabs your readers’ attention initially and what ultimately compels them to click on your post and enter your site. It doesn’t matter how wonderful the topic of your post is, how well written your content is, or informational you post is, if no one takes the time to read. You have to hook your readers first before you can pull them in with your actual content. This is where writing killer blog post titles comes into play. Follow these three tips to write blog titles that will catch your readers’ attention and make you more visible in the online world.

Ask a Question, Use a Number, Give a Benefit

These three tricks are no new news. We’ve all seen posts that are top 10 lists, how to guides, or open-ended questions we’re dying to hear the answers to. But, the reason we see these posts so often is because they work. These titles draw us in. They are enticing and interesting even if they are overused and common. The format of numbered posts lends itself well to an internet audience. Web readers can skim through the number points and choose the ones they want to actually read. While this means that they are missing some of your post, it also means that they are spending time on your site and finding the material that keeps them engaged. Posts like how to guides are alluring because they offer help. These posts are important and useful because they are giving your readers something they need—always a good way to get them on your site. Titles phrased as a question could be the oldest trick in the book, but they work.

Use the “Power” Words

There are several ways to catch someone’s attention with a blog title, but one of the most effective is your word choice. There are some words that are always more successful than others. You want to choose words that grab your readers’ attention without making them think too hard. Works like “free”, “easy”, and “secrets” are always hits when it comes to titles. Each of these terms communicates a different thing to your readers, but they almost always have a positive effect on them. You don’t want your title to go read, but overlooked. Make it pop and standout. Use these power words to catch your readers’ attention. Of course, these words aren’t always successful. There are times that these words can trigger a negative response from readers. Some of these terms can seem ingenuine and spammy when used in certain ways online. Be sure that you are creating content and titles that do not give the impression of spam.

Use Keywords and Phrases

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been the name of the internet game for many, many years now. It is through successful SEO tactics that your blog will rank higher on Google and, therefore, find more readers and visitors. Keyword use is one of the fundamental tactics of SEO. Keywords work in two primary ways. Firstly, they grab the attention of readers who are scanning though content online. If you use a keyword that your reader is interested in, you are much more likely to get them to click and open your post. Secondly, keywords are an important aspect of the search engine ranking of your posts. Search engines pay special attention to titles so that they can determine what a website is about. If you use keywords in your titles that are telling of your niche or interests, you will be able to rank more highly on Google and reach the audience you are seeking. Choose your keywords carefully and include them in your titles.

Author Bio:

This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of online universities advice. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

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10 Social Media Monitoring Tools (Free & Paid)

Justin McGill — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:06:52 +0000

We’re back to your goals and objectives again. You’ve set them right? We certainly hope so at this point. As we’ve stressed over and over, the whole reason you’re doing social media is to get results i.e. increase your sales, social media following and brand awareness. So now it’s time to determine how those results are shaping up. The following reviews social media analytic tools available on today’s market. Some are free; some are a little more costly. Each offers its own unique platform and service, but, in general, all provide tracking and measurement tools.

Free Tools

Bit.ly is a free URL shortener that will track statistics like number of clicks, traffic sources and when clicks occurred.

Socialtoo assist with social statistic tracking, survey creation and provides email alerts with Twitter follows and unfollows.

postrank “provides detailed information on Tweets, stumbles, Diggs, and Friendfeed all in one place. It’s best for blogs and websites with a lot of content,” according to Mashable.

xinureturns is a free total analytic tool that offers a summary of your website’s standing in social media. The tools lets monitor links to your website, Diggs, Technorati status, Googe Pagerank, Diggs and more.

Paid Tools

Radian6 provides detailed analytics, reports and charts on your social media activity. “Radian6 tracks mentions across over 100 million social media sites and sources and returns the results for exploration, understanding and action,” according to the company’s website.

Alterian offers social media monitoring tools covering a range of social media channels including Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Alterian offers “advanced user behavior statistics, measures and analyze daily volume, demographics, location, positive or negative content tone, themes, and trending topics for your brand/product,” according to dailybloggr.com.

Scout Labs is a web-based social media monitoring tool that tracks most social media channels. Offering an interface similar to Google Analytics, Scout Labs tracks buzz, sentiment, conversations and more.

Collective Intellect, according to DailyBloggr.com, is a “self-service analytics software supports both qualitative and quantitative research, providing automated semantic analytics,” allowing you “to explore insights and opinions about your products and brands on social media.”

Brandseye tracks and asses your company’s online presence as well as scores you and your competitors’ reputations. “This allows companies to monitor the sentiments and opinions of their own customers, while making educated judgments about how to respond to attacks on their online reputation,” according to the company’s website.

You can also enhance your website’s analytic tools, such as Google Analytics, to track your social media efforts. Mashable recommends the greasemonkey extension Social Media Metrics which “adds a social media information layer to Google Analytics, providing information on Diggs, stumbles, Delicious bookmarks, and more for each individual page.” You can also set up custom campaigns or events for social media within your analytics as well as get traffic statistics from your top social media websites and have them emailed to you through your analytics.

What are some other tools you use to help manage and monitor your social media?

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The Novice Guide to Google Analytics

Justin McGill — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:30:13 +0000

This is a guest blog post by William Eve. If you are interested in writing a guest post for this blog, contact me.

Google Analytics is an internet website analytics program that keeps you up to date on how your website is performing with regards its marketing and traffic effectiveness. It is a powerful tool that is quite flexible and has very easy to use features. With Google Analytics you will be able to target your ads more precisely and build your marketing skills. This will result in you getting a better conversion rate on your website. The beauty of Google Analytics is that it is free and arguably the most effective reporting tool available.

In order to take you through how Google Analytics works it is best if we start right at the very beginning. This obviously is the actual logging in process. Once inside you will immediately see a list of all your web sites or blogs. This is because Google Analytics tracks all the sites you manage within your particular account. From here you simply click on ‘view reports’ for whichever site you are interested in, and you are taken straight to the dashboard.

Dashboard

Once you’ve brought up the dashboard you’ll notice images of all the various reports the dashboard contains. These will be such things as visitors, content, traffic sources, map overlay and more. You can customise these if you wish. Near the top you’ll notice a section labelled ‘Site Usage.’ Inside this section you’ll come across the following:

Percentage of new visits. It is here where the percentage of new visits you get on your site are compared to all the visitors you’ve received. In this way you’ll find out how many visits are repeat customers and how many are new.
Average time on site. This tells you the average amount of time visitors stay on your site.
Bounce rate. The bounce rate gives a percentage of visitors to your site who left as quickly as they arrived, hence the term ‘bounce.’ This could indicate your site seemed too complicated for them to navigate successfully so they left. It could also mean they visited by mistake. If it remains high you will need to do something about it.
Page visits. Simply the average number of visits to each page on your site.
Page views. Similar to page visits but this one will give you the actual number of visitors who actually viewed each page.
Visits. The total number of visitors your site attracted at any given time.

Google’s default setting will display the activity your site has enjoyed over the last month. You change this setting to suit yourself or to compare one period against that of another. This can be carried out by clicking on the ‘date range’ at the top right corner and making alterations to the ‘comparison’ drop down from ‘site’ to ‘date range.’ You will then be able to alter the dates to whatever you are seeking information on.

Reports

There are many reports you can glean information from, however for beginners there are five you should take particular notice of on a regular basis, these are:

Top content. This tells you the pages on your site that are most visited. It will give you an idea on why most of your visitors are attracted to your site. Pages that are rarely visited can therefore be deleted and pages that are regularly visited can be built up.
Keywords. An important feature that tells you what keywords were effective in getting traffic to your site. This is the way you will find which keywords are powerful and which are not. The report will actually give you detailed information on the effectiveness of each keyword you use. It also tells you how long your visitor stayed on the site, how many pages they looked at while they were there and if they converted their visit or not by purchasing something from you, completing a subscription, or interacting with you in some other way.
Referring sites. You will find this report under Traffic Sources. It tells where your visitors were before they came to your site.
Traffic sources overview. Where the referring sites report told you where your visitors had been before visiting your site, this report will tell you which search engine they used to find you, did they use your URL, or did they use a key phrase or key word. In this way this particular report lets you know exactly where your traffic is coming from.
Visitors’ overview. This is the overview that brings it all together. It tells you how much traffic you received, how many pages were looked at, how long visitors stayed on each page and, of course, your bounce rate. It will even tell you the size of the monitors your visitors are using and whether they are on broadband or dial-up.

In the left hand column on every report you’ll find an ‘About this Report’. When you open this link you get detailed information about the report itself.

This article was written by William from lifeinsurancefinder.com.au. Fisit Life Insurance Finder to compare life insurance.

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Tips for Multilingual Keyword Research

Justin McGill — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:00:19 +0000

This is a guest post by Christian Arno. Interested in contributing to the IDWM Blog? Contact me today!

The World Wide Web has undoubtedly opened a host of opportunities for businesses and organizations of all sizes. The truly global, all-encompassing nature of the Internet has made it easier than ever to reach across linguistic and cultural divides and to target new markets that may once have been out of reach. In theory, no one with an Internet connection is ever more than a mouse-click away from your products, services, blog or personal site. In practice, of course, there’s far more to it than simply setting up your own little corner of cyberspace and waiting for the traffic to arrive. Your content should be both accessible and appealing but people must be able to find it in the first place. This is where SEO and keyword research comes in.

Give keywords the attention they deserve

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of increasing your website’s visibility or ranking in search engine results. There are many different aspects to SEO but the effective use of keywords remains one of the most important. Put simply, keywords are the words or terms that people type into a search engine to look for relevant websites and pages and all search engines take keywords into account when determining your site’s or page’s ranking in its search results.

Don’t rely on automatic translation

Automatic translation programs such as Google Translate and Yahoo! Babel Fish can be handy but, even if you use them to translate or partially translate your content, you should never rely solely on machine translation for your keywords. Alternative terms, colloquialisms, abbreviations and other variations may all give better results. A literal French translation of the term ‘bullet train’, for example, would yield a nonsense phrase. In France, where the high-speed train was developed, a more common term is the acronym TGV (‘Train à Grande Vitesse’ or, literally, ‘high speed train’). In neighbouring Belgium, meanwhile, high speed trains are often referred to as the ‘Thalys,’ referring to the name of the major operator running said trains between Paris and Brussels.
Without a little local knowledge you might never be aware of such regional variations and they certainly wouldn’t emerge from automatic translations. Working with native speaking translators will help you identify the most suitable keyword options.

Build on what you already have

This doesn’t mean you have to throw away the meticulous research you’ve already conducted to find your optimum English language keywords. Translate your English terms and brainstorm foreign language alternatives before running them through an analytical tool. Some words, including proper nouns such as brand names and certain technical terms, may well be the same in English as the language of your target market. Some ‘straight’ dictionary or machine translations may also cross over but your English language keywords should serve as a jumping off point rather than any sort of definitive list.

Test keywords thoroughly

Once you’ve brainstormed your potential foreign language keywords, you’ll want to test them out. Tools such as Google AdWords let you see how popular a particular search term is. It will also provide alternative suggestions and give you an idea of the level of competition you’re facing for each particular keyword.

Go beyond Google

It’s also worth remembering that, while Google is the single most widely used search engine worldwide, other search engines have a greater market share within certain markets. In China, for example, Baidu is the most commonly used search engine while Yandex is the biggest player in Russia. Most major search engines have their own analytical tools and it may be worth concentrating your efforts on these alternatives to Google for localized sites within their spheres of influence. Crucially, different search engines prefer different levels of keyword density. Where Google prefers a density of 2-3%, Yahoo! Japan, the most popular search engine in Japan, prefers a far higher concentration of 7-8%.

Keep up to date

Thorough initial research is essential but the Internet is in a constant state of flux and keyword trends can rapidly change. What works well today may not be quite so effective tomorrow so you should check your keywords’ effectiveness at regular intervals. Check the terms your rivals are using and check your own logs and stats in conjunction with tools such as Google Analytics to see which keywords have already been successful in bringing people your way. Freshness of content also has a bearing on rankings and keyword-rich blogs and news posts can be a great way of keeping your site at the top of the pile.

Your multilingual keyword research is not a one-off task. It’s an ongoing process but the benefits can be worth all the effort if they lead to you reaching a whole new audience.

About the author:
Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, one of the world’s leading providers of translation services and website localization across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 has worked its way to becoming the web’s favorite translation company, working with more than four thousand translators and clients in over sixty countries. Follow Christian (@l24ca) and Lingo24 (@Lingo24) on Twitter.

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5 Online Communities to Help With Visibility in Your Job Search

Justin McGill — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:59:11 +0000

This is a guest post by Richard Sandlar. Interested in writing a guest post for the IDWM blog? Contact me today.

In today’s job market, it’s now become critical to actively participate in online communities in order to network, share ideas and advertise your products. In addition, building your online communities is essential to get ahead and it will help you become more visible. Active social media presence has become crucial for any business professional who wants to be visible to others in their business community. Through such online communities, you can get your dream job because they greatly serve as a hunting ground for recruiters looking for qualified candidates. To become more visible in exclusive social networking sites, here are listed 7 online communities that you can join in order to help with your job search.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is today’s top professional online community that can proficiently list your resume, skills, help you apply for jobs, as well as network virtually and connect with key people in your field. Joining LinkedIn professional groups in your field will help you go the extra mile and brand yourself as an expert.

Facebook

Facebook is a social media site exclusively used for fun and chatting but it is a tool that plays a great role in your job search. It is advised for all professionals to create your own professional Facebook page in your job search so that you can reach out to companies you want to work for as your professional alias.

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking service that builds a network of contacts, helps you to take part in discussions, and make you visible in a community of industry professionals. It is indeed a valuable way to engage with people, and send traffic to your blog by sharing your content. In addition, your twitter profile can come up high in Google searches as; Google prominently displays the results from social networking sites in its search pages. So, twitter updates can make you more visible in Google searches.

Tumblr

Tumblr is today’s best microblogging platform that comes out top in page views and attention on blog sites. So you can brand yourself as a professional expert by simply creating a Tumblr blog in an area of your interest. Share your blog content consistently, so that you will soon appear in Google social search results.

StumbleUpon

Stumbleupon is another excellent resource that recommends articles to its users based on their interests. You can stumble upon various informative articles related to job searching and career building. Moreover, StumbleUpon can also serve as an educational tool and can use as a bookmarking site that help you keep all your favorite sites stored in one place.

All in all, joining these online social networking sites is the best way to advertise your skills and help you with visibility in the job search so that recruiters can easily find you.

Author Byline:

Richard Sandlar is a webmaster, editor and writer of specialized online education based blog which offers comprehensive reviews of accredited online degrees, accredited online colleges and universities.

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6 WordPress Plugins to Make Your Blog Google+ Friendly

Justin McGill — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:54:43 +0000

This is a guest post by Ron Davis a freelance blogger.

Having caught up with Twitter and facebook to get unique visitors in November, the social network Google plus is now a must for bloggers. A recent study from seomoz proves that Google plus is influencing search rankings and it will be the ranking factor of 2012.

So having a blog with Google plus friendly is most important to get high SEO advantage. To make your blog Google + friendly I suggest some interesting plugins to associate your WordPress blog with Google plus.

1. Google Plus Widget

It’s an easy to use plugin which allows you to add Google plus profile badge with photo and Google plus button in sidebar. It makes easier for user to add you in Google plus their Google plus circles.

2. Google+ Plus WordPress Widget

Display your latest status updates and activities from your Google plus account to your wordpress sidebar. It allows your readers to know what you are doing in Google plus.

3. Google Cards

A simple plugin that will add your Google plus profile widget in sidebar displaying photo and no of followers you have in Google plus. It uses caching to store your Google plus profile data to eliminate checking Google+ on every page load.

4. Wp Plus One – Advanced

It adds an advanced Google plus one button to your blog post which allows readers to plus one our article they read. This plugin has variety of options such as button position, visibility, count style, +1 redirect, +1 button JavaScript and you can also make your own custom G+ one button.

5. WP PlusOne this

Variant of Wp plus one, this plugin also familiar with many blogger. It’s just another plugin which adds Google plus one to every post and page.

6. Scriptrr Google Profile + widget

Plus scriptrr, is a online tool that will generate widget scripts to display Google plus profile in sidebar. Now they made it as a readymade plugin to make easier for you’re to add it in your blog.

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How to Prevent Problems in Web Development Process from Happening

Justin McGill — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 16:33:58 +0000

This is a guest post by Noel Addison Agnote of NDIC.

Web development industry has been around for decades. And all these years, many client-web designer relationships are ruined because both parties failed to meet the expectations of one another. Sometimes the web development team who are responsible to accomplish the job could not grasp what their client wants for the project. Most often, the business owners would come up with impossible requirements and demands that the assigned development team cannot render without making the website look ridiculous and appear like it has been created unprofessionally.

If you wish to have a good online presence through a website, your first step to take is find the most qualified and trusted web development company to create your website. Whether you are dealing with a professional web designer or a freelancers having misunderstanding and problems with the team you hired is inevitable. These problems often lead to frustration, waste of money and time on both parties involved.

One of the major problems that most businesses come across is that they don’t exactly know how much building a website for their business would cost. Unfortunately, there is no standard rate that web development companies can follow when it comes to pricing every project. Certainly, there are so many things to consider in determining the price of a website like the platform that will be utilized, whether a custom drawing would be required, and the timeframe for the project that the client has set.

To prevent this problem from happening, make sure that you make the web development company that you hired understand just how much you are willing to pay for the creation of the website for your business. And since most business owners are not really aware of the price for the website that they want, it would be best that they start asking for the price or quote of the project. You can ask people that you know who have already built a website for their business or you can post your question on forums that are related to web design. You can also contact web development companies online and ask for quotations.

Know all the things that will be involved in the project and how much it would cost. Expect that the more pages you want for your website, the higher the cost would be. Moreover, better anticipate for higher charge if you desire for a more knotty and complex website design.

Web development is not just about design and how it was built. It also includes security matters. Just if you are not aware yet, let me inform you that the Web is populated by troublemakers who simply love destroying the web and the websites residing in it. These people are not doing it for money they just feel that devastating the web is a fun activity to do and consider it as a plain game or exercise. Hence, you have to ensure that your website is secured. Also, have the web design company conduct a regular back up process. So that even if your server gets hacked, you can effortlessly bring your site back and running again in no time since you restored all the necessary files backed up.

Also listen to what the web development has to say, remember that they are the ones who knows more about the technicalities of web development process. Let them educate you about how the project will be done. Furthermore, the company might need your participation in the process of building the website, be cooperative. Constantly ask for the opinion of other webmasters whatever the web development team is proposing. There are companies, thought they are legitimate, who only wants to get money from their clients and would offer for a website redesigning even if it is not actually needed.

Noel Addison Agnote is a writing enthusiast and an online marketer. He is a part of NDIC, Santa Barbara’s premiere web design and web marketing firm. Visit NDIC to learn how to establish a good online presence for your business.

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Small Business Online Marketing on a Budget

Justin McGill — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:36:02 +0000

This is a guest post by Steve Pronger, a Business Analyst for SEO Works.

Make your marketing dollars stretch further with these seven free small business online marketing strategies.

Small business online marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote a burgeoning company, build their brand image and boost sales. For a business that doesn’t have a bricks and mortar site, a website may be their main sales funnel and source of sales supplemented perhaps with telephone or email sales. So without further ado, here are five free ways you can improve your bottom line on a budget.

Search Engine Optimisation

When you run a Pay-Per-Click campaign, you are paying every time someone clicks through to your website but indexing your website on search engines is free. Hiring an SEO company should be seen as an asset to your business not a cost but if you feel you cannot afford to hire an online marketing consultant when you first launch your business, you can read marketing blogs, watch seminars and educate yourself on the SEO process.

Google Places Optimisation

Google Places is a free small business online marketing product ideal for companies that do not have a web presence. With the launch of Place Search late last year, Place Pages started to blend with organic listings in search results. Pages can be optimised by adding business details, hours of operation, a keyword-rich description, and so on. You can also add images and videos to your page, upload seasonal menus and sales brochures.

Social media networking

Social media marketing is another economical way to promote your business without a huge initial outlay. Creating accounts on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, is free and it’s an excellent source of pre-qualified leads for your website. The premise behind social networking is to value and give advice rather than openly promote your business. It’s best to get a dedicated person to monitor and update your accounts daily.

Off – page profile (link building and citations)

An essential component of Search Engine Optimisation is maintaining your off-page profile. When you have back links from quality and relevant websites to your site or you citations on quality and relevant websites, this is seen as a validation or ‘vote’ by Search Engines and can boost your ranking significantly. Put half an hour minimum aside per day to work on your citation or link building activities to reap the rewards of a higher ranking.

Online reputation marketing

Every small to medium business irrespective of what industry you are working in to be aware of what their clients and customers are saying about them in the virtual world. This is critical for companies in the tourism industry such as hotels, restaurants and bars. A small business should put together an ORM strategy together so there is a written company line and policy on how to respond to negative and positive reviews.

Website design

You may not be able to afford a new website design but you can make small changes to your website such as uploading high-quality images of your products and services. The saying that ‘an image says a thousand words’ applies well to small business online marketing. Look at elements such as your copywriting to see if it is current and relevant, test your call to actions and landing pages, add testimonials (see below) and so on.

Testimonials and reviews

People like to buy from businesses they think are credible and trustworthy and one of the ways you can earn trust is by adding testimonials and reviews to your website. It is best to have a dedicated landing page and add this to the navigation with a search-friendly URL. Testimonials are a very effective online marketing tool for small businesses – remember to get authorisation to use them on your site and campaigns.

A small to medium company may not have a lot of money to compete with the big boys and larger competitors in the offline world but the internet makes it a more level playing ground. By setting aside time and resources and thinking outside the box when it comes to small business online marketing campaigns, you can outrank, outperform and outwit your business rivals without making a huge dent in the advertising budget.

Steve Pronger is a Business Analyst for SEO Works, a leading Australian Search Engine Optimisation company.

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Maximize the Impact of Two-Sided Business Card Design

Justin McGill — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:54:10 +0000

This is a guest post by Maitreyee Sinha of WebGuru India.

Business cards represent an effective and yet, ignored marketing tool. With the right type of business cards, you can highlight features of your services in brief and create a positive impression on minds of potential customers.

Some people think that a card that includes information on both the sides is more beneficial. Others, however, believe that excessive information can irritate potential clients and create the impression that you are trying too hard. We highlight the respective advantages and disadvantages of two-sided business card design. Thereafter, we will discuss how you can create a powerful two-sided business card.

Advantages of two-sided business cards

Two-sided business cards allow designers to incorporate more information. Including your contact information on front part of the card can create a messy look. Breaking down the information, on the other hand, creates a neat look.
Two-sided business card allows you to add a unique touch to the card. For example, you can print an interesting quote or calendar of events on back of the card. This will enhance value of your card.
With two-sided business cards, you can further strengthen your brand. For example, you can incorporate logo and graphic design that highlight goals of your company in back part of the card. This in turn, will encourage people to remember your brand.

Disadvantages of two-sided business cards

Some people possess the habit of scribbling notes on business cards, after receiving them. They may have trouble, while using two-sided business card. The reason is that these cards do not have any extra white space, and therefore, one cannot use them for writing notes.
Many businesspersons these days use card scanners for picking out crucial information. Certain models do not scan back of the cards. This means that if you print vital information on back section of the card, it may not be of any use.
Two-sided business cards involve higher expenses. Furthermore, it involves greater efforts because you need to prepare content for both parts of the card.
Two-sided business card is associated with the problem of ink smearing. Certain inks have the tendency to smear on neighboring paper sheets. Now, to prevent this, you need to use varnish (a protective film or finish) on back section of the card. Preparing a two-sided business card, therefore, involves more time. You also need to pay more for varnishing the card.

Two-sided business cards come with respective advantages and disadvantages. To reduce the disadvantages and heighten the advantages, you need to prepare two-sided business cards in the right way. We offer some valuable tips.

Place vital information, such as your name, company name, and address, contact information only on front section of the card. If you place crucial information on the back section, people may not turn over the card and view it. Additionally, card scanners (as stated earlier) may not scan back part of the card, leaving out critical information.
Use back part of the card to incorporate taglines, interesting quotes, or even a brief testimonial about your company. You can even incorporate a short description of your services.
You can also print beautiful graphic designs on back section of the card. They add a stylish touch and leave a memorable impression as well.

Opt for these tips to strengthen the effect of your business card.

Author Bio: WebGuru India is a website design company based in India, offering high-quality and cost-effective website design and website development solutions to people worldwide. The company has authored several articles on brochure design, logo design, flash design, SEO services etc, providing updated information on technological developments and advancements.

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