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Leveraging Quality Content For B2B Thought Leadership

Addme — Fri, 13 May 2011 01:23:51 +0000

B2b marketers have salivated at the thoughts of using social media to generate leads since inception. Traditionally, the b2b sales cycle was linear with long term commitments and structured leads. However, in today’s world things are a bit more complex.

Viable mediums have arisen to advertise with thought leadership and dissemination on social media channels. Content creation and development, known formally as content marketing is even more powerful today than ever in its lead generation powers. Social media marketers are determined to use social media for generating leads, in fact, according to BtoB’s Emerging Trends in B-To-B Social Media Marketing Insights, 45% of experienced social media users said lead generation is one of their most important goals for social marketing efforts.

Social media is undoubtedly growing faster than any other marketing medium, and it is becoming a core internal part of many businesses. According to the same BtoB study, 57% of respondents said that LinkedIn was the best method of generating leads, while all other social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Blogging) were less powerful in their lead generation abilities. Familiarizing yourself with social platforms like LinkedIn and disseminating quality content both online and offline in multiple business units is the key to gaining thought leadership.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn provides a highly targeted platform for b2b marketers. As the platform grows from its current 100 million users, 26 percent of respondents believe LinkedIn is “particularly strong for lead generation.” Now we all know content is crucial for any lead generation company. Whether you are leveraging content creation for thought leadership, SEO, or both, LinkedIn should be able to help. LinkedIn today is a resource for sharing articles within your industry niche.

Content

As B2B marketers we should view social media as a means for distribution and promotion. Whether you are answering questions within your communities or sharing white papers, you should be working toward informing and educating your prospects. B2B marketing is sometimes seen as “less sexy,” however the motive is still the same. We want to inform the user of what we offer and how this product solves problems within their businesses

Integrating other Business Units

Sales and customer care teams can give your business a great opportunity to disseminate content. Quality white papers and buyer’s guides give your potential leads more information on their purchase and strengthen the leads. If you give your sales and customer care team the ability to send this content, it will strengthen the rapport with your customer. According to Marketing Sherpa, “The ultimate goal of lead nurturing is to turn that prospect into a sales-ready lead prepared to become a customer. If that relationship were a baton, there is a point in time where both Marketing and Sales hands are on the baton and you are making that introduction.”

If you can keep your content unique, compelling and relevant you are able leverage content across all of your business units for lead generation.

Matt Krautstrunk is an expert writer on topics ranging from social media to telemarketing at Resource Nation.

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A Beginners Guide To Blog Writing – Part 2

Addme — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:34:42 +0000

This post carries on from a previous post from a couple of days ago: A Beginners Guide To Blog Writing – Part 1

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best methods of driving traffic to your blog or web site. Although you can pay an SEO professional to boost your web site traffic and search engine rankings, you can SEO blogs yourself provided you have the right guidance.

This article will explore in-depth tips on how new bloggers can SEO blogs. However, before we start on an SEO blogs 101 rundown, here’s a quick discussion on web site links and keywords.

Links and Keywords

In order for your web site to be listed and ranked by the major search engines, e.g. Google, Yahoo, and Bing, it’s imperative to have links from external web sites that point to your blog. Most web site promotion blogs commonly liken these links to votes. The more votes your site has, the higher your search engine ranking.

Moreover, to SEO blogs, you need to have not just any kind of link, but good quality links. The higher the value of your inbound links, the higher your site’s position in the search results.

According to most SEO blogs, there are many factors that can influence a link’s quality, some of which are: relevance between you and your partner’s web site, appropriate anchor text (the hyperlinked text in a webpage), and keywords in the body and title of the partner page.

As for keywords, these are the search terms you want your blog to show up in the search results for. If you want to SEO blogs, it’s a good idea to use the keywords in the anchor text. Doing so will help increase the relevance of the page the hyperlink is pointing to.

Always Target Your Blog Content

Now that you have an idea of how important links and keywords are in SEO blogs, let’s take a look at those SEO tips for new bloggers.

Any web site promotion blog will agree that the quality of your blog’s content will affect your site’s ranking. In fact, nothing can ever replace quality content no matter the method you use to SEO blogs.

High quality content means that the articles and text in your web site are interesting, informative, and relevant. Just about every web site promotion blog says that it’s also important for your articles to sound natural. Otherwise, they’ll look spammy. Plus, if the articles are chock-full of keywords, the search engines might penalize you.

With good content, it’s very easy to naturally insert keywords and SEO blogs. You can also easily encourage your readers to come back for more.

More importantly, most SEO blogs would tell you that superior quality content increases the chances of other bloggers linking to your blog, thus increasing your number of inbound links and your position in the search engine listings.

Don’t Forget Keyword Density

Keyword density, the number of times the keywords show up in your blog posts, matters in SEO blogs as well. All the web site promotion blogs have varying views about keyword density, but having about 3% density (three keywords within every 100 words) should be good enough.

Avoid Default or Free Templates as Much as Possible

The vast majority of SEO blogs will tell you that your blog’s design and layout can say a lot about your content. Some blog themes are free and others are offered at a price. You’re probably asking, “Why pay for a blog template when I can get one absolutely free?” That’s a very good question; but, a free template won’t do you good if you want to SEO blogs.

There’s a reason why some templates are offered for free. According to many SEO blogs, their designers actually embed links in the footer that cannot be removed. Since these links are pointing to another web site, the free theme may be hurting your search engine ranking.

Many SEO blogs recommend purchasing a paid theme or getting a designer to create a good blog design. Paid themes usually give you the option of removing these embedded links.

Keep on Posting Fresh Content

Regularly updating your blog has many benefits, as most SEO blogs maintain. You can update your readers about new products, events, etc. Also, the search engines will see new keywords, content and links, all of which will help increase your website’s ranking. New posts will encourage search engines to view your blog frequently, which can increase your website’s rankings.

Go Easy on Flash Features

Flash videos look really pretty on your website, and they can attract more readers. On the other hand, many web site promotion blogs would tell you to go not use flash or use just a little bit, or none at all, if you want to SEO blogs. Search engines can’t read Flash and prefer plain text.

There are several other SEO tips and SEO blogs that can help the new blogger, but these tips should be enough to help you get started with your SEO journey. Nonetheless, here are the more popular SEO blogs that should give you invaluable advice:

The post A Beginners Guide To Blog Writing – Part 2 appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Smart Tactics for Increasing Blog Traffic

Addme — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:17:06 +0000

1. Cover topics that require attention

Every niche has particular questions that are frequently asked, but rarely have conclusive answers. Whereas this recommendation can be helpful for most content based sites, it is particularly applicable with blogs. Invest the effort and time to research, compile and deliver, and you are guaranteed linkable content that will draw new subscribers and visitors.

2. Pay attention to analytics

Visitor tracking software can show you which posts your visitors like best, which ones are not viewed and how search engines are directing traffic. You can use these clues to act and improve your tactics. Feedburner is ideal for RSS. Action tracking can also be a great addition to your blog. This will enable you to see which sources of traffic are attracting the best quality visitors (in terms of number of page views, time spent on the site etc.).

3. Use a human voice

Charisma is a vital quality, both offline and online. In a blog, it is mainly judged by the voice presented to users. People like compassion, empathy, honesty and authority. Keep these in mind when writing and you are very likely to succeed. It is also vital that you remain humble in your blogging. When users begin feeling that a blog is losing its unique characteristics, they begin seeking new sources of content. Be careful to control not just what you say, but also how you say it.

4. Use smart URLs

Blog URLs should be as short as possible, and still contain enough clues for one to make a guess about the content likely to be found on the page. Having a short and relevant URL will significantly improve traffic to a blog.

5. Reveal as much as possible

In the blogosphere, you should feel free to share what might normally be considered private information. If you offer information that is usually private – pricing, trade secrets, contract issues or even harmless rumors, your blog can benefit greatly. Decide what is off-limits and see how far you can go within the limits. Your community will repay you with traffic and links.

6. Create expectations and fulfill them

When you are writing for your target audience, your post timing and area of focus will become linked with your individual style. If you deviate from that style, you run the risk of alienating readers who have been relying on you for particular data. Therefore, if your blog presents you as an analytical expert in your niche, you will need to deliver according to your readers expectations. This also applies to post frequency. If your blog usually publishes two posts per day, reducing this to two posts per week will have an adverse effect on traffic.

7. Build a brand

One of the most vital elements in blogging is brand building. A great brand is one which people are proud to associate themselves with. Insider jokes, exclusivity and emails with regulars may put off new readers, but can be great for sharing common brand experiences with loyal readers. Once you establish a brand that works for you, stick with it. Breaking the mould will result in severe repercussions.

Author Bio

Charles Mburugu is a professional content developer and an entrepreneur. He often writes about real estate, finance, business start-ups and internet marketing. In the past few weeks he has been writing for blogs where you can get the latest Network Solutions promo codes.

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5 Important Video Marketing Tips

Addme — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:54:28 +0000

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. This proves that people want to watch videos to learn and to be entertained. It’s important for marketers to take advantage of this and incorporate videos into their online marketing strategy. While it may seem overwhelming, it really doesn’t have to be. To make a video, all a company really needs is a camera, someone to film, and some simple editing software. Videos can be made about just about anything ranging from a tour of the office, an employee interview, or a client testimonial.

Here are 5 video marketing tips:

Provide Value
A marketing video needs to serve a purpose and provide viewers with some sort of value. Like any other form of marketing communication, content is key. If there doesn’t seem to be any reason to watch the video, people will quickly click away from it and be annoyed that they wasted their time. The video shouldn’t be too long. The point is to pique the interest of the viewer and leave them wanting more. The goal of any marketing video should be for the person watching it to take some sort of action after viewing it, such as making a call or filling out a lead form.

Optimize Each Video
Search engine optimization isn’t just for text based content. When uploading a video online it’s important to optimize them using targeted keywords in the titles, descriptions, and links. Videos can rank in the search engines, too.

Don’t Limit Yourself to YouTube
Sure, YouTube is the most well known video uploading and sharing site but there are numerous others such as Vimeo, Metacafe, Break, Daily Motion, and Yahoo Video. Be sure to check those sites out as well. Utilize social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote videos by posting and tweeting links to them. It’s also a good idea to incorporate some videos into your website. Providing an interesting video that users will want to watch will decrease website bounce rate.

Videos Shouldn’t Replace Other Important Content
Marketing videos can be great promotional tools, but it’s important to not overdo it. Not everybody loves to watch videos and some people still prefer to browse through a website and read the text based content to find the information that they are looking for. A video should never replace all of the other necessary elements of a website.

Have Fun With It
Producing a video provides an opportunity to make a business seem more personable and relatable. A video can give a face and voice to the company and prove that there is more to the business than corporate “robots” that hide behind their computers all day. It’s okay to have some fun with the process of creating and uploading a video. However, it’s important to always keep the brand and company mission in mind when creating videos. Never post anything too informal or inappropriate because it could hurt a company reputation.

About the Author:

Brick Marketing is a Boston MA based SEO and SEM company. For more information please call 877-295-0620 or visit http://www.brickmarketing.com.

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The Right Way to Use Social Media

Addme — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:58:51 +0000

For many businesses social media is overwhelming at first. There is a lot to learn in order to use it correctly. The first step is to understand the tools that are available. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are the major players in the social media game. While they have some similarities and were all created with sharing and making connections in mind, they are separate entities and should be treated as such. Before starting any social media campaign it’s best to do some research to figure out which social media outlets are best for your business. There might even be some niche social sites that cater to your industry specifically. See what competitors are doing in the social space. Once you’ve figured out the right strategy for each of these tools it’s time to decide on goals and a long term plan.

Here are 5 tips to use social media successfully:

Update Consistently
There is much more to social media networking than merely setting up a page. That is really just the start. If a business just sets up a page and then doesn’t touch it, they might as well have not wasted their time setting it up at all. In order to be effective a social media page needs to be updated consistently. However, it’s important to not annoy followers either by updating too often. Sometimes there’s a fine line between the two. The key is to find the right balance.

Join the conversation
It’s called “social media” for a reason. The whole point is to be social! If someone makes a comment regarding your company or brand, whether it is positive or negative, it’s important to respond to them. Ask your connections questions that encourage a response. In order to gain more followers, follow others and engage with them to get noticed. Join groups that are relevant to your industry to network.

Be interesting
Social media is a great place to give your business a little bit more personality. It’s okay to lighten up and be personable. It’s likely that your target audience will appreciate that you aren’t a robot. Just be careful and don’t take it too far. Remember, you are still representing your brand.

Engage your target audience
There are numerous ways to engage with your audience using social media. Many companies have luck by running contests or including interesting quizzes to get people involved with the brand.

Promote
Social media is a great place to promote what your company is doing both online and offline. Use your social media profiles to let your target audience know about events that you will be attending or any upcoming sales that might be occurring. Social media is also a great place to promote your other online marketing efforts such as blog posts or articles.

In order to find any success using social media the above tactics need to be used consistently. While social media may be “free”, it takes time and effort to do it well. Before implementing a social media strategy it’s important to have the necessary resources.

About the Author:

Brick Marketing is a Boston, MA based SEO and SEM company that offers social media marketing management services. For more information please call 877-295-0620.

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Payvment: A Storefront for Facebook

Addme — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:28:21 +0000

Social commerce is fast becoming a major trend in online retail, what with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks paving the way for greater, wider connection across the world. A number of e-commerce applications and platforms have been developed so that merchants can take advantage of this growing trend. One such application is Payvment’s social media selling platform for Facebook.

Payvment is an e-commerce solutions provider. Its social media selling app is integrated into Facebook and lets businesses, organizations, and individuals import their e-commerce products to a Facebook fan page, thereby allowing buyers to make transactions straight on the social network.

Business owners can set up a variety of products, categories of products (e.g. shirts, hoodies, shoes), photos, shipping options, terms of service, and more. After setting up an online shop on Facebook, a separate tab will appear on the seller’s profile or a page under “Storefront.” Selling on Facebook has never been so easy.

The social media selling app provides a number of advantages. First, customers won’t have to navigate away from Facebook in order to make a purchase. Payvment’s Open Cart Network lets customers finalize the purchase on any Facebook store. This means buyers don’t have to go through hoops trying to buy your goods, and there are fewer chances of customers dropping their shopping cart while in the middle of a transaction.

The app is free and easy to set up. Ever since Payvment was launched in November 2009, more than 20,000 individuals and businesses have used the application, and more than 500,000 FB users have bought items using it, according to Payvment. Clearly, merchandisers have recognized the potential of free ecommerce on Facebook.

Presently, Payvment supports over 20 currencies and is TRUSTe-certified. Merchants don’t have to sign up for an account to use the app, but should have a PayPal account to collect payments. Customers can pay using Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Discover, and American Express.

Open Cart Network

One of Payvment’s free ecommerce Facebook features, the Open Cart Network is like any other online shopping cart. What sets the system apart from other carts is that users only have to use a single shopping cart across thousands of Payvment-supported Facebook stores.

The feature increases the chances of closing a sale because the items remain in the cart until the user either removes the product or complete the purchase. The items can be paid all at once through PayPal.

Open Cart Network’s main goal is to lessen shopping cart abandonment. Since Facebook isn’t a shopping site in essence, many users are less likely to leave the website without making a purchase.

Every Facebook fan gets a shopping cart. Shoppers can pick out items from different stores, and then check out in one place.

Facebook Shopping Mall

In February 2011, Payvment launched the first ever Facebook “shopping mall,” an online mall with more than one million searchable products, over 50,000 retailers, and over 250 sign-ups daily. The mall includes a directory that lists a wide range of Facebook stores, from local businesses to celebrity brands.

Payvment encourages merchants to have their own Facebook fan page. To get top-of-the-line products virally noticed, the mall makes use of the “Like” button.

Within the Shopping Mall, users can view items according to price, the most likes, seller, bestsellers, and more. To get more products noticed, Payvment also promotes items based on products users previously liked.

To add a personalized touch, the app allows users to know what their friends like by looking at the “Your Friends like” section. There’s also a “Your Cart” function that holds on to the items previously selected even if the user doesn’t buy. Aside from products, visitors can also “like” retailers.

Fan Incentive Pricing

This feature can be activated from the seller’s storefront settings. Fan Incentive Pricing allows the business owner to set a discount amount to anyone who becomes a fan. Once the “Like” button is clicked, the discount becomes available store-wide.

While the special discounts applies to fans only, Payvment prompts non-fans to like the fan page.

Secure Payments via PayPal

To say that shoppers never leave Facebook throughout the transaction is somewhat misleading because the payment transaction technically is made through PayPal, one of the safest online payments solutions.

Selecting items happens within Facebook, but once users are ready to pay, they are redirected to a PayPal webpage. When a customer gets to the part where they have to enter their credit card information, a secure window opens. After the transaction is completed, the window closes.

Conclusion

Payvment’s fast growth and development on Facebook are remarkable. The online shopping mall and the rest of Payvment’s features certainly make sense considering that Facebook is increasingly becoming a destination for online commerce.

On the other hand, it’s perfectly possible for Facebook to open up its own virtual shopping mall, and there are currently several other Facebook apps that offer similar services. Even so, none of Facebook’s current apps offer the same level of integration as Payvment.

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5 Sites That Pay You to Write

Addme — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:04:51 +0000

Getting paid for writing can be a great way to earn your keeps while working from home. There are a multitude of websites and services online that pay you for writing articles and content. Some are revenue based and others pay you based on the traffic (or eyeballs) that happens across your work. Either can offer a very nice income stream, provided you are prepared to write a lot. The sites below will allow you to earn some extra money as an aside. Most wannabe writers will never strike it reach with these sites since they require you to build up your profiles first – meaning you have to write a reasonable amount of articles – before you can expect to earn a decent recurring income.

If nothing else, pick one of two and get writing. Who knows, you might just be one of the lucky few that can turn this into a full-time income stream over time.

1. Snipsly

Snipsly is a relative newcomer to the writing for income industry. I certainly haven’t been aware of them before doing some research for this article. On their site they define themselves as being a crowdsourcing website. You can earn 80% of ad revenue (with Adsense) by signing up for a free account.

How it works: Once you sign up you can start writing articles on a wide range of subjects. You then publish these in the appropriate category and wait to collect your Adsense revenue. The site claims to have close to 50% readership from the US.

You can publish as many articles as you like. The more the merrier. Since they would likely do their own promotion for the site (as it helps them earn their revenue) you have the advantage of using a site that attracts a larger readership than having your own MFA (made for Adsense) site for which you would have to do some heavy promotion to earn money.

2. Helium

Helium is a very popular target for writers of all kinds. You can literally get your article in front of millions of eyeballs, provided it is a good article in a hot topic. If you make it as one of the top writers on Helium you can expect to earn a decent income. You could benefit from:

Upfront payments for your contributions
Revenue share paid daily into your account
Writing contests

How it works: Once you’ve signed up for your free Helium account you can start writing articles. The site has dozens of topics and industries to pick and write for. You are free to pick what articles you want to write. A good tip is to see which of the existing articles are ranked at the top, giving you a good indication of the more popular subjects.

Helium is displaying a range of adverts on their site and you will earn a revenue share based on the popularity of your articles.

3. Hubpages

As one of the more popular networks for writers, Hubpages allows you to create mini blogs, called Hubs. You can create as many Hubs as you like on subjects you are knowledgeable enough. The more popular your Hub becomes with the community the more money you will stand to make. Every Hub can be powered with a range of adverts, including Adsense, and Amazon. You will be paid a 60% revenue share, the other 40% goes to Hubpages to pay for their set up.

How it works: Once you sign up for a free account you can start publishing your Hubs. In order to have a relative chance at success you should aim to publish high quality Hubs and keep the quantity down. Also pay some attention to marketing your Hubs with social media to drive more traffic to the pages. Here’s an account of one of the more successful Hubbers.

4. Suite101

Suite101 has massive advertising power to help you earn more royalties on your published articles for as long as they are live on the site. You can publish articles on the subjects you like and are passionate about. A number of editors will help you with valuable feedback to become a better writer.

How it works: Suite101 pays lifelong royalties on your articles. The amount of money you can earn depends on the amount of traffic to visits your article pages. Once you have reached 50 articles you will earn an additional 10% revenue share from them.

5. Squidoo

Similar to Hubpages, Squidoo lets you create mini blogs via their network. These are called Lenses. A Lens will allow you to reach out to the community with information you are passionate about. It makes sense to write about things that are close to your heart because by doing so you will enjoy the process a lot more.

How it works: Compared to the other writing sites mentioned here, Squidoo is a little more complicated to grasp at first. Having said this, don’t let that stop you from trying. It is very possible to earn some extra dollars with them by learning how to create and edit Lenses. You will be able to earn revenue from dozens of advertisers, making it easy to pick your favorite ones. This FAQ section will answer your most pressing questions.

In Closing

Getting paid royalties and revenue share from get-paid-to-write websites is a great way to earn some extra income while staying at home. As long as you stay realistic about the income potential vs time you have the potential to doing well with this type of income stream.

This was a post by Lior Levin. Lior is a writer and a consultant to iAdvize, a live customer support chat company.

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5 Ways You Can Promote Your Website on Facebook

Addme — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:39:42 +0000

The genius of promoting products and services over the Internet was already gaining popularity even before social media websites obtained prominence in the cyber world. Then Facebook entered the scene, and the whole online marketing business got blown to proportions way beyond people’s initial expectations.

As Facebook gained prominence and its membership grew by millions, it became more than just a simple social networking service. It has become one of the world’s leading social media marketing medium as well. With the vast diversity and large population of its members, it only made sense that it led to what we now call Facebook marketing.

Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Facebook provides one important thing in marketing: market. The entire membership is a wide, deep ocean of potential customers that business owners simply need to tap into.

Facebook marketing is a social media marketing strategy wherein business people and entrepreneurs promote their businesses and websites through Facebook.

The following are five Facebook marketing techniques that can help you with your website promotion.

1. Have A Unique, Official Logo

Take the official logo or banner of the business, product or service offered in your website and use it as a profile picture. Preferably, it should be striking, attractive, stands out, memorable and distinct from all the other logos out there. This will distinguish your Facebook account from other individuals and encourage people to regard you with respect as a business.

Logos are a necessity in basic marketing. It is all the more important in Facebook marketing because there are multitudes of photos and profile images in Facebook. You want to be easily recognized so that people will pay attention to your status updates regarding the latest developments of your website.

2. Install Facebook’s RSS Graffiti Application

This is a free application that you can easily access through Facebook. Simply search for it through the search box and authorize the application to access your profile account. Add the RSS Graffiti into your business’ official Facebook page. Enter the RSS feed or URL into the RSS Graffiti and complete your preferred settings (how many posts, how often, when and the like). Once you’ve saved everything, your Facebook page is all set for Facebook marketing and website promotion!

Depending on your settings, the RSS Graffiti will automatically publish the articles you add in your website. You no longer have to individually post updates and new features. Everything will be automatically done for you.

In addition to this, the application will also provide you with the stats of the website you’re publishing on your Facebook wall.

3. Provide A Link In Your Profile Page

Once you get people’s attention with your status updates and RSS feeds, they are likely to click on your profile page and learn more about the business. Provide them with the basic information about your services, and then direct them to your website for more information and exciting offers. This is website promotion and social media marketing in its most direct form.

4. Utilize Facebook Groups and Fanpages

Opening a group page in Facebook is one way to filter contacts and stragglers into a condensed population that truly has the potential to become your future customer and client pool. Write a short, personal message for each invite you send out. If he/she chooses to be a member and stay updated with your Facebook group, this is a very good sign indeed.

In social media marketing, sometimes it is more sensible to target the right market than just assimilate large numbers of contacts wherein a larger percentage will simply be indifferent to you. It is far easier to reel in visitors to your website when you all share a common interest and if they are truly interested in your group.

5. Utilize Walls and Status Updates

Each person has his own wall where he can publish his own messages and receive messages from other people. Whenever these posts are published, they also appear as alerts to all the other contacts of the person. This is a perfect opportunity for website promotion.

This works similarly with the RSS Graffiti. However, with posting on your and other people’s walls, you can be more casual and promote new updates to your website in an offhand manner that doesn’t reek of website promotion. People will simply bypass your alert if they sense that your main purpose is for them to click on the link and buy something off you.
In addition, respond to inquiries and posts published in your wall. If you do this often, you’ll also stay near the top of the updates list on everyone’s home page.

With the success of the Internet as a medium for communication, people from all over the world are connected regardless of distance, language, color and culture. It also paved the way for social media marketing, particularly website promotion and Facebook marketing. You can promote your website to a very wide audience and achieve a lot more through Facebook.

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10 Essential Free Blogging Tools – Thanks Google!

Addme — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:18:08 +0000

As most companies and individuals have realised, blogging is not just a great way to get your information out there, done properly it is a big part of any search engine optimisation strategy. Google created a whole industry and to get the most out of your blogging, and develop your content (articles), they loaded it with a range of tools that can be used to assist your blogging – not really too surprising is it? Here is a list of the essential 10 great not only for SEO, but for developing and working your content and blog.

Gmail. If you are not using it then you should. The spam filter really does work. Say goodbye to computer file clutter and store it all in your account.

Google Docs. This is kind of part of your Gmail and many people don’t even know it exists. It is like having a global intra-net with anyone you choose. With added features such as online file sharing and much online software available, and loads upon loads of space, if you are not taking advantage of it, you really do not know what you are missing. Kiss goodbye Microsoft’s expensive and bug-prone Office and other common tools you used to use. Save everything online and never have to worry about keeping your folders and files in order again – they wont even be on your computer. This is the safest form of storage for anyone on the go, and is even easier to share.

Search – Additional Features. Sure we all use Google search, but with a range of other search functions it can be seriously beneficial to any blogger. Real-time search is great because it searches Twitter and other blogs (among other things) and is a great way to keep track of what is going on, on any particular day. Selecting the super cool tool of Wonder Wheel, after conducting a search is great for article ideas that relate to your searched phrase, and to help you improve search keywords good for your website. This works like one of those visual thesaurus sites, but importantly in terms of searches and content on the web.

YouTube. You tube is a great way to give you a whole new traffic source and because Google owns YouTube it interfaces well with all of your optimisation strategies. YouTube will do wonders for how much Google likes your site, and the chances you are going to come up higher on searches is extremely high. Add video spice to your site and forget about hosting.

Google Chrome. There is nothing better than a great web browser to handle your web design as smoothly as you made it. Chrome is incredibly fast and there is just not another browser that can compete with it.

Feedburner. This is the most popular service used by most bloggers to manage their RSS feed. Switch to Feedburner and you will manage your Feed with ease – perform other tasks like track click through rates and add AdSense to Feedburner Feeds.

Google Alerts. Every blogger should be using this. It is the single most effective way to be monitoring yourself or your brand online. You enter certain terms and get emailed whenever blogs or websites use those terms. Enter your name, or your brand, and you will be notified if they are used in other websites. Another way to use it is to set it for terms that you are interested in — a great way to find sources of information relative to you, and a form of update.

Google Analytics. Yes everyone is using it. It is extremely powerful and tracks and records all sorts of information in relation to your blog and site. Go there and check it out for yourself, because if you are doing SEO then you just have to be using it. Set it up for your blog easily after a signing up for a Google Analytics account.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This tool allows you to see how often certain words and phrases are searched for in Google. There are a number of ways we can use this information, from choosing new keyword rich domain names, getting an idea of PPC (pay per click) advertising, and a relative indication of what you might be earning from one of your AdSense adverts that is targeting that keyword. A great way to better understand which keywords to focus on.

AdSense. A simple way to get some income from your site, and all it takes is for you to sign up for an account and add a little amount of code to your site and you will have adverts. The best and easiest way to earn money if someone clicks on them, although the amount will depend on the content of your blog and the value of the keywords to the advertisers.

Creatively apply the use of tools to help you develop your content, decide where to put it and get a better understanding of how your site and your content works with the way people are searching for information.

About the Author- Marcela Dias

With over a 10 years experience in website concept design and marketing, Marcela’s skills have flourished through her work in Brazil and Australia. In her marketing roles she has worked with Tourism Australia, Berocca, Sunglass Hut, Lurpak and NRMA to name but a few. She has been a key element in driving strategies involving product and clients management, social media, and online marketing projects (SEO and PPC).

The post 10 Essential Free Blogging Tools – Thanks Google! appeared first on AddMe Blog.

3 Ways to Completely Waste Your SEO Budget

Addme — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:15:59 +0000

I’m not suggesting for one moment that it’s particularly wise to any of what I’m about to suggest. But in SEO, there are a lot of particularly “expensive mistakes,” taking place and it can be a little too easy to mis-spend if you’re not careful.

Here are 3 ways to completely waste your SEO budget!

1. Buy a Few Thousand Direct Links from a Spammy Network

Paid SEO links are a controversial topic in SEO terms. It’s frustrating to see the competition beatnig you off the back of a load of them, but they contravene Google’s guidelines. And if you’re found out, you could incur a penalty. There are natural means of acquiring links naturally from relevant sites and these should be your priority.

Google’s ultimate aim is to rid its search engine of the sites that benefit from excessive link buying. While they might not be there yet, they’re getting closer with every major update so it’s fair to say that spending a lot of money on a lot of links from a clearly spammy network is not going to have a happy ending.

2. Poor Keyword Research

If your keyword research isn’t carried out properly, you could find yourself in a position where you’ve invested a lot of time, effort and money in a SEO campaign, you’ve produced rankings results but you’re not getting the visitors. Alternatively, you might be ranking well, getting visits but finding they’re not converting the visits into leads or sales. Keywords should be picked by volume, your budget and the level of competition, relevance to your products and services and relevance to the search habits of your target audience – the people looking for your products and services.

3. Omitting the Basic On Page Stuff!

All too often, people talk about spending SEO budgets in link terms. “How many links can you get and how?”

But one of the most important elements of any SEO campaign is the website itself. Granted, you’ll never make waves in the competitive SEO sectors without an impressive inbound link profile, but the basics on your own site could make or break your campaign.

A comprehensive on page audit should be carried out at the beginning of any campaign (and the on page should be reviewed periodically throughout). You should take into account a number of website elements, including:

Content. Ensure your site is rich in unique, high quality and relevant content that’s keyword rich (but not stuffed!).
Meta titles and descriptions. These should all be optimised for your keywords.
Navigation and URL structure
Load speed

So if you are on a SEO-icide mission (sorry about that poor attempt at word play), buy a load of poor quality links, invest in bad keywords and don’t bother with an on page audit. On the other hand, if you want to spend sensibly, your link building strategy will need to be varied and natural, your keywords should be strong and your website should boast the perfectly optimised basics!

This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark, a UK Digital Marketing Agency specialising in SEO and mobile application development.

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