Using Facebook and other social networking sites such as Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn for marketing is a great way to get free traffic to your website or blog.
Apart for the time needed to make a few posts, it doesn't have to cost you anything to get in front of thousands of potential customers.
It is important to treat those prospects right though, as social media is not the same as some traditional forms of advertising.
If you are looking to generate new business and need additional sales channels, then Facebook, Google+ and Twitter might just be the channels that you need to succeed.
You of course need to set your accounts up, and manage them correctly in order to get the maximum benefit from your efforts. There are some great suggestions HERE which will get you started on the right path.
Auto responders and email management systems that can be set up to automatically send your contacts specific emails at set times.
When a contact signs up to one of your lists, for example to your Newsletter, they will receive a welcome email, followed a few days later (or at a time frame that you decide) by a second email then a third, etc again at a time specified by you.
Auto responders are a great way to get your message out to your contacts in a controlled, time efficient way.
Which ever you choose, (and they all have slightly different features to choose from) you will be able to set up a series of email messages to send to specific mailing lists or contacts.
Staying in touch with your customers, prospects, leads or suppliers is more important than ever. If you have a database that you want to promote yourself to, you should be using an auto responder to do so quickly and efficiently.
How easy is it to actually make money from a blog?
What is involved in the process?
What do you need to do in order to be successful?
These are questions that we get asked time and time again. Millions of people fail to get their blogs off the ground because they don't understand what they need to do to succeed.
Blogging isn't any different to any other method of generating money, all it requires is a little know how, and lots of time patience and persistence.
If you have a blog and want to turn it into a money spinning enterprise, you need to know what you should be doing in order to make that happen.
The vast majority of people who make a start fall at the first hurdle, which is 'consistency'.
Here's how it goes;
You have something to say about a particular niche, subject etc, so you create a blog and for the first few days you publish some great content.
By the end of the first week you are struggling for things to say, so your posting frequency begins to drop off before you have really gotten started.
The major search engines never establish a pattern for your posting, so don't visit you very often, so your site doesn't get many visitors.
This makes you more despondent and you end up either stopping completely, or posting on a random cycle that doesn't do anything to encourage visits from either real people of search engines.
...And so your blog fails.
How you should Blog
If instead you had a working template of things you need to do, then you would stand a much better chance of success.
All the steps you need to succeed, written down in front of you for you to follow, with further information on each step if you need it.
Blogging is just a case of keeping on keeping on ans Winston Churchill used to say.
The No.1 biggest reason for failure is that people don't get instant results and so quit.
Being realistic, from your starting point, it is going to take you 6 months of posting daily before you begin to get some decent traffic numbers.
It sounds like a long time, but that initial 6 months is the most important time in your blogs life, and will determine success or failure.
If you are prepared to put in the initial work then you will build a blog that will make you money.
Find out everything that you need to know about building a successful money making blog..... start here......
You should also sign up to the newsletter as that will help to keep you motivated, on track and focused, as well as offering you all the advice, tips and tricks that you will need as your blog grows bigger and bigger.... newsletter sign up
Take the first step to making your blog work and sign up free today.
Using Twitter for Marketing is relatively straightforward. You just need to follow a few simple rules in order to make it work for you.
Here are some great ideas that will help you to drive quality traffic
Use advanced search options to locate opportunities. The advanced search opportunities at search.twitter.com
allow you to insert keywords that people would use in conversations to
find you or your product or service. For example, I search for people
who are tweeting the phrase "looking for speaker." It turns up a ton of
tweets related to event or meeting planners. Once I find these keywords
in posts, I reach out to the person who tweeted them to say hello, ask
to connect and start building a relationship.
If you use Twitter for nothing else, use it to learn from others. Head to hashtags like #SMB or #smallbiz for advice, resources and current news of the small business variety (also follow along during Twitter chats).
Although broad hashtags like these can generate an overwhelming number
of tweets every day, tune in every so often for a quick update. A couple
of scrolls down the feed could inspire your next blog post, marketing
tactic or bestseller.
If you seek a more specific conversation, narrow hashtags down by topic. The #marketing hashtag contains a ton of small business-related content, as does #sales. Or take a peek in the #startups or #entrepreneurs
hashtag for inspirational profiles in the space. Finally, if you’re
looking for tips on meeting like-minded businesspeople, try the #networking hashtag, where you’ll find information on meetups and advice on making connections.
On 16th of Feb. we had an interesting and informative webinar about
Using Twitter on Market Your Book. Our panel consisted of Carolyn-Howard
Johnson (author of the HowToDoItFrugally series), Joel Friedlander
(proprietor of Marin Bookworks), Laurel Marshfield (professional writer,
ghostwriter and developmental editor), Phyllis Zimbler Miller
(co-founder of Miller Mosaic Power Marketing) and Penny C. Sansevieri
(CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.).
We answered a lot of questions but still had a few unanswered. This
post answers those questions. If you have any questions, please leave
them in the comments for our panel.
1. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on staying on top
of the traffic – how do we work through the noise to get tweets that
are relevant. The flipside of that is how do we break through the noise
as promoters – to help others to focus on our tweets. [Magdalena Ball]
Beginners Guide to Becoming a Twitter Marketing Expert
Twitter can be a fantastic tool for getting your message across to
thousands of targeted people who are talking about, or have an interest
in your specific goods or services.
In order to harness the power of Twitter though, you need to have a
good understanding of how it works in order make it work for you.
To get started, first you are going to need a Twitter account. You
can have different Twitter accounts for different subjects, and doing so
will help you to target the specific followers that will be interested
in your goods or services.
Firstly try to find a username that says what you do, or what your
product is, as it will aid your profile when people are searching for
those goods and services.
Once you have a profile set up and have verified your email address
for the account, you can begin by posting a few tweets and following a
few people.
Tweets are 140 characters in length maximum, so you need to be
concise in what you say. You will also want to include a link to content
that you want to show your followers. Links are often long, and on
Twitter are a waste of characters, so sign up for a Bit.ly
account which will automatically shorten your links for you. Just add
your Twitter account settings in your Bit.ly account, under
settings/connected accounts.
Deeho SEO have been providing SEO services in Bedford for over eleven years. Through carefully practiced methods and procedures we have developed successful Google friendly methods that deliver results for our clients time after time.
We start by learning about our clients business model, and look in depth at what they want to achieve for their business.
A website should work for you like a 24 / 7 sales team, driving enquiries or direct sales through your website, to your business, and we make sure that we are going to be driving appropriate traffic that will convert into real sales for your business, day after day, week after week, year after year.
To find out how you can make your website work for you, please request a
totally free, non obligation 175 point website audit from us by
clicking HERE http://www.deehoseo.com/seo/bedford/
There is much more to successful SEO than just bringing traffic to a website. The skill is to bring the right visitors from the right sources so that you will see a healthy return on your investment.
Effective Web Design is essential for good search engine optimization. If you do not tell the search engines what your pages are all about and what you would like to rank for, how do you ever hope to rank for those terms? Page Title is historically the home of the vane. Often filled with corporate identities, tag lines and in essence, wasted as a result. You have 96 characters that are the very first words that appear on your page….. use them wisely for your main keywords.
Alt Text is the text that appears in place of your images if a visitor has images disabled. A happy by product is that although the search engines can’t read image content, they can read your alt text on each of your images. Make sure that you fill the alt text with your main keywords for every image on your page.
Use Heading Tags to focus your keywords for search. The search engines love to see Heading tags used as they indicate what a paragraph or section of your page is going to be about. The more focused your pages, with tight focused Headings the better, as they will be viewed as high quality content and ranked as such.
Each of your pages should ideally be focused on just one subject. If the search engines see that your page is all about one thing from start to finish, it will conclude that it is a better page than one that discusses lots of different subjects. As a direct consequence you will rank higher with that page.
The search engines can only rank you for words that it can find within your content. The more frequently it finds each keyword, the more important your page will be considered for that keyword…. Up to the point when you will be thrown out for keyword spamming. To avoid this, write naturally, fro your readers, but pay attention to what the search engines need to see too.
If the search engines can’t follow your links then your pages will never be found or ranked. Websites designed using Flash, or with Java Script Menus can often suffer in search as the content is inaccessible. Plain simple web design will give you the best search engine rankings.
If you are tempted to cheat by using underhand practices to improve your rankings then be aware of the consequences when you get caught… which you will. Your site will be removed from the rankings and you will have little recourse to getting it re listed. There is little benefit to using “Black hat” techniques as you will be reported if you try to rank for competitive search terms, and if you are targeting low traffic keywords…. Why bother in the first place?
In Summary, concentrating on effective design is essential for good SERPS, planning your site layout before it is build can buy you free rankings that will take a lot longer with an inefficient site design.
Deeho Web Design create search engine friendly, effective websites that deliver results in search.
It is worth pointing out here at the beginning that I do not sell SEO (Search Engine Optimization), what I sell is website traffic, high quality website traffic that works for my clients. How that traffic is actually achieved is in reality of little importance to my clients.
Too many people are hung up selling their service when they would be far more successful selling the results of that service. People don't want to diet plan, they want to look and feel good. People don't want 18 inch thich roof insulation, they want small heating bills etc
As "Walls" once advertised, sell the sizzle not the sausage.
If you want to create more sales leads, then solve more problems for your customers. We are all in the problem solving business, the key to success is to sell the solution, not the product.
Once you have defined your solution and the target demographic likely to suffer from the problem that you can fix, you will need to get in front of them. Preferably masses of them, preferably when they are ready to buy, with their cash in their hand.....
So where do these prospects live? Where do they hide? Where do they go when they are looking to buy your problem solving solution? More and more the answer is online....
Google dominates the search market which is where over 80% of people online find the things that they are going to buy. Yes, there are a large number of "windowshoppers" as well, but if you set yourself up properly then you will capture all of the window shoppers email addresses so that you can sell to them at a later date. After all, they are at the very least a "Warm" lead if they are looking for your solution in the first place.
Google operates by ranking websites in order of perceived importance, based upon two things, "on-page" information and "off-page" information. The "on-page" information includes all of the written content on your pages as well as page title, alt text, meta data, page headings, image names, etc
The "off-page" information is a measure of your sites popularity, in simple terms Google looks around at how many other websites link to yours...... the site with the most links is the winner.
To get to the top of the rankings you will need to conduct "Due Diligance" with regard to the keywords that you want to rank for. It is a time consuming process getting to the top so you want to make sure that when you do achieve top rankings that you will be rewarded with lots of high quality traffic.
Google PR is far less relevant than it once was. Instead of focusing your efforts on creating high PR links, it is far more beneficial to your ranking efforts to focus on the categorization of the pages linking to your content. See http://www.deehoseo.com/search_engine_optimization/backlink-category-relevance.php for more information.
Having said that, Google PR is still a metric that has an influence, and is an overall indicator of the authority of the links pointing to the page. The higher PR relevant category pages you can build links on the better.
There is a lot spoken about PR Juice, how to get it, what it does and how it can help you, not all of it is useful information though.
The most important aspect of PR is that it is a tool used by Google to establish the value of a link from your site. Yes, it is a measure of your sites worth in the eyes of Google, but it alone will not improve your ranking. A PR 1 page can out rank a PR 7, but I would rather have the link from the PR 7 any day.
PR Juice is the effect that PR sites that link to you can have on your site. If you can get lots of PR 6 sites to link to you then you will gain from their PR Juice. This is for the simple reason that Google will see your site as being "recommended" by many "authority" sites. If you continue to collect links from established high value PR sites such as these, you too will become an "authority" site in the eyes of Google and that my friend is the power of PR Juice.
PR from a page is shared between the pages it links to, so a PR 7 with one external link passes most of that PR to the linked page, however, a PR 7 with 100 external links divides the PR7 between the 100 linked sites, severely reducing the influence the page has.
Further to previous comments made here, Google seems to be concentrating its efforts on protecting the integrity of it organic listings. The best way for it to do this is to prevent larger organisations from buying their way to the top via paid links.
The tightrope currently being walked is tricky to get right, for in effect Google is a seller of paid ads themselves. In actuality they are a publisher who displays dutch auction ads on their pages, and not much more..... but the sum of the parts quite frequently adds up to more than the individual components.
When is a paid ad a banner? Are all banner ads going to be penalised? In which event many Google adsense campaigns would surely fall foul?
I get the feeling that it is more the case of being seen to be doing something rather than actually doing something that is the important issue here.
There is no doubt that many sites that rank highly in Google for very competitive keywords have paid links pointing to them.
Is a paid directory classed as a paid link?...... only it seems if it is a low quality directory! High quality directories are ok by Google.
I'm back from my travels in the far east and yes it is indeed far.
I have been drawn to the latest seo bolt on service, namely Online Reputation Management or to put it another way, the art of making sure that bad news gets buried and lots of lovely good news rises to the top and masks the bad.
This prctice is increasingly being used not only my the rich and famous, but by the not so rich and the not so famous. It is increasingly normal these days to "Google" a new partner, business associate, colleague etc and as such if you are not careful you can soon find your reputation tainted through no fault of your own. In these inlightened times, the net is alive with information and with the rise in popularity of the blogging, facebook etc it is now easier than ever for any disgruntled client, customer, lover, journalist to paint a less that savoury picture of you.
This is where the top SEO companies such as ourselves come in. We can in some cases remove some of the unflattering material (although this is very difficult to do) and then we bombard your name with more suitable content, blogs, websites articles etc and then promote them into the top listings. This has the effect of pushing the unwanted material down the rankings onto the second or third page where it will do less harm to your reputation.
A search in Google for Kate Moss will show that she has recently had her name cleaned. As in the listings all of the more selatious stories about her are on the second and third pages and the top ten results are filled with only positive listings. In light of her recent news worthiness this would not be the case if the results were ranking completely naturally.
Google works in much the same way as the rest of the world in that bad news travels further than good news.
A lot is made of Directory Submission and Search Engine Submission in chat rooms and within various seo related forums. I am quite concerned for any unsuspecting customer who could quite easily get taken in by one of the thousands of sites that offers to sign you up to thousands of directories every month for a few pounds. It is often claimed that using such a "service" will promote the target site within the major search engine......... which is highly debateable.
Two main reasons prevent this service from being as much use as it appears;
1/. If your site was actually added to thousands of directories every month then your site would be removed from the main search engines as you would have tripped the main link volume filter operated but the majors.
2/. The shear volume of links they claim they will add implies that it is nothing more than a piece of software they will be using to submit your site automatically. The standard and quality of the links will be either very poor or terrible.
Ask yourselves this question " If this service works so well in promoting a website and moving it up the rankings in the major search engines.... where are the vendors ranking in Google?"
If they are in the top ten then have a look at exactly how they have achieved it. Just because a site is there today, don't immediately assume that they have been there for years or will be there in a years time. Some unscrupulous "Black Hat" seo's will happily cloak site after site in order to maintain a "permanent" presence even though it is with different sites. A cloaked site will not last very long at the top of competitive searches, The search engines will remove them as soon as they are found.... permanently. That will happen to your site too if you use their services, except that you wil have already paid them and they will be impossible to find.
Take time to choose your seo company carefully and you will be rewarded with long term growth, increased sales and a top ranking to be proud of.
The next part of your page to concentrate upon is your footer. The reason for this is that when a search engine looks at your page, if it sees that the beginning of the page relates to a subject, the content relates to a subject, the images and logos relate to a subject and finally the footer relates to a subject then it stands to reason that the page it is looking at is all dedicated to that one subject....... and what does Google want to provide for its vast network of searchers??? High quality topic specific websites that provide the information that the searcher needs.
I will discuss the page content in the next section
The content of your page should be fresh and original. In addition you should try to include your keywords where you can in order that the text is searchable for your topic. The optimum keyword density is important to how well the site ranks, you want to include your keyword 6 - 8 times on the page including in the h1 and h2 tags, for maximum effect.
As you work your way down the page you will need to make sure that your images and graphics have suitable alt text attached to them. If you use your keywords as the alt text, followed by image 1, image 2 etc then you will help your page to rank as well as possible.
After the logo that you have already located in the top left you can continue your header across the page. If you want to add some flast this is a good place to put it, but remember that Goole and the other SE's will see no more than a white square.
You also need to add some navigation to your site. The simpler the navigation is the better. Google will struggle to follow java script links or clickable images and will also not know what the links "subject" is. If you use text then the links can be read and understood and the pages that you link to will benefit.
Once you have the navigation in place it is time to concentrate on the content for the site. Start with Heading tags. H1 to H6 are important tags and so you should use them whenever you can. You can adjust the size etc using your css style sheet so they do not need to be huge headings on the page. Make the heading tags your prime keywords so that they rank as well as they can.
If you are at the planning stage then you have the ideal opportunity to create a site that will be easy to optimize and that will rank as well as it can.
Of course if you are working with an existing site then you will be somewhat stuck with the design that you have. As long as the index page of the site isn't just a pretty flash entry page you will have something to work with.
However if you have a blank page but want some interaction on your site how can you lay it out so that you will still rank well?
Firstly you want to have either an image or logo in the top left corner. This is the first thing that the SE's spider will look at and although it can't see the image or logo it can read the alt text that you can put behind it.
Another good indicator when deciding upon a niche is to run a short term Adwords campaign. This will help in several ways as it will give you the main traffic keywords and highlight the ones that are a waste of time in the real world.
You will also get a feel for how competitive a keyword is. As a basic rule of thumb, the more adwords ads there are for a keyword, the more expensive it will be to rank on the front page. It follows that the organic listings will mirror this and it will be harder for your site to rank in the top ten the more ads show, and the higher the per click costs are.
If you take an hour to dig deep before you commit to a niche then you will save yourself many wasted hours in the long run.
Detailed analysis is vital if you are to succeed in your quest of top rankings. You can formulate a plan for anything if you know what you are competing against.
The best indication of success is keyword frequency...... if the site that you wish to surpass has used its' url in the majority of its' links then you have the opportunity to make your links more valuable by using the right link text on the right pages.
Once you have selected a keyword how do you go about analysing the top ranked sites?
The can be done in stages, firstly have a look at their PR rank. This will give you an idea as to the value Google places on the site.
Second, have a look at the quantity of backlinks. The is best done currently using Yahoo here; http://uk.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/siteexplorer which will show you every link Yahoo is aware of, and also how many pages are currently spidered for the site. This is not an exact figure and every search engine returns different data, but in the main it is the best yard stick. Google for example will only show a few backlinks even though in reality the site may have thousands. This is in part due to the workings of its algorithm, however Google analytics provides accurate data for your own sites, sadly this data is not available for your competitors sites.
Thirdly it is a good idea to have a look at the link text of your competitors links to see if it is an area that you can improve upon. I use SEO Elite for this purpose as it will return detailed results on link PR, page title, link text, as well as alexa rank, etc
If you have a look at the top four or five sites in your niche, not forgetting to also have a look at the main url if an individual page is ranking then you will soon get to grips with how achievable your goals are.
Before you attack a keyword armed with nothing more than enthusiasm and guts it is well worth having a good look at the competition that you are going to face. Top rankings in any niche are achievable if you do more than anyone else has done. The problem arises when you realise that the site that you want to beat is a PR 8, has 100,000 links, is in Dmoz, has existed since 1995 and has the dot com url that is perfect for the niche.............. how do you go about competing with such a site?......
The short answer is to pick battles that you can win...... and for the time being you can't win that one....... but if you work as hard as they did then in five years time your site may well be a worthy adversary to their crown.
If that example was the case for your niche then I would advise initially chasing traffic that you can realistically attain. It is important to walk before you can run, but while still keeping your eyes on the big picture.
