Mar
7
Top Search Engine Ranking Isn’t Everything
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 5 Comments
I obsess over my website search engine ranking and check my keyword search engine rankings more often than once a week. After all, who doesn’t want to achieve higher search engine rankings and get more web site traffic?
However, top search engine ranking isn’t everything. There is much more to search engine optimization than merely increasing a website’s search engine ranking.
Your website can have a top Google search engine ranking yet not receive its fair share of traffic or receive insufficiently targeted traffic, which is also bad.
As I pointed out in a comment on 5 Steps to Make Wordpress an SEO Beast, an excellent article on the StylyzedWeb blog, you can be at the top of the search engines, but if too few people click through to your website or the wrong people click through, you can’t say that your site is search engine optimized.
A page’s title and description in its header often determine exactly how that page will appear in the search engine results and how likely searchers will be to click through to it. Header tags need to be optimized not only with search engines in mind but with people in mind too.
Search engine marketers are keenly aware of this issue, and search engine optimizers need to be equally aware.
Furthermore, if ample targeted visitors do come to your website, but your site is ineffective because of its content or design, then all your efforts to attract search engine traffic or any other traffic have been for naught.
Optimizing your website’s keywords to obtain a top search engine ranking is important, but the appeal of both your search engine listing and your actual website to your target audience are at least as important and should not be neglected.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated as usual. 
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Feb
3
Neglected Stepchild of Social Media Marketing
Filed Under Best Practices, Blogging, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Twitter, Web Marketing | 11 Comments
You want to market on the web and take advantage of the vast potential of social media. You start your blog, create your Twitter account, launch your Facebook fan page, and you’re ready to go.
Or are you? Have you missed any crucial first steps?
Sandy Abrams, begins her new book, Your Idea, Inc., with words that have been attributed to Mark Twain:
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking down your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
This quotation presents three problems, which I believe ought to have troubled Samuel Clemens:
- Isn’t “breaking down your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks” itself a step in the process?
- Aren’t understanding your needs and clearly defining your objectives vital preparatory steps as well?
- How do we determine the optimal sequence in which to execute all the small manageable tasks?
These are three aspects of planning.
Planning is not popular, which explains the all too common lack of direction and focus in social media work.
Lack of direction and focus impedes progress and can cause frustration.
Your Social Media Plan
Before you jump into social media, devise your social media marketing and PR plan. Here are 16 key areas that might factor into your social media plan:
- Understand your business and objectives.
- Think about your products and services, what makes each special and their respective market segments.
- Develop positioning strategies for each market or program.
- Compile a list of your online competitors for each market.
- Identify suitable social media, such as social networking sites and social bookmarking sites, for both your vertical and horizontal campaigns.
- Identify desirable directories and other sites that might link to your content.
- Research and evaluate the extent and quality of industry-specific online content.
- Devise strategies and techniques for developing and promoting your content.
- Define a policy for governing your employees’ interactions with the public through social media.
- Study the online methodology of competitors and identify their search engine keywords.
- Analyze and critique your existing web presence.
- Gauge your competitors’ online success based upon their standing in search engines, the number and quality of links to their site, and estimated traffic.
- Identify opportunities to outmaneuver your competitors.
- Use a process called keyword discovery to develop a potentially useful vocabulary that will attract targeted search engine traffic to your content through SEO.
- Analyze keywords to determine which ones ought to be emphasized, based on the frequency of search and the amount of competition for each keyword phrase.
- Create a lexicon as an output of your keyword research and as an aid to your content development.
Action is Everything
You need not be concerned about every one of these areas. Use your judgment, since these are more suggestions than requirements. Certainly, do not use the length of my list as an excuse not to take action.
Action is everything. However, action begins with planning.
What are your thoughts?
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Dec
28
8 Social Media Basics for 2010
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, List Building, Ning Sites, Personal Development and Success, Public Relations, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter | 16 Comments
I’ve bookmarked and skimmed a dozen or more articles that project the path of social media in 2010. Collectively these articles represent many days of researching and writing.
Search Social Media 2010 on Google, and you’ll be able to compile your own social media 2010 reading list. If the information in all the articles isn’t sufficiently comprehensive, a list of 44+ social media books to buy and read can help fill the gaps.
Not that I don’t like reading about trends and innovations — I do. However, I learned long ago that the bleeding edge cuts both ways, and there’s merit in waiting until the timing is right.
Blogs and Facebook have been around for years, yet only recently have they emerged as key tools for main- stream businesses.
I suggest that we watch and see how social media and technology play out in 2010, but that we focus on the basics and build our web presences right now using techniques and resources at our fingertips.
Here are my eight social media basics for building a web presence 2010:
- Core Marketing and PR Competencies - Analytics, branding, communication, competitive intelligence, design, list building, market segmentation, marketing research, targeting, etc.
- High-Quality Relevant Content - Producing and sharing articles, videos, podcasts, pictures, conference calls and talk shows.
- Search Engine Optimization - Social media and SEO complement each other. Read Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization and Website vs. Web Presence.
- Blogging - Also in Website vs. Web Presence, Darren Rouse, author of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, shares in a video his blog-centric approach to social media marketing, an approach to which I subscribe.
- Social Networking Sites - Nearly any social media site can present opportunities to network. By social networking sites, I mean sites that exist primarily for networking rather than content sharing.The principal social networking sites for business are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. You can also throw into the mix Ning and other niche social networking sites.
- Content Sharing Sites - Two of the most popular content sharing sites are YouTube and Flickr, but there are many more.
- Social Bookmarking Sites - There are hundreds of business and social bookmarking sites. Two of my favorite sites are Business Exchange and StumbleUpon.
- Blog and Web Site Networks - There are many blog and website networks. My favorites include Entrecard, NetworkedBlogs, Technorati, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Google Friend Connect.
With these social media basics, you can build a huge web presence in 2010. It’s not possession of the latest technology or an inside scoop on a new FB app that’ll enable you to soar in 2010. Your success will depend largely upon your own creativity, skills, efficiency and inner motivation.
I hope you have already mastered the all-important skills of subscribing to blogs and commenting on blog posts. 
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Nov
22
10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog or Website
Filed Under Best Practices, Best of 2009, Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 30 Comments
Like you, I typically visit many blogs and websites each day.
Some web sites clearly have it together. They have lots of traffic and appeal to visitors.
Other sites aren’t bad. They have good potential. With a few tweaks here and there, they could enjoy much more traffic and appeal much more to their audience.
I promised myself that I’d write up some suggestions for improving blogs and websites. I realize that while much is possible, we can’t hope to do everything. We need to apply the 80/20 rule and focus on strategies and techniques that are easy to implement yet promise substantial benefits:
- Make Your Text Easier to Read - Some months ago, I noticed that my blog’s text wasn’t visually sharp enough. It was difficult to read. Upon examination, I noticed that the font wasn’t quite black, and the background wasn’t totally white. The links were grayish. After a few minor theme changes, the color scheme was improved. Low contrast combinations or light text on a dark background always require extra effort to read.
- Optimize for Human Eyeballs - A site’s title tells search engines and their users what the site is about. The title is the bold headline in search engine results. Using keywords in your site’s title can help you rank higher for those keywords. Recently, I changed the title of my blog hoping to rank higher on more keywords, and my traffic fell. The new title was unfortunately less relevant and less appealing to my potential readers. I changed my title back, and traffic rebounded. The takeaway: Optimize for humans, not just for search engines.
- Use Headings to Break Up Long Articles - Headings break up an article into sections and help make the article easy to scan and read. Limiting paragraph size helps too. Headings, however, like titles, can tell search engines what an article is about and are an excellent place to insert your keywords.
- Link Out - I provided a rationale for linking out to other sites in The Blogger’s Guide to Links and Comments: “Use of outbound links enhances your pages in ways that both search engines and people can easily appreciate.” The advice in that article applies equally to blogs and conventional websites. Unless you’re linking to ads, use only dofollow links.
- Link Internally - This can be huge. Linking internally increases a site’s circulation, and it increases the perceived relevance of both the linking page and the page linked to. Link to another page or article on your site when you have the opportunity. In a blog, you can even link to a tag, as I often do. A blog site map such as the once generated by the Wordpress plugin Really Simple Sitemap makes it easy for visitors to find a blog’s archived content. I use internal links on my blog nearly everywhere, even in places which aren’t obvious.
- Be Social - Adding a social dimension to your web presence makes you real and credible. Join all the major social networking sites, and let visitors know how they can connect with you. Google Friend Connect and Facebook NetworkedBlogs widgets add sociability to your site and enable readers to publicly endorse you. Bloggers can join blog networking sites as well such as Technorati, Entrecard, BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog.
- Make Subscription Simple - Make it as easy as possible for readers to subscribe to your blog or newsletter. Blogs should offer subscription by both email (using a service like Aweber) and RSS (using a service like Feedburner). I’m always amazed when I have to hunt for a way to subscribe to a site.
- Use Social Bookmarking - Make your content easier to find and, as is the case with some social bookmarking sites, create quality links into your blog or website. Some of the social bookmarking sites I use are Digg, Delicious, Propeller, Reddit, diigo, Jumptags, Google Bookmarks and iZeby.
- Encourage Comments - Not only do I generally ask readers to comment, but I comment back as well whenever it’s appropriate.
- Extend Your Domain - If your domain will expire with the next twelve months, you might be signaling to search engines and savvy visitors that your site is only temporary.
I’ve omitted other ways that you can improve your site, because they’re harder to implement, and because they’ll give me something to discuss in a subsequent article.
In any case, we have our work cut out for us.
What do you think?
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Nov
8
The Blogger’s Guide to Links and Comments
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, SPAM, Search Engines | 42 Comments
No aspect of the Internet is more critical to understand than hyperlinks or simply links, as we call them. After all, what is the World Wide Web but countless documents which are interconnected by links?
A web page without links in to it can never be discovered by search engines, nor will people find the page unless directed to it. A page without links out of it is a virtual cul de sac, a dead end street from which visitors must back out in order to exit.
Woe to the web page that has neither inbound nor outbound links! 
Links Can Transfer Some of Their Authority
When a web page, especially an important one, links to your page, it serves as a recommendation and conveys, i.e. transfers, to your web page some amount of its authority both with search engines and with Internet users. The authority of your page increases, while the authority of the page linking in to you decreases.
When you link to others’ pages you transfer authority to their pages. Their authority of their pages increases, while the authority of yours decreases.
Links play an key role in search engine optimization. They help search engines to gauge the validity and the authority of each page or document on the web.
Why Relinquish Your Authority?
Why should you give away any of the authority that you’ve worked so hard to earn?
Authority isn’t all that matters. Relevance matters. Participation in the web and in your niche’s online community matter too. Generous use of outbound links enhances your pages in ways that both search engines and people can easily appreciate.
The Internet and search engines are mainly research tools, and outbound links help researchers to find and to verify the information they seek.
Linking Without Transferring Authority
There are two cases in which you need to link out but prefer not to give up any of your authority and don’t even want the search engines to follow your link to see where it leads.
When linking to something you’re advertising, it’s common practice to have search engines ignore your link. Why convey authority upon an ad?
There is another case which I discuss in the next section.
To request that a link be ignored by search engines, rel=nofollow is used in the HTML code. (Don’t worry if HTML is too technical for you.) Therefore this type of link is commonly referred to in SEO jargon as a nofollow link. A normal link is referred to as a dofollow link.
Comments on Blogs and Forums
Blogs and forums need comments to thrive. They help to build community and add valuable content which search engines like.
Comment often require links to be meaningful or to identify the commenter. Comments which are completely devoid of links have a sterile quality, so some degree of linking is necessary and desirable.
Unfortunately, links create an opportunity for SPAM.
As I explain in Anti-Social Media Marketing, spammers submit stupid or even obscene comments hoping to build inbound links to their sites.
Why transfer even one iota of your authority to a spammer?
Filtering out these comments is a pain, especially when they’re written to look plausible. For this reason, blogs and forums are programmed to use nofollow links in comments as a disincentive for spammers.
Dofollow Blogs and Forums
Just as nofollow is a disincentive for spammers, it’s a disincentive for real blog commenters and forum posters as well. I know that I prefer (and I’m not alone in my preference) to visit dofollow blogs and get a dofollow link back to my blog when I comment.
Many blogs and forums deal with potential SPAM without resorting to the use of nofollow links. Quite a few forums and some blogs subject their un-vetted commenters to moderation and other restrictions.
How I Make Dofollow Work for Me
Online Social Networking is a dofollow freestanding Wordpress blog. These are eight steps I take to make dofollow work for me:
- I use the Askimet plugin to pre-screen comments for SPAM.
- I moderate all comments and screen them for SPAM, (as well as inappropriate content, bad spelling and very bad grammar).
- I reject SPAM and undesirable comments. (I also correct spelling and grammar when necessary.)
- I use the Nofollow Case by Case plugin to override the Wordpress nofollow default.
- If a comment is borderline SPAM, I let the comment through, but I tell Nofollow Case by Case to make its links nofollow.
- If I want particular links in the body of a comment to be nofollow, I edit the HTML and insert rel=nofollow in the code.
- I let regular commenters (whom I like) get away completely with borderline SPAM (with or without a lecture), because I care a lot about their friendship and good will.
- I display a You Comment I Follow banner at the bottom of each post to let readers know that my blog is dofollow. Over time my blog has been added to a number of dofollow search engines.
Linking and Dofollow Takeaways
Linking is vital to the Internet. All websites ought to use ample links on their pages, just as I have in this article.
If you blog, consider a dofollow approach. Don’t be afraid to relinquish some of your authority to commenters, because in balance, you can expect to gain.
Now please, leave a great comment below and collect your dofollow link back to your blog or website.
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Nov
1
What it Takes to Build a Web Presence
Filed Under Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 9 Comments
Web marketing to me is entirely about building up both social capital and search equity, nurturing relationships and reputations both with people and with search engines.
In Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization and in The NEW Search Engine Optimization, I underscore the importance of both social media and search engine optimization and their interdependence. Your web marketing recipe must include plenty of healthy social media and search engine optimization ingredients.
I also point out in Website vs. Web Presence, that SEO, social media, relationships and reputation each contribute to the building of a presence on the web. Darren Rouse, the author of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, shares in a video his blog-centric approach to web marketing in which social media sites — which aren’t under our complete control — serve as outposts for our blogs and websites, i.e. our home base — which we do control.
I agree with Darren’s point of view and adopted the same approach when I started Online Social Networking 24 months ago. I must stress however, that I have always envisioned search engines providing me with more than enough targeted traffic over time.
A Note of Caution
Many social media enthusiasts are in search of a predetermined blueprint for success. However, beware! One-recipe-feeds-all diners and buffets aren’t for you.
The precise description and proportion of each ingredient must depend upon your objectives, and upon the tastes of all the distinguished guests for whom you’re cooking up this sumptuous but scrumptious feast.
Bon appétit mon ami.
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Oct
28
Website vs. Web Presence
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 16 Comments
Once upon a time, a business would put up a website with its contact information, and that was the beginning and end of its web presence.
Those days are long gone. Savvy marketers today are very aware that a multidimensional approach is essential if one hopes to build a strong and responsive web presence.
Social Media and Search Engine Optimization
Social media and SEO are two of the most important aspects of building a presence on the web.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had several months ago with Christopher Boyer, creator of the Hospital Online Marketing Education site on the Ning network.
Chris mentioned that he tells his Healthgrades clients that search engines are where research starts on the Internet, and that a researcher’s attention is captured by the websites and social media content displayed on the very first page of search engine results. He asks hospital marketers to think of Google.com as their home page and to focus on dominating search engine results for their respective niches.
Social Media and Relationships
Darren Rouse of Problogger.net fame shows in his video, How I Use Social Media to Promote My Blogs, the way he incorporates a large number of social media sites in his web promotion strategy.
Notice that Darren not only uses social media to drive traffic to his blogs; he uses it to build valuable relationships with people. Relationships and Internet buzz play key roles in today’s web marketing.
A Web Presence is Much More than Just a Website
The web presence paradigm has evolved. Search engine optimization, social media, relationships and reputation all contribute to the impact that we and our brands have on the web.
Your valuable comment below (and your subscription to this blog) will help us to build our relationship.
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Sep
9
Doesn’t My Website Deserve to Get Traffic?
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 24 Comments
We discussed in Why Doesn’t My Website Generate Sales? four different aspects of poor website performance: too little website traffic, the wrong website traffic, insufficient stickiness and poor conversion.
Today we shall examine the all too common problem of too little website traffic and answer three important questions:
- Doesn’t my website deserve to get traffic?
- Why doesn’t my website get traffic?
- How can I create traffic to my website?
Doesn’t My Website Deserve to Get Traffic?
If your website offers useful information or creates value for visitors in some way, it deserves traffic.
It’s really that simple.
Why Doesn’t My Website Get Traffic?
Deserving traffic is one thing, and getting it is another. I believe that most websites deserve traffic. They were put on the web to present information or create value for visitors in some other fashion. Nevertheless, most websites sit and collect dust to the disappointment of their owners.
Here are a few reasons for the lack of traffic to deserving websites:
- Lacking web marketing savvy - Most website owners do not know how to market their sites and generate traffic to them. This is alright as long this shortcoming is adequately compensated for which is usually not the case.
- Assuming that web developers know marketing - Many website owners hold the mistaken belief that web developers will optimize their sites to attract traffic from the search engines. When the site is finished, there is often a keyword expression such as the company’s name that shows up on the first page of the search engines, but that keyword expression is trivial and doesn’t bring much traffic if any. This mistake is pretty common and very sad. It’s a major cause of the following problem.
- Negativity - Too many website owners don’t appreciate the great marketing potential of the web or don’t believe that the web’s suitable for their business. This is a good example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How Can I Create Traffic to My Website?
Here are four ways to generate traffic to your website:
- Buy advertising - Your best options are print, radio and Internet. You may need a copywriter to develop an effective ad for the media you choose. Before you spend much on advertising, satisfy yourself with an experiment that your ad works and that your site can convert visitors into buyers. If you don’t take this precaution, you may end up throwing away money on advertising that doesn’t produce results.
- Connect with your target audience on the web- Online social networking is a path to free website traffic. Building your audience and your brand online is the main focus of this blog. Find the time to explore my site map and read a whole bunch of my articles. Use comments to ask questions. Social networking sites can be very useful, or they can be a very big waste of time. Knowing how to use networking sites effectively makes all the difference.
- Learn search engine optimization - You can read some books and optimize your site by yourself, just as I have done. There is an SEO learning curve, but in my opinion, it’s not as steep as the social media learning curve. Good website content and good SEO can attract thousands of free search engine visitors to your site.
- Get marketing help - find a web marketing consultant to guide you or do everything for you. That person could be me, or it could be somebody else who’s knowledgeable.
This is your website traffic road map. It’s up to you to choose the route and destination that are best for you.
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Jul
26
The NEW Search Engine Optimization
Filed Under Best of 2009, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 20 Comments
In Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization, worth a read, I discussed the synergy between social media and search engine optimization.
Today, thanks to heated competition between Facebook and Google, the connection between social media and SEO may become much tighter than a mere relationship of loose synergy.
A More Natural Form of Search
According to the Wired.com article which I referenced in Most Popular Social Networking Sites for Business, “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline.”
In other words, the endorsements of both web pages and their authors by people in our personal networks will influence the outcomes of online searches we perform as much as or more than the current system which analyzes external links to determine a site’s authority and relevance.
New Role of Social Media in SEO
Facebook intends to leverage the vast amount of member data stored in its global network to facilitate this type of search.
Facebook is adding tons of new data by the second through its site, as well as via its Facebook Connect API that opens a window into a growing number of other sites such as Digg.com.
Google is pursuing initiatives to develop its own proprietary data through Google Friend Connect and the anticipated releases of Google Wave and Google Chrome OS.
Furthermore, all search providers can mine public web data to monitor additional social media buzz about web pages and their authors.
Let’s consider how big this SEO paradigm shift will be.
Social Media Presence
In the new SEO, your online reputation is an integral part of your overall web presence and influences your search results. Social media enables you to nurture the relationships and shape the opinions that underlie your online reputation and social capital.
So important is social capital today that new products and services such as Sumbaa, by Paden Noble Consulting and Morpholytics, LLC, are emerging to meet a fast-growing need in the marketplace.
Webmasters work to build external links to their company’s web pages. Savvy companies are already beginning to dedicate additional staff to build and manage social capital as well.
High Cost of Complacency
Companies that neglect their social media presence will suffer in several ways:
- They’ll have no influence over their online reputation.
- Their customers will view them as backward.
- They won’t receive traffic from social media sites.
- They’ll receive less search engine traffic too.
Be Proactive
Build your social media presence right away. Pay special attention to Facebook and Google. I intend to write much more about Facebook and Google in future articles.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, please take a minute to join my Facebook and Google networks using the widgets on my right sidebar.
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Jul
12
8 Great Choices for SPAM Free Promotion
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, SPAM, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 13 Comments
I’ve written about the problem of spam both offline and online at social networking sites in How Do You Like Your SPAM? and Why Do People SPAM?
With this article, I’m delivering on the promise I made last week to discuss marketing channels you can use to promote yourself or your business — without ever resorting to spam.
Legitimate promotion alternatives fall primarily into these basic categories:
- Advertising - Expect to pay — unless you prefer getting marginal results, running around town, lurking in parking lots and posing for security cameras, all while schlepping around stacks of flyers and carefully avoiding people you know. Online, free advertising attracts people without money and spammers, although you may get good results with Craigslist. Offline advertising includes newspapers, magazines, direct mail, radio, television, offline directory listings and billboards. Online advertising includes Pay Per Click, e-zines and online directory listings. I do not recommend using banner ads. Advertising ROI will depend on the net lifetime value of each acquisition or conversion and the cost of each acquisition.
- Press Releases - If your business is newsworthy, or if you can create a newsworthy event, then you may be able to get some free exposure. Your press release needs to be well written in a suitable format and distributed either offline, online or both.
- Speaking and Contributing Articles - It is an accepted practice to establish your reputation and generate leads by speaking at meetings or contributing articles to journals. Don’t expect to get paid anything until you become a recognized expert in your field.
- Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures - A business or list owner promotes your offer to his or her clients or e-mail list based on an agreement through which you both stand to gain. It’s not uncommon to give a joint venture partner all the profit from an initial product offering in exchange for helping you to add new contacts to your list.
- E-Mailing Your List - You can send relevant commercial messages to subscribers who previously opted into your database. Try to avoid using purchased lists. If you must, be sure you know with certainty that the subscribers agreed to receive offers from third parties. Be genuinely helpful and careful not to abuse your list.
- Search Engine Optimization - You’ll need a web site, and unless you’re an SEO maven, you’ll have to pay for SEO services. There’s more to doing effective search engine optimization than most people realize. However, SEO will be worth the trouble if it gets you ranked high up in the free organic search engine results that most searchers look at and care about.
- Social Media - Social marketing is similar in philosophy to speaking and article contribution mentioned above. You share online videos and articles to educate, inform and entertain people, and to build a relationship with them. If they want your product or service, they’ll be inclined to buy it from you, since they know you, and you’ve earned their respect. Your blog on a social networking site, a blogging community such as Blogger.com, or you own hosting, are good places to share your content. For ideal results, create and post new original content on a regular basis. If your content is geared toward your target market, then you’ll attract qualified customers to you and your site.
- Business and Social Networking - Networking is meeting new people and developing relationships with them. You can network at your local Small Business Association, Chamber of Commerce or BNI. I can go to Network Plus, a group in my area founded by Ted Fattoross. Online social networking is more convenient. You network from your computer at any of thousands of social networking sites. My favorites are Ning and Facebook. You build relationships by asking questions and getting to know people. Keep in mind that spamming doesn’t work at all, and exchanging business cards is no more than a cordial first step in starting a relationship.
I like the web marketing channels: my e-mail list, search engine optimization, social marketing and business networking. I coordinate them to benefit from the synergies between them.
Now it’s your turn.
Which methods do you use? Which ones are you hoping to use in the future? What challenges do you foresee?
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Jun
21
Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 22 Comments
Social media sites are rapidly altering the web marketing landscape. Now you can use social media to drive targeted traffic to your websites.
You may be trying to determine whether social media is a viable alternative to search engine optimization.
After all, search engine optimization requires extensive keyword research and ongoing content development to achieve top search engine rankings. Is it possible that social media sites might provide a more expedient web marketing solution?
I’ve found in my experience that social networking sites and other social media can generate a modest level of response much more quickly than search engine optimization initiatives. So why not focus exclusively on social marketing?
Social Media AND Search Engine Optimization
Please read The Long Tail and Social Media, and you’ll start to appreciate the extent to which search engine optimization can enhance social media.
Not only does search engine optimization help you promote your website, it also helps you promote your social media content. Your website and your social media together constitute your web presence, and search engine optimization helps you to market your overall web presence.
Interestingly, the converse is also true.
Social media helps your search engine optimization efforts. It adds to the links back to your website generating both referral traffic and credibility with the various search engines.
They key is to coordinate your social media and search engine optimization, creating the maximum synergy between the two through an integrated approach.
The New Online Marketing Professional
It’s no longer enough for online marketing pros to be fluent in search engine optimization technique. They must also fully understand social media sites and their role in building both your online presence and the desired backlinks to your website.
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Jun
11
Why Doesn’t My Website Generate Sales?
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 10 Comments
Could it be that your website looks nice but fails to help you meet your web marketing objectives? Too often that is the case.
Lots of effort and expense went into building your site, but your return on investment is marginal or non-existent.
Here are possible reasons why your website isn’t generating leads or sales and some ideas that might help you correct the problems.
Too Little Website Traffic
Perhaps you lack an effective strategy for driving visitors to your site.
You set up your storefront but didn’t tell potential customers that you were in business, a mistake I often see both online and off.
Lack of traffic leads to lack of exposure for you and your offer or message.
Don’t assume that traffic will somehow find its way to you through word-of-mouth, search engines or otherwise. It rarely happens that way.
Generate exposure for your website offline via print advertising, direct mail, radio, etc. and online using social media, search engine marketing, search engine optimization and so forth.
Think big. You can dominate your niche, so don’t settle for less.
The Wrong Website Traffic
You have traffic, but either your traffic is not targeted or it’s poorly targeted, the result of using bad copy, selecting the wrong media, or choosing the wrong keywords.
For greater and more targeted traffic, employ a good mix of research, analysis and experimentation.
Direct marketers have been using this approach offline since before you and I were born, and it works like a charm online as well.
Insufficient Stickiness
You have plenty of visitors, but they leave your website too soon.
Consider these questions:
- Are you targeting the right traffic?
- Are your branding and message clear?
- Are your pages too cluttered, or do you give your visitor too many choices?
- Is your font hard to read? Try to avoid white on black in all your media, since it slows down your reader.
- Is important content “above the fold?” Can visitors see your most important content without scrolling down?
- Is your content up-to-date, relevant and interesting?
- Do you use social techniques on your website to engage your visitors?
Poor Conversion
You have plenty of visitors who stick around but nothing happens.
Here are more questions to ponder:
- Do you have a conversion strategy?
- Does each of your pages have a call to action?
- If not ready to buy, can your visitor join, opt-in to or subscribe to your site?
If you don’t have a lead capture mechanism and follow-up strategy, you’re leaving lots of money on the table.
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