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By K Damian Qualter (c) 2012

Even though there are numerous search engines available on the internet we all know that Google is the one that counts when it comes to rankings. This means that if you want your website to be successful you need to aim your SEO campaign at Google, but how exactly can you do this if you struggle to understand the complexities of the subject?

1. Create Content That Isn’t Time Sensitive

Putting good quality content on your website that won’t go out-of-date in a few weeks or months is an easy way to boost search engine optimization. By making the content you use useful now and in the future you won’t need to remóve it and replace it over and over again – you can simply add to it on a regular basis.

A website with very poor content or very little content is an SEO no-no if you want good search engine rankings so get your typing head on and create some content that people will be glad to read now and in 10 years’ time.
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LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter. Undeniably, LinkedIn is a very powerful marketing tool that you should take full advantage of today.

Learn how to build a powerful business presence on LinkedIn from five industry masters by downloading our new ebook, Learning LinkedIn from the Experts.

With this ebook, you’ll learn how to:

* Build Your LinkedIn Foundation, by Stephanie Sammons
* Grow Your LinkedIn Network, by Jan Vermeiren
* Use LinkedIn to Market Business, by Neal Schaffer
* Use LinkedIn to Market Yourself, by Lewis Howes
* Measure the ROI of LinkedIn, by Rebecca Corliss

No other resource contains this much expert advice on LinkedIn. Get the ebook and share it with your friends today.

Download the New Ebook

1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on Facebook, turning the social network into a huge opportunity for marketers. With little effort, you can boost your Facebook interactions by 30% or more.

Learn how to master the power of Facebook by downloading this ebook, How to Master Facebook Marketing in 10 Days.

Download this ebook and learn:

* How to apply tips from successful Facebook pages
* Facebook best practices
* How to create custom welcome pages to generate leads
* How to use Facebook’s analytics package ‘Insights’
* And much more

Now go young grasshopper; start your journey to becoming a Facebook marketing master today!

Download the Ebook Now

Saturday, January 28th, 2012
snoopy_writing

I’ve published eight books in the past seven years, five with traditional publishers (Wiley, Penguin, HarperCollins), one comic book,  and the last two I’ve self-published. In this post I give the specific details of all of my sales numbers and advances with the traditional publishers. Although the jury is still out on my self-published books, “How to be the Luckiest Man Alive” and ”I Was Blind But Now I See”  I can tell you these two have already sold more than my five books with traditional publishers, combined.

If you, the entrepreneur, self-publish a book you will stand out, you will make more money, you will kick your competitors right in the XX, and you will look amazingly cool at cocktail parties. I know this because I am seldom cool but at cocktail parties, with my very own comic book, I can basically have sex with anyone in the room. But don’t believe me, it costs you nothing and almost no time to try it yourself.

The rest of this article is really three discussions: Why self-publish rather than use a traditional publisher, why entrepreneurs should self-publish, and finally, HOW does one go about self-publishing.

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43% of marketers consider landing pages “very effective” in converting visitors into leads. In order to achieve high conversion rates, you need to go beyond the basics.

Ready to get started? Download our new ebook, Optimizing Landing Pages for Lead Generation and Conversion, to learn how to build extremely effective landing pages.

Download this ebook and you’ll learn:

* How to add social media sharing buttons to a landing page
* How building effective ‘thank you’ pages increases conversion
* How to tie lead nurturing campaigns with a landing page
* How to use A/B testing to optimize your landing pages, and what elements to test

Download the Ebook Now

You know great content is at the core of an effective marketing strategy, but let’s face it, often times you’d rather hide under a rock than tackle your next writing project.

If you struggle with creating remarkable content ideas, download our new ebook, A Practical Guide to Killer Marketing Content.

From this ebook, you’ll learn:

* 10 tips for creating extraordinarily-good content
* How to never run out of content ideas
* How to create an editorial calendar to keep content flowing
* How to increase quality leads by mapping content to your buying cycle

Apply the tips from this ebook today to create killer content for your website, blog, email, and social media campaigns!

Download the Ebook Now 

On January 19th, Google+ hit 90 million users and proved to marketers it’s here to stay. If you haven’t yet claimed your Google+ business page, now’s the time!

Download our new guide How to Use Google+ for Business to learn how to master the newest and fastest-growing social network.

In this guide you’ll learn:

* How to set up a Google+ business page
* Marketing best practices with your Google+ page
* The benefits of Google+ in search
* Google+ Circles & the value of segmentation
* How to incorporate the +1 button on your blog

This is the most comprehensive and info-packed guide to Google+ for Business. Get it while it’s hot !

Download the Google+ Ebook Now 

Generating leads with social media isn’t a myth. 63% of companies say it has increased their marketing effectiveness.

Learn how to drive real business results from your social media marketing efforts with our new guide, 99 Tools to Help You Generate Leads with Social Media.

 Whether you are just launching your social marketing or are at the stage of optimizing your efforts, this guide will help you;

* Easily manage multiple social media channels
* Promote content to gain followers and grow your reach
* Monitor the social sphere to engage with your audience
* Track and analyze social media effectiveness

Download the Guide Now

Article By David Jackson (c) 2012

A couple of weeks ago, I visited one of the Internet Marketing/Small Business forums that I’m a member of, and noticed a new member had posted a typical newbie question in the SEO forum. The member wanted to know how she could be guaranteed to get her website on the first page of Google. As usual, members came crawling out of the woodwork with advice – including members who didn’t even own a website.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty typical on Internet Marketing/Small Business forums… members who don’t own a website instructing other members how to get on the first page of Google… members who don’t own a business dispensing business advice. So be careful where you get your advice from… but I digress.

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By Tamar Weinberg On January 5, 2012

 

SEO

Jill Whalen (c) 2012

Have you heard of Google’s Authorship program yet? Whether you’ve heard of it or not, you’ve likely seen its fruits in the search results. You know those listings that have a photo of the author next to them? Most likely they get that extra cool stuff because they’re using Rel=Author correctly and Google has accepted them to participate. Unfortunately, it’s been a bit hit-or-miss as to whether your content gets accepted or not. I saw mine accepted for a day or two many months ago, and then *poof!* it was gone. I reviewed their new guidelines recently, however, made a few changes, and sure enough, within a week or so, my content started showing up… yay!

While you may or may not get your content into the program, the only way to know is to try, and persistence is definitely a key.

If you’re thinking it’s just not worth the trouble, here are 5 reasons why it’s super important:

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By Tola Ajayi (c) 2012

 

SEO myths become larger every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it’s often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction.

For example, you might make a change to something on a page of your site, and a few days later notice that your ranking in Google for a particular keyword phrase has changed. You might naturally assume that your page change is what caused the ranking change. But that’s not necessarily so. There are numerous reasons why your ranking may have changed, and in many cases they actually have nothing to do with anything that you did.

Mixing up cause and effect is one of the most common things new SEOs do. If it were affecting only their own work, it wouldn’t be so bad, but unfortunately, the clueless often spread their misinformation to other unsuspecting newbies on forums and blogs, which in turn creates new myths. It’s always interesting to see how people are so willing to believe anything they have read or heard without ever checking it out for themselves.
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randfish

October 13th, 2010 – Posted by  to Vertical SEO: Video, Image, Local

 

I’ve been having a lot of conversations recently with websites in need of better rankings for keyword + cityname combinations in cities across the country (or around the world). This is one of the most challenging tasks in the SEO field, for four big reasons:
  1. Maps Results Bias Against Multi-City Domains
    Google’s local/maps results are far more challenging to get into if you’re not a business with a physical local presence. Opening field offices or leveraging local franchises are possibilities, but they take time and effort
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Google’s search engine is an important tool for businesses looking to get found online. But did you know about Google’s other great marketing tools?

Learn how to unlock the power of Google beyond search with our ebook, 8 Google Tools to Improve Marketing Effectiveness.

In this ebook, you will learn how your marketing can benefit from:

1. Google AdWords
2. Google Docs
3. Google Keyword Tool
4. Google Alerts
5. Google News
6. Google Reader
7. Google Places
8. NEW: Google+

Every marketer should be taking advantage of these 8 Google tools for their business. Get the guide today!

Download the Ebook Now  

92% of online users first use search engines to look for products and services. Amazingly, 75% of those users never scroll past the first page of search results!

Getting found online is no longer optional; it’s critical. Learn how to rank high in search engines by downloading our ebook, Learning SEO from the Experts: A Step-by-Step Guide.

In this 27-page guide, you will learn how to:

* Identify keyword opportunities
* Master on-page SEO
* Create link-building strategies
* Incorporate social media into your SEO efforts

Download the Guide Now

A website is a critical component of a company’s online strategy; however, 44% of marketers say engaging visitors and increasing quality leads is their biggest challenge.

Learn the top principles for increasing quality traffic and leads by downloading this essential guide, 25 Website Must-Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales .

This 52-page ebook gives you access to:

* Essential SEO advice to increase traffic
* Important design tips to reduce bounce rates
* Content creation ideas for engaging visitors
* Best practices for converting traffic into leads

Download the Ebook Now

48% of marketers use Facebook Business Pages to grow their reach online. But did you know there are other great ways to increase traffic and leads using Facebook?

In our new ebook, Beyond the Facebook Business Page, Andrea Vahl, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, reveals insights on how you can use Facebook to drive real business results.

This 28-page ebook will teach you how to:

* Drive traffic to your website from Facebook
* Pick what content to post on Facebook
* Advertise effectively on Facebook
* Capture leads from Facebook
* Run Facebook contests & sweepstakes

Grab this new ebook, and find out how to turn Facebook into a source of traffic and leads for your business.

Download the New Ebook

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help your website rank higher in search results. But are buyers finding your products or services first, or are they seeing your competitors instead?

Without the knowledge and use of SEO practices, ranking at the top can seem difficult.  But fear not! Our special SEO Kit gives you the tips and tricks you need to understand the search landscape, optimize your website, and get found online.

This ultimate SEO kit contains:

* Ebook: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
* Ebook: Learning SEO From the Experts: A Step-by-Step Guide
* Ebook: How to Spot Bad SEO Services
* Video: Search Engine Optimization 101
* And more!

Download the SEO Kit Now!

If hotels and TripAdvisor were in a relationship their status on Facebook would read: It’s Complicated.

TripAdvisor has been feeling the heat lately.  The consumer-voiced travel review site has dealt with issues in the past, such as hotels claiming certain user reviews are fake, which ultimately harm the hotel’s reputation.  More recently TripAdvisor is facing claims from the Advertising Standards Authority that reviews from unverified authors cannot be published on other third party sites. Proving reviewer credibility is an on-going issue for TripAdvisor and, for that reason and many others, the relationship between TripAdvisor and hotels remains complicated.

Nevertheless, consumers continue to turn to the site for travel recommendations, making the site a constant concern for hotels and an online space hotels must maintain. So, the predicament remains for hotels stuck in a love-hate relationship with TripAdvisor.  Let’s dive into the issues at hand for hotels, why hotels need to play the game, and what you need to do as an online hotel marketer to make the best of this troubled relationship.

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Analytics give marketers amazing insight into their marketing campaigns, but with so many possible combinations of metrics and reports to track, it’s easy get overwhelmed.

Don’t let data overload stop you from using analytics to improve your marketing effectiveness. Our newest ebook, Introduction to Inbound Marketing Analytics, highlights essential metrics for data-driven decision making.

This 85-page guide will teach you how to effectively analyze the following marketing channels:

* Your Website, Landing Pages and Blog
* Search Engine Optimization
* Paid Search
* Social Media
* Email Marketing
* Lead Nurturing & Marketing Automation

Start analyzing and improving your marketing by downloading this complimentary ebook today .
Download the Ebook Now 

November 16th, 2011 – Posted by  to Technical SEO Issues

The author’s posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

“No one saw the panda uprising coming. One day, they were frolicking in our zoos. The next, they were frolicking in our entrails. They came for the identical twins first, then the gingers, and then the rest of us. I finally trapped one and asked him the question burning in all of our souls – ‘Why?!’ He just smiled and said ‘You humans all look alike to me.’”

- Sgt. Jericho “Bamboo” Jackson


Pandas Take No PrisonersOk, maybe we’re starting to get a bit melodramatic about this whole Panda thing. While it’s true that Panda didn’t change everything about SEO, I think it has been a wake-up call about SEO issues we’ve been ignoring for too long.

One of those issues is duplicate content. While duplicate content as an SEO problem has been around for years, the way Google handles it has evolved dramatically and seems to only get more complicated with every update. Panda has upped the ante even more.

So, I thought it was a good time to cover the topic of duplicate content, as it stands in 2011, in depth. This is designed to be a comprehensive resource – a complete discussion of what duplicate content is, how it happens, how to diagnose it, and how to fix it. Maybe we’ll even round up a few rogue pandas along the way.

 

Rachael Gerson by 96

 

Rachael Gerson spearheads the Analytics division at SEER Interactive. Follow her on Twitter @rachaelgerson.
Over the past eight months, Google has steadily released one revolutionary new feature after another. On March 17, the company announced a new version of Google Analytics. Up until this point, users could decide whether they preferred to stick with the old interface or switch to the new one. However, Google recently announced that the old version of GA will be turned off in January 2012.

If you’re not already familiar with the new version, take the next few weeks to get comfortable with it. To help you get started, let’s review the top 10 features of the new Google Analytics.

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By Jill Whalen

The keywords and phrases you use in your Meta description tag may not affect your page’s ranking in the search engines, but this tag can still come in handy in your overall SEO and social media marketing campaigns.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

It’s a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the <Head> </Head> section of a web page. It is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag (if you use one), although the order is not important.

The proper syntax for this HTML tag is:

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Your descriptive sentence or two goes here.”>

If you’re using a content management system (CMS), look for a field to fill out that’s called Meta Description, or possibly just “Description.”

Many years ago, the information contained in a Meta description could slightly help a page rank highly for the words that were contained within it. Today, neither Google, Bing, nor Yahoo! use it as a ranking signal.
In other words, whether you use your important keyword phrases in your Meta description tag or not, the position of your page in the search engine results will not be affected. So in terms of rankings, you could easily leave it out altogether.

But should you?

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Article By Matthew Meyer

Google Place Search (formerly known as Google Places) rules local search. Just try it. Go to Google and type in “Personal Injury Attorney Your City.” The first seven listings in the “natural search listings” are all Google Places pages. Since 20% of searches are local and the majority of their over $30 billion in revenue comes from small businesses, Google has decided to go hard after local small business advertising.
They started by creating 50 million Google Places pages using aggregated data from online directories and the Yellow Pages. These pages are mobile optimized and attached to Google Maps.

Only about 8% of local businesses have actually claimed their Google Place Search page. Even less have fully optimized their pages. However, this is changing fast. Local businesses are getting hip to the importance of Google Places pages. If you have a local business, the first place potential customers will start to find you is on your Google Places page from their smart phone. You want to make sure you are at the top of the list for your category. Here is how you get a jump on your competition in local search:
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Article By Nick Stamoulis

Let me start off by explaining exactly what I mean when I say “outsourced content.” Just because a piece of content wasn’t written inside the four walls of your office, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s “outsourced” as I define it. Do I think hiring a freelance writer to manage your business blog counts as outsourcing? No. Do I think having a PR firm write and distribute press releases under your company’s name counts as outsourcing? No. Do I think hiring a social media marketing or SEO firm to write and promote content counts as outsourcing? No.

So What is Outsourced Content?

To me, outsourced content comes from two main sources: overseas and writer databases. Many black hat SEO firms will outsource their clients’ link building activities to India or the Philippines because it’s cheap and easy to do. Oftentimes they do the same thing with content. A writer overseas is only going to charge $5-$20 for a 500 word blog post while a professional freelance writer in the States might charge $200 for the same amount of words. (Notice I said same word count, not same post! Keep that in mind for later…)

I would also classify outsourced content as the content a business might get from a writer database. I’m sure you’ve come across something like this before – you can plug in your topic, content type (blog vs. article vs. whitepaper) and how much you are willing to pay and a handful of writers pitch you for the job. I’m not saying that there aren’t great writers to be found on these writer databases, but those few great writers are often buried under a flood of not-so-great ones.
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34% of businesses say lead qualityis the biggest indicator of online marketing effectiveness. Yet many marketers lack the tools or data to better target and attract more sales-ready leads.Businesses that use closed-loop marketing , however, have the insights into what drives more, high-quality leads, and you can too. Learn everything you need to know about closed-loop marketing in our new blueprint.


In this blueprint, you will learn:

* What the new way of marketing means for your organization
* How to say goodbye to cold calling
* What closed-loop marketing means & how it benefits you
* How the integration between HubSpot & Salesforce works

 

Download the New Guide Now

seomythsWith so much misinformation about SEO having been dispensed over the years, it’s hard to know what’s true and isn’t true – making it all the more difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff, as it were. Concerned about the potential harm misinformation about SEO can ultimately cause, I decided to compile an alphabetical listing of the most popular and persistent SEO myths, to either debunk or confirm their factuality.

1. Adwords

Since the arrival of Google Adwords, there has been an ongoing debate over whether or not running an Adwords campaign can improve search engine rankings. Ultimately, only Google knows the answer to that question for sure. However, to my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to support the notion that Adwords can improve your search engine ranking. If there were indeed concrete evidence to the contrary, it stands to reason, everyone would just start an Adwords campaign to boost their rankings.

2. Anchor Text

Although it can be other colors, anchor text is typically the blue, hyperlinked text you see on a web page – the words that you click onto take you to another page. For example:

free marketing tips

Okay, but is anchor text important? Yes, it is because it’s a crucial element in the search engines complex algorithmic formula that helps determine the rankings of websites.

For example, suppose you have a blog that reviews digital camera’s; the more links you have with the words “digital camera reviews” in your anchor text, the greater your chances of increasing your ranking for the keywords digital camera reviews.

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Published: 15 Nov 2011

A study featuring over 2100 adults in the UK has indicated that only eight percent of online adults who have taken a holiday in the past year, have discussed their holidays or read other people’s advice and recommendations on Facebook. This compares to 57 percent of all online adults who use Facebook each week.

Also, TripAdvisor is the single biggest social media used in holiday planning, with 50 percent of UK holiday makers using the site in some way or other.

The study, Mapping the Travel Mind – The Influence Of Social Media, was recently released by Conrad Advertising, in association with YouGov.

Key Findings:

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In order to survive in today’s attention economy, you need calls-to-actiontext, images or buttons that grab people’s attention and drive them to your offers. CTAs are the key to generating leads.

Grab our introductory guide to learn everything you need to know about calls-to-action, from their creation and placement to their optimization and measurement.

Get this 42-page ebook and you will learn:

* How to create a killer call-to-action with copy & design
* Where to place calls-to-action
* How to optimize your call-to-action
* Who is doing it right and who is doing it wrong

Download the New Ebook Now

Article By Titus Hoskins (c) 2011

It’s been an extremely busy year for the good folks at Google, not only did they roll out the game-changing Panda Updates, but now they have increased the stakes by implementing Google Fresh. This recent algorithm update is based on the Caffeine architecture introduced by Google a year ago and supposedly makes Google’s listings much fresher.

On the Official Google Blog where this new Update was announced, Amit Singhal states:

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

However, in an update, Singhal explains this measurement of 35% only applies to where at least one result was affected by the changes. In reality, this update only “noticeably” impacts 6 to 10% of searches.

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First things first: Why should I put my resources into this?

Google and other search engines use an algorithm for local listings that is heavily based on how much they trust that your properties are legitimate.

Google looks bad if a search for “New York hotels” returns a bunch of locations that are actually closed. If Google’s results are inaccurate or off, fewer people will use the search engine, meaning Google serves less ads. And Google has made its billions serving ads. So you can see why Google has to vet hotels and other local properties before pushing them to the top of their search-engine results pages.

Of course, Google’s vetting process is all built into its algorithm, and the more you understand how its algorithm works, the better you’ll be able to use it to your advantage. The steps outlined below will help boost visibility in the hotel space on Google, Bing and the other local search engines.

 

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On November 7th, Google+ finally opened its doors to companies. With more than 40 million users, having a business page on Google+ is the perfect channel to grow followers and interact with your community.

But don’t wait to get on Google+. Download our newest guide hot off the press How to Use Google+ for Business to learn how to master the newest social network.

In this guide you’ll learn:

* How to set up a Google+ business page
* Marketing best practices with your Google+ page
* The benefits of Google+ in search
* Google+ Circles & the value of segmentation
* How to incorporate the +1 button on your blog

This is the most comprehensive and info-packed guide to Google+ for Business. Get it while it’s hot!

 

Download the Google+ Ebook Now

Article By Karl Walinskas (c) 2011

OK, so you’ve decided that getting some web video on your website and social media profiles is a great idea to make you more appealing to prospects and put your SEO (search engine optimization) on HGH. You realize that video marketing is a key part of your overall search engine marketing and social media strategy. Bully for you! Now onto the tech stuff. Video formats can be mind-boggling and vary depending on the equipment the video was shot with, the type of computer you use, and the final destination where you want to host and serve up your on-demand video as part of your video marketing plan.

So which is best for you?

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Nov 7, 2011 at 1:04pm ET by 

  • Finally, Google is now allowing businesses, brands and any non-human entity to participate in its Google+ social network, through new Google+ Pages that are launching today, promised to be available to everyone shortly.

Businesses Weren’t Allowed, Initially

Businesses have wanted to be part of Google+ from the start. In fact, many businesses and brands made use of regular Google+ accounts as a way to participate on the service despite their non-human status.

However, in July, Google terminated any business accounts that it spotted, including one from Sesame Street, promising that formal business pages would come — and that they’d be worth waiting for.

Google+ Pages Now Welcome Businesses

Now businesses are being welcomed in, through the new Google+ Pages program. Beginning today, and rolling out over the next two days, businesses will be able to create Google+ pages for themselves, using the Create A Page tool (and assuming you already have a regular Google+ account — more on this below).

Not everyone who goes to that page will get in (many will get a “Google+ Pages isn’t ready for everyone” message). Again, it’s a random rollout happening over the next two days (NOTE: Google tells us now everyone should have access). But once you gain access, you’ll be asked to create a page in one of five categories:

  • Local Business or Place
  • Product or Brand
  • Company, Institution or Organization
  • Arts, Entertainment or Sports
  • Other

Trying to unlock Twitter’s business potential? Maintaining an effective Twitter presence can be a powerful part of your social media marketing strategy, and we want you to have the know-how to effectively take advantage of it.

Learn how to leverage Twitter’s 360 million users in our complimentary guide, “Introduction to Twitter for Business,” which covers everything from getting started with tweeting to generating leads and sales.

 This 40-page guide will teach you how to:

* Optimize your Twitter profile for business
* Find the right people to follow and attract new followers
* Use Twitter for lead generation, PR, and customer service
* Understand Twitter’s role in social search
* Track and analyze your campaigns

This guide has all of the information you need to be a Twitter rockstar.

Download Our Twitter for Business Guide!

Did you know landing pages are one of the most important elements of a website? In fact, 94% of companies say landing pages are a highly effective tool for capturing leads.

But what makes a great landing page? Learn the essentials of creating landing pages that convert by downloading our newest ebook “Introductory Guide to Building Landing Pages.”

 In this 26-page guide, you will learn:

* What landing pages are and why they’re important
* How to structure the layout of your landing pages
* How to build the perfect lead capture form
* How to follow up with your newly-converted leads

Start generating more leads for your business with great landing pages. Download the complimentary eBook today .

Download the Ebook Now

Learn the key traits of a great business website. Become a website optimization rock star with our new ebook.

Find out what the 25 “must haves” are for a website to generate more visits, leads and revenue.

This complimentary, 52-page ebook gives you access to:

* Essential SEO advice
* Important design and usability tips
* Content creation ideas for engaging visitors
* Best practices for converting traffic into leads

Download the Ebook Now

Nov 2, 2011 at 10:40am ET by 

Yesterday Google formally announced some changes in the presentation of local results on Google.com SERPs. The right rail has been turned into a rich display of Places information, including links to interior business photography in some cases. It brings a great deal more of the Place Page into the SERP and will become a new focus for local SEOs. It also will virtually eliminate any right column ads “above the fold,” when the new SERPs appear.

Immediately below is a “before” image of the results for a query on the San Francisco restaurant “Gary Danko.” The Places content appears below the restaurant’s own sitelinks. There’s address information, some images and links to reviews. However much of the information is visually buried.

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Article By Amanda DiSilvestro (c) 2011

Being a part of a marketing department in today’s world is somewhat exhausting. All day I am stumbling, digging, tweeting, liking, and connecting. For some, this may sound like a foreign language, but for an employee in the marketing field this sounds like work, work and more work. Social media is a great and cost effective way to start growing your company brand, so I love the idea; however, there comes a point when enough is enough. I have always felt that pretty soon consumers are going to fall behind, and it will then become harder and harder to introduce any new social networking site. In other words, if another networking platform is going to try and weasel its way into the hearts of bloggers and marketers, it would have to be pretty amazing.

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1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on Facebook, turning the social network into a huge opportunity for marketers. With little effort, you can boost your Facebook interactions by 30 percent or more.

Spend the next 10 days mastering the power of Facebook by downloading our newest ebook, “How to Master Facebook Marketing in 10 Days .”

Download this ebook and you will learn how to:

* Evaluate successful Facebook pages
* Understand Facebook best practices
* Create custom welcome pages
* Use Facebook’s analytics package ‘Insights’
* And much more

Now go young grasshopper; start your journey to becoming a Facebook marketing master today!

Download the Ebook Now

By David Jackson (c) 2011

The two most important elements that qualify companies to promote themselves as SEO experts are competence and professionalism. And the way you find out if a company is competent and professional, as well as legitimate, is to do your due diligence and check their credentials thoroughly, by exercising good old common sense and following these steps:

1. Verify Their Contact Information

If the company provides a street address, Google it to see if it’s a real address. If they provide a telephone number, call the number to see if it’s answered by the company or an answering service. If they don’t provide a telephone number, walk away. SEO is serious business. You need to have the ability to talk to whomever is going to be handling your account. You need to be able to ask questions, and you have a right to expect your questions to be answered in a professional manner.

2. Talk to Previous Customers

If the SEO company publishes testimonials on their website, contact a few of their customers and get their feedback. If the company can’t provide testimonials, walk away, or if the testimonials don’t have contact information, they’re probably bogus. Walk away.
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Article By Nicole Beckett (c) 2011

Don’t let the $2 offers fool you – buying SEO content is a big deal, and it’s not something you can cut corners with. After all, on the world wide web, your content is the only way that people can find out more about you. Whether you want to build up your reputation, get people to sign up for your email list, or sell your product, you’re going to need SEO content to do it.

And it has to be good.

Thanks to the Panda updates, Google is taking a harder stance on content now than it ever has before. But even setting Google aside, people aren’t going to take you seriously if you can’t even string a coherent sentence together. After all, people look for all kinds of reasons to avoid spending their hard-earned money. Mix up “to” and “too”, and you’ve just given them the excuse they need NOT to purchase from you.

Because SEO content is so important to succeeding out on the world wide web, you may be looking to outsource your writing. Maybe you’re not a very good writer. Maybe you just don’t like to write very much. Maybe you have a million other things to do, and you don’t have time to stare at a blank Word document.

Whatever the reason, paying a professional to handle your SEO content writing duties can be a very good thing for your business. It can also be a very bad thing.

Hire the wrong content writing service, and you’re stuck with content that doesn’t get results. Or worse, content that makes you and your business look bad.

So how do you know if the content writing service you’re about to do business with is a good one?

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By Hannah Du Plessis (c) 2011 Attraction Marketing

Is your website bringing in at least five new inquiries per day? If not, you need to look at its functionality.

Your website acts as a “storefront.” You should put as much thought and care into your website as you would to the display in your store’s window. Your website needs to attract customers and keep them coming back for more. The following should give you a place to start and a guideline of what a good website should have and what it should do:

1. Where Do Your Eyes Go First?

You only have a few seconds to catch a visitor’s attention. That means you need to make sure that you capture their interest immediately. You need a headline that stops them thinking whatever they’re thinking, and think instead: “hey, this looks interesting! I need to read this.”

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With more than 800 million users, Facebook has become a powerful marketing tool. In fact, 45% of B2B and 67% of B2C companies have acquired customers via Facebook.

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By 

fandangoPublished October 10, 2011

Is your website meeting the needs of on-the-go mobile users?

When you’re developing your first mobile site, you may be at a loss. That’s understandable—a mobile website is an entirely different animal from a traditional website.

Given that, it’s important to keep some best practices in mind as you develop your mobile presence.

What follows are 9 best practices you can use to ensure your mobile site is as good as it can be.

About Mobile Users

But before we dive into the 9 best practices, it’s important to keep one thing in mind—the person viewing your site is mobile.

That may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised by how many people forget that simple truth.

When someone is mobile, they’re expecting an entirely different experience from the one they’ll get on your standard website.

For example, a mobile visitor is typically looking for a few key pieces of information: directions to your office, a click-to-call phone number or a map of your store locations. What they’re not looking for are lengthy staff bios, information about your corporate philosophy or PDFs of your latest press releases.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the 9 best practices for mobile website design that can help you create a site that puts your best foot forward.

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By Jeffrey L. Cohen - Tue, Oct 11, 2011

B2B companies now have the ability to share updates with their followers on LinkedIn. This is the first company page functionality that LinkedIn added that would be more effective with additional followers. Based on executive remarks, more functions are coming to company pages. To make sure you are ready, here are five ways to increase the number of followers of your company on LinkedIn.

1. Write a blog post
The best way to draw attention to your LinkedIn company page and increase your followers is to write a blog post about LinkedIn in your industry and include a link to your company page. The post is not just a follow my company post, but one that provides some value. It could be the 10 top Groups in your industry or a how-to article about growing your business using LinkedIn.

2. Add a Widget to Your Website
LinkedIn-Company-Profile-WidgetLinkedIn provides an easy way to create a company profile widget that you can put on your website or blog. This should go in a sidebar, or another part of your site that is always visible.

3. Add Company Page Link to Your Email Signature
Email is still the preferred communication medium for most businesses, so don’t miss the opportunity to include a link to your LinkedIn company page at the end of each message. Encourage other employees to do the same.

4. Add Company Page Link to Your Group Post Signature
LinkedIn power users know that their interaction in LinkedIn Groups facilitate connections that lead to business on the social network. Rather than sign your Group messages with a link to your website, try a link to your company page instead. People in LinkedIn are more likely to view a page in LinkedIn than to leave to go look at your website.

5. Promote on Other Social Media Profiles
You should promote your presence on one social media site on other social media sites. Tweet a link to your LinkedIn company page. Post it on Facebook too. You need to make sure everyone in your universe is aware of this page. There is certainly more value to come from these company pages.

What are other ways you are planning to share your LinkedIn company page to get more followers?

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at@jeffreylcohen.

Read more: http://socialmediab2b.com/2011/10/b2b-linkedin-company-followers/#ixzz1ahwcWGuu

Oct 10, 2011 at 9:55am ET by 

Press releases have long been a preferred (and now a patented) part of optimizing sites; when done well, they can be a good method for link building on steroids. Larger corporations often use the medium effectively, while it doesn’t occur to many local businesses. Here’s why you should consider it for promoting your local company online.

Press Releases for Local Online Marketing

I’ve written in the past about using press releases for improving PageRank, and as a vehicle to get reporters to promote businesses. Press releases are nearly a throwback to an older time period — they follow a moderately standard format and have been used for over a century to announce new developments to newspapers and other news media.

Perhaps it’s this semiformal nature of the press release that makes many small businesses overlook it when planning ways of promoting themselves. But, press releases are not just for large, national companies.

Press releases are a great source of links (when links are included in them). The websites that host press releases can be worthwhile for link weight, and newspapers or other news sites may sometimes publish the entire release as well. In the past, this near-instant PageRank value conveyed by issuing PR was considered very worthwhile.

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By Travolution October 12, 2011 

Lastminute.com was just steps away from becoming Groupon long before the daily deals model was invented but failed to take the opportunity because it had lost a culture of innovation.

That was the assessment of Lopo Champalimaud, now chief executive and co-founder of health and beauty site Wahanda and former Lastminute managing director of European lifestyle.

He told a Travolution Summit session on innovation that he had spoken recently to Lastminute co-founder Brent Hoberman and laughed about the missed opportunity. During the original dot com bubble Lastminute had a database of 15 million emails, and was the largest source of restaurant and hotel deals, Champalimaud said.

“At the heart you have to put a culture of innovation in a business and a culture of development. At Lastminute we were a few steps away from having Groupon,” he said. But he added the reason the chance was let slip was because “we lost that culture of innovation and development”.

“If you are not ready to step up and allow it to fail, you are not going to get the right answer,” added Champalimaud. US giant Groupon is the most high profile daily deals site to emerge in recent times becoming the fastest growing corporation in US history.

It has filed for an IPO valuing the company at around $30 billion and claims to have 83 million subscribers and more than 56,000 merchants. Although recording revenues of $644 million in the quarter ending in March this year its operating losses were $117 million.

Earlier at the summit Ariadne Capital founder Julie Meyer was asked about the valuation of Groupon. She said: “Groupon may go down in history as the company that turned down the $600 million deal [from Google]. I’m not sure why they did that.”

Generating leads with social media isn’t a myth. 63% of companies say it has increased their marketing effectiveness.

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Whether you are just launching your social marketing or are at the stage of optimizing your efforts, this guide will assist you with the right tools to:

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Article By Alesya Krush (c) 2011

I bet all SEO’s have faced this problem at least once – a client looking up their target keywords on the Internet and seeing different website rankings than the ones stated in the rankings report. How do you explain to clients that you are not trying to cheat them?
Users may get different search results for one and the same search term because of their:

1. Web History

Personalized search results are no secret to anyone. We know that nowadays search engines (particularly Google and Bing) custom-tailor your search results based on the queries you make, websites you visit and search results you click. What’s interesting is that your results get biased by default, unless you specifically opt out.

Search engines collect users’ browsing history in 2 major ways:

(1) by tracking signed-in users’ activities and
(2) by planting cookies into signed-out users’ browsers.

Say, you are signed in with your Gmail account. Your Web history will be recorded there. And, if you are signed out of all your Google accounts, Google will send tracking cookies to your browser and your browsing history will be kept track of with the help of those cookies.

If you’d like to see search results that are not biased according to your Web history – sign out of all your accounts, clear browser cookies and perform the search again.
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