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Showing posts from 2012

Time Management as a Marketer

Time Management as a Marketer Information overload can lead to us moving around from one thing to another and feel like we are getting nowhere, or at least achieving the tool for the time we have spent. It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to do e-mails, writing articles, talking on social media sites and whatever else all at once. This jumping from one thing to another is a time destroyer. If you want to help yourself as a marketer, learn to turn off the e-mails, the social media and whatever else is distracting new from your goal. Be reasonable with the plan and goals you set because this way they will be achieved. Here are my tips – Make a plan that works for you, be reasonable and realistic Focus on one thing at a time and stick to it. When writing, or doing any task, turn everything else off, including a busy phone. You can read your e-mails, Facebook etc. at the end of your day. Set deadlines. Don't stop until the task is done. If you can&#

Maximize the Power of Your About Us

Maximize the Power of Your About Us Your About Us page has the distinct purpose of letting people get to know your company, which will help build the foundation of trust and respect that is needed for a successful online business. For certain businesses, the About Us page can also be used for recruiting new employees, sales reps, etc. So, take some time, look over your About Us page and see if it utilizes any or all of the ten features listed below. 1. Company History – Give a brief history of your company and how you got started. Explain how long you've been in business, the purpose of your business and your experience. This is also a good place to add your mission statement. 2. Focus on Benefits - Be sure to focus on the benefits your company will provide the customer. Your potential customers want to know what you can do for them, not how you do it. 3. Introduce Yourself and Crew – Be sure to give your name and the names of those who work wit

Beef Up the Content on Your Site

Beef Up the Content on Your Site When you first get your website up and running, your first thought may be to implement some article marketing strategies to get the traffic pouring into your site. Your sole thought may be to do something "out there" in order to produce the results that you want on your site. There is one step that should happen prior to that though, and it's one that a lot of site owners overlook. Before anything, you need to develop the content on your website. You see, in order to attract readers, you need to have some reason for them to be at your website. What sort of information are you providing? What problems are you solving? How are you helping your readers? You may attract readers when you submit articles, but if you don't have any "stickiness" on your site, then the increased viewers don't do you much good. They just show up at your site and immediately click away because they haven't fou

Know Your SEO Is Working

Know Your SEO Is Working How do you know if your SEO is working? Here are five stages outlined below to give you a better idea and measure the results. It doesn't matter if you call it Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or any other fancy acronym, what matters are results. Fortunately results are quantitative and measurable so you can deduce which tactics are effective and which are a waste of time.Relevance is a moving target, it is completely molded by the individual referencing the query, which means that positioning relies a great deal on your ability to read the market and forecast trends and buzzwords with traffic attached. Aside from picking keywords, writing content and building links, you need to know which guideposts to assess to determine if your optimization is falling on deaf ears or in fact pulling its own weight. The bottom line, how do you know your SEO is working? Stage 1 Post relevance "Exact Match

Make Real Money Online Without A Website And Without Spending Any Cash

Make Real Money Online Without A Website And Without Spending Any Cash Would you like to know how to make real money online without a website and using only free resources? It is possible, I assure you, and it is not particularly difficult. Don't get me wrong: I am not suggesting you join one of those programs which promise you will get rich without having to do any work. When I say it is not particularly difficult, I mean just that: this is a way to make real money online that anyone of average intelligence with an average education can learn to do. The simplest way to make some extra income online is to do affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing means you join a company as an affiliate and promote their product in return for payment of commission on all sales you generate. Commission rates vary but it is not uncommon for commission to be as high as 70%. Affiliate marketing is highly popular because it is straightforward and hassle-free. All you hav

Get Your Website Working For You

Get Your Website Working For You So you have your brand spanking new diploma in your hand, and you are ready to hang your shingle out and open for business. But wait – you know you need a website. So at that point you might invest several hundred pounds (at least), in getting someone to create the perfect website. The colours are stunning, the graphics are amazing. Perhaps it has a nifty little flash thing going on in the header with a montage of meaningful photography. It goes back and forward between you and your designer for weeks, tweaking it till you get it just right. Then… oops – you need some copy. So you bang something out, get your designer to drop it in for you, and press the go live button. Then you wait. Perhaps for a very long time. I'm not saying your design and branding isn't important. If you are selling a creative service such as web design, graphic design or photography, then probably it's very important. Nevertheless, there

Strategies You Must Use To Improve Your Website Sales and Profits

Strategies You Must Use To Improve Your Website Sales and Profits Without the right planning, you can easily spend a lot of time and money creating a website that doesn't perform as well as you expected. So, whether you're just creating your website, or you want better performance from your current one, here's 8 Simple Strategies you must use to improve your website sales and profits. No 1. Find The Way To Be Unique Understand your unique selling points (USPs). Then you can make sure that you highlight them in your website copy. Many sites look very similar and the more unique you can make yours, the more people are likely to remember and buy from your site. Give your visitors what they are looking for and tell them why you are the person they need to provide it No 2. Have A Strategy To Drive Traffic to Your Website People will not just arrive at your website and buy your products, You have to have a continuous strategy to drive traffic to y

Web Techniques That You Should Avoid

Web Techniques That You Should Avoid There are many ways to spam search engines and trick search engine spider to increase traffic to websites. Some of these popular methods are better known as 'search engine spamming.' Let's know more about these methods in order to gain clarity: Keyword Stuffing: It is commonly known as the repeated use of word or phrase in order to make a page look more relevant. There is a specific way of including keywords in a webpage. Determine your exact keywords and use them in different ways to include in the page. Invisible Text: In this method, spammers usually insert text that is a combination of repetitive use of keywords on a webpage. The main aspect of this kind of process is that it is discolored and make to look similar as the background color so as to making invisible for common users. Tiny Text: Many times, spammers use small font size to place their content. By doing so again and again, search en

SEO in Google Places

SEO in Google Places Local search engine optimization has been gaining momentum. This bears out with the statistic that currently, around 20% of all search is localized search. As more small businesses are going online, they are realizing that their goal is not to reach the world but their next-door neighbors. One of the better tools for local SEO is Google Places. Formerly known as Local Business Center, Google opened up this platform upon recognizing that "97% of consumers search for local businesses online." It doesn't cost anything to be included in Google Places, but you do need to register by adding a profile of your business. Making some common mistakes when filling out your profile form can have unfavorable consequences on your local SEO campaign, so take time to do it correctly. Here are a few tips. In the Category field, be specific as to what your business is. If it's a restaurant, put down "restaurant" instead of

Known Places to Score Backlinks

Known Places to Score Backlinks We all got the memo that great content is important. Google's Panda update made that abundantly clear. But let's be honest: backlinks are still the name of the game when it comes to ranking in the SERPs. Hunting down quality links from websites with the right online street cred will not only help you rank; each link also has the potential to deliver waves of extra traffic to your website as long as the link exists. Not too shabby. Sounds great in theory, but in practice? It's a bit harder. Just about every SEO on the planet is on the bandwagon right alongside you, on the prowl for the almighty backlink. That makes competition a whole heck of a lot tougher – regardless of your niche. Webmasters far and wide are inundated with guest post requests, link purchase queries, and emails that are generally begging for a shout-out. Many website owners have already learned to tune out the begging, considering it nothing mo

How Write & Create Good Web Content

How Write & Create Good Web Content Good content may be categorized by multiple affirmative adjectives, which could include – engaging, informative, entertaining, unique, personal, amusing, educational, authoritative, persuasive and, above all – original. Don't cheat or steal… No copying, plagiarism, duplication, scraping or other nefarious shortcuts! The moment you copy other people's efforts you are (at best) immediately second best! What is Web Content? Well, it's not just what you "see" on any given page. The concept of good content must extend to the entire website, all its descriptive elements, and many of its functional aspects, including; * Pages: headings, paragraphs, images, image alt text, anchor text & hyperlink titles * Posts, Categories & Tags: ditto * Navigation: link text, hyperlink titles * URLs: file names on all pages, posts, categories, tags and images * Business Brand: be unequivocal about

Meta Tag Search Engine Optimization

Meta Tag Search Engine Optimization While quality content is important for retaining visitors, search engine optimization is essential to drive traffic to your website in the first place. Since over 80% of all web traffic comes from search engines, it is crucial to optimize your website so that it appears among the top results for searches on keywords related to your site. Various factors, such as page content and link popularity, are weighed by the search engine's algorithm to arrive at the order in which it lists sites on the search result pages. Ideally, you want your web site to rank among the top ten results for keywords that you are targeting (keyword in this article refers to both keywords and key phrases). To improve your search placement, you may have to sacrifice some visual aesthetics to ensure that your HTML code is search engine friendly. This section discusses some page elements that influence your search engine ranking. 1. The <H

What might low-quality content pages contain?

What might low-quality content pages contain? For the most part, the type of low-quality content pages I'm talking about here simply don't contain much information at all. They may only have a few words or sentences outside of the global template of the page. Or they may contain information, but it's very similar to what's on other pages of the website. Most of the time these low-quality pages been dynamically generated by whatever content management system (CMS) the site is using. This is especially true of blog sites using WordPress or other blog software... -- my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can be done today." If you have any questions or comments please contact me. Regards Gerald Website: http://www.webcraft.ws E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws Twitter: WebcraftGuru Facebook: Webcraft Guru

How to Create the Best Landing page for your Website

How to Create the Best Landing page for your Website Make your landing pages count by using some basic optimization techniques, such as the following: * Instantly conveying the value your site offers and creating strong incentive to contact you by providing a clear title and description and an enticing layout. * Focus your visitors, every chance you can get, to contact you by providing links, images linking to the contact us page; you may even provide free informational materials to get them to complete the contact us form. * Always include your social media sharing links, encouraging visitors to spread the word that your website has something valuable to offér. * Beware of what information you request in your contact form. You cannot expect them to fill out a complete page of information and be willing to do so. Just keep it simple, but be sure to obtain the important information needed to contact them. Not only do you need to op

How to Blog and get returns

How to Blog and get returns 1. Write Compelling Headlines Your headline is how people decide if they're going to read your blog post of not. So make sure that it reaches out and grabs hold of your reader. 2. Capture Your Reader's Attention in the First Paragraph Your first paragraph should draw in your reader and entice them to keep reading. Keep it simple, snappy and sassy. 3. Keep Sentences Short Short sentences stand out, are simple to read and balance out longer sentences. Utilize short sentences throughout your blog for some added pizzazz. -- my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can be done today." If you have any questions or comments please contact me. Regards Gerald Website: http://www.webcraft.ws E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws Twitter: WebcraftGuru Facebook: Webcraft Guru

Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Gmail banned on Wall Street

Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Gmail banned on Wall Street For young Wall Street employees who live their lives through social media, working at a big bank can feel as if the plug has been pulled. Most financial firms ban Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, and block most music and video streaming sites. Working on Wall Street is "a full life commitment, and without access to social media or personal email it can often feel like nothing exists outside of work," said one JPMorgan Chase analyst who spoke on condition that he not be named because he is not allowed to talk to the media. So he and other first- and second-year analysts, who commonly work more than 80 hours a week, are fighting back. They are relying on an informal network of strategies to subvert company firewalls and stay connected. To watch soccer highlights, for example, one analyst translated the names of the teams through Google and looked for them on Rutube, YouTube'

Cloud Computing

Economic uncertainty has created the need for swift, responsive and highly secured IT infrastructures that are also environmentally friendly and more business focused. Organizations are struggling to find the competitive edge, turning to the bounty of opportunities technology provides. Cautious to jump at the latest buzz phrases and hyped solutions, many have cautiously investigated recent technology breakthroughs, many of which have one thing in common: redistribution of IT roles. There is no better time than the present to revamp technology strategy focused on hosted solutions. Clouds are gathering… Cloud computing has emerged as one of the major ways to secure an upper hand in today's highly competitive market. Minutes of downtime means the loss of vital sales as businesses with prolonged data loss find themselves in a real position of collapsing. Cloud computing changes the traditional corporate data center structure that resides on company premi

Use Social Media Marketing To Grow Your Business

Use Social Media Marketing To Grow Your Business Social media marketing can provide the boost your business needs to bring you the success that you want. There are many benefits to leveraging social media marketing strategies. They allow you to develop more meaningful relationships with customers, communicate with a broad audience quickly, and increase interest in your business through interaction. Follow the advice in this article to make social media marketing work for you. Establish your goal for a social media campaign. If you do not know what you hope to achieve with your campaign, you won't know when you have been successful. Are you looking for product awareness, concrete sales, or better customer service? When you can answer these questions, building a strategy is an easier step. Be patient when you are networking on a social media site. People have to trust you and the product that you are selling to them. Relax and try to gain the trust of

The best WordPress plugins

The best WordPress plugins W3 Total Cache – This is one of the best WordPress plugins that will increase your websites speed. It will load all your pages a lot faster and it will save static versions of your pages. It requires a lot less CPU usage when you are using this plugin. Akismet – This plugin is very important when you own a website where it is possible to comment on pages or blog post. Akismet is standard installed in WordPress, but you will need to activate it by signing up and requesting an API Key on the website. Akismet is a plugin that will stop 99% of all spam on your blog or website. Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin – When you aren't listed very well in Google it is most likely that you are missing some SEO settings. It can be very frustrating when you are doing your best to make a website but you don't get any visitors at all. This plugin will make it possible to improve the SEO of your website by adding General SEO settings, but also p

Automatic Post Tagger

Automatic Post Tagger This plugin automatically adds user-defined tags to posts. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/automatic-post-tagger/ -- my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can be done today." If you have any questions or comments please contact me. Regards Gerald Website: http://www.webcraft.ws E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws Twitter: WebcraftGuru Facebook: Webcraft Guru

Check Search Engine Ranking Strategies

Check Search Engine Ranking Strategies Your search engine ranking is the position of your website on any particular search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Because search engines favor the high-ranking sites, you need to check your search engine ranking continuously and find ways to improve your ranking. There are many free tools that can allow you to do this. Page ranks range from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest (and virtually impossible to achieve). Even a rank of 1 on Google is considered high. In order to obtain a high search engine rank, you need to employ SEO (search engine optimization) techniques. And this can take a significant amount of time and/or money depending on whether or not you do it yourself of hire someone else to do it. SEO software is also a viable option to consider. If you've decided that you want to be the one to check your search engine ranking yourself, and to take care of the SEO for your website, you'll need to