SiteProNews |
- Google’s Tribute to John Lennon
- Some Tips In Creating Consistent Marketing Collaterals
- Attract More Clients By Dumping the Junk – Your PITA Clients!
- The Opportunity of Web eCommerce – Fact or Fiction?
- Honing The Art Form of SEO
- The Fuse For Explosive Internet Marketing
| Google’s Tribute to John Lennon Posted: 08 Oct 2010 04:12 AM PDT  A visit to Google this morning reveals a new Google Doodle – a tribute to John Lennon on what would have been his 70th birthday. But today’s Doodle, (Google’s nickname for their holiday logos), includes a little extra surprise. When you click on the Doodle itself, a short audio clip from Lennon’s haunting ballad Imagine plays, accompanied by an animation sequence inspired by the music. The Doodle itself incorporates the famous self-portrait hand drawn by Lennon from the ‘Bag One Portfolio’, an artistic chronicle of his wedding ceremony to Yoko Ono, their honeymoon and their plea for world peace. After the animation clip plays, the Doodle morphs into a drawn style and then you are naturally redirected to search results for “John Lennon”. A fitting tribute and much more inspiring than some of the more recent Doodles being churned out from Mountain View. Nicely done Google. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Some Tips In Creating Consistent Marketing Collaterals Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
This is why having consistent marketing pieces is essential. You may have a clear mission, vision and values when you started your business. You know your objectives, and you’re thrilled to execute your marketing strategies. You know you need to build your communications based on your value propositions, so you look at some of the most commonly used marketing materials and decide which ones you’ll create for your company such as brochures, newsletters, product sheets, and business cards. With a good copywriter and a creative graphic designer, it should be a piece of cake right? So why do we still see some inconsistent marketing messages in some marketing pieces? The importance of a consistent look and feel Just how important is producing quality, consistent marketing materials? These pieces are the “face” of the company, so it’s essential that they not only look great and have flawless content – they also need to sends out consistent messages in order to be effective. We wouldn’t want to mislead prospects, customer and clients with inconsistent messages, slogans and even company colors, would we? I’ve enumerated some tips for creating consistent marketing pieces. These may be very easy and basic for any marketer, but still, I believe it bears repeating. Eventually, marketing materials speak volumes about your brand, company and credibility. Might as well make it perfect. Colors and Images. Materials should be created from a consistent palate of colors and images. You don’t want to cause confusion. You would want to make certain that you are conveying a clear, consistent and compelling message, from your website, brochure and email newsletters to your print and billboard ads. Perfect grammar, consistent terminology. What would you think of a company if you notice bad grammar after visiting their site or reading their brochure? Care about the words you use. Consistent marketing collaterals require the use of consistent terms so that your customers are clear on what you are explaining. Content is king in your marketing pieces, and this shows a lot about the professionalism of your company. Update, update, update. After spending the time and money on your marketing collateral, perhaps, you don’t want to do it again. Nevertheless, it’s important to keep them current. Make it a practice to check and review your pieces often to be certain that your messages are still consistent. Perhaps, you could even adjust the content and improve the design. No matter how busy business gets, never, never forget to keep your materials recent. With consistent marketing pieces, you not only make an excellent impression – you also establish your brand and attract potential customers in! Elmar Sandyck Believes In The Importance Of Consistent Marketing Pieces To Create A Profitable And Successful Business. For More Internet Strategies and Marketing Tips Visit www.InternetMastermindStrategy.com Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Attract More Clients By Dumping the Junk – Your PITA Clients! Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
Why You Should Fire the PITA Customer You can see the warning signs a mile away as they… * Push you on price These clients do nothing more than create added stress that you don’t need in your life, PITA customers are never happy. They drain your energy, test your patience, and waste your time. They demoralize your entire sales team. Yet companies accept this bad business continually, thinking bad business must be better than no business. But is it? Dump the Hidden Costs and Start Attracting More Clients When organizations take on bad customers, they pay a hidden cost as they leave thousands to millions of dollars on the table. By focusing on PITA clients, many business owners are losing the opportunity to use those resources going after and servicing the phenomenal clients they want and need to make money! Collect too many PITA customers and watch your profits dwindle… not a compelling scenario. Why accept business from a few customers who drive us crazy and drain our resources? Many salespeople say they sell to “anyone who fogs a mirror”–because of a looming quota, or because their company insists on certain deals. Many sales organizations create unrealistic expectations that they can turn a bad situation into a good one. Are you dreaming? Bad business is bad business. Period. Dump the Junk and Attract More Clients Who Want Your Help – And Is Willing to Pay For It Dearly Targeting just “anyone” often means attracting more PITA customers. Never ask a PITA to refer you. Why? Because PITAs hang out with other PITAs. They belong to the same organizations, play golf together, and love telling stories about how they negotiated an unprecedented deal, or whipped a salesperson into shape. Your best sales decision: Fire the PITA. Don’t take them in the first place, and if you have one, recognize you have a PITA situation and fight back. Yes, fight back! Don’t take their abuse. You deliver a service that boosts their business. If they push you on price, be willing to walk away. That really turns the tables. To demonstrate this point, picture two people standing with their arms out straight, pushing on and resisting each other’s hands. No one gets anyplace. It’s a stalemate. Now re-create the same picture: One person stops resisting. What happens? The other person moves toward the one who ceased resisting. The same thing happens when you’re willing to walk away. Sometimes you’ll walk, but many times the PITA comes to you. Are You Now Ready to Fire PITA Clients and Attract Even More Clients Great! But words don’t mean anything. Take action now and fire the PITA! We know them 90 percent of the time before we even begin to work with them. Say NO. It’s OK to walk away. When you walk away, you have time to attract exactly the kind of clients you want. Follow my advice and you will watch your sales soar! America’s leading authority on referral selling, professional speaker, and author of No More Cold Calling™, Joanne Black helps sales teams get more referrals and attract more business fast without increasing costs. Discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time. Visit www.nomorecoldcalling.com. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| The Opportunity of Web eCommerce – Fact or Fiction? Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT 
Maybe there's some glamour associated with being a "renegade entrepreneur", adopting a take-no-prisoners mentality and making up the rules as you go along. In some cases, being unconventional and aggressive can certainly help an online store stand out in the crowded Internet marketplace, but skipping steps and ignoring proven business principles is a guaranteed recipe for failure. So if selling stuff on the Web represents a huge opportunity, but most people fail at it, then what does one have to do join the ranks of the successful "webpreneur"? While there are always risks inherent in starting any business, beginning your journey with an up-to-date "roadmap" (or virtual GPS) can help assure that you won't get lost, miss an 'exit', or fail to reach your destination on your way to ecommerce success. Imagine this scenario (and it happens all the time): An awesome-looking web site with marketable products and competitive prices goes online, but makes no sales or performs far below expectations. What happened? Well, there's a veritable checklist of possibilities that could explain abysmal sales figures, but it often boils down to two things: a lack of attention to search engine optimization (SEO) and sales conversion factors. The Essence of SEO and Online Sales Conversion Tactics In a nutshell, search engine optimization means that steps have been taken to demonstrate to Google, Yahoo, and Bing that a web site is highly relevant for certain keywords, and that it deserves a top-10 ranking when searches are performed for those keywords. What a sizable portion of ecommerce website owners do not realize is that if their web site isn't among the first dozen or so listings on the search engine results pages, then, for all intents and purposes, their web site is invisible to thousands of prospective customers. To put things in perspective, millions of web pages are competing with each other for a top-10 Google ranking for most common keyword searches. So, to stand a chance of gaining any visibility in Google (the dominant search engine), an ecommerce site has to contain keyword combinations for which customers are actually searching. Not only that, but the phrases have to be strategically placed on the web page, and, ideally, the most important keyword phrase should be in the domain name and in links to your site from other web sites (that's where it gets a bit tricky). Once all that has been accomplished, then your ecommerce web site is geared up to begin competing on a level playing field with other similar web sites trying to be found by customers on the Internet. Another common ecommerce blunder is failing to make the most of sales conversion opportunities on a website, which can include everything from including trust-building factors and a hassle-free checkout process to offering easy site navigation features and plenty of clear "calls to action" — which refers to what you want the customer to do before leaving your web site (such as, call your toll-free number, leave their email address, or order a product). A good 'rule of thumb' in ecommerce, which also applies to do business off-line, is that "a confused customer is a lost customer". So to maximize the sales conversion potential of your ecommerce online store, instill your visitors with a sense of trust, a clear path to placing an order or getting more information, and an incentive to take action now. Joel Sussman is a web content writer for Mountain Media, a website development company in upstate New York that provides ecommerce design, website hosting, and other ecommerce solutions for online merchants. Visit their site for a free email course entitled “7-Days to Successful eCommerce”. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:00 AM PDT  In the world of SEO there seems to be an article on everything from “how to get more backlinks” to “getting that #1 ranking on Google.” The more you read up on SEO tactics, the more you realize many people seem to give the same advice: write great content, submit it to social bookmarking sites, and be consistent. Although all of these are great points, the one thing missing from many of these articles is that it isn’t that simple. You can write a great article, get it up and have it go viral-but you need to focus on the ART form that is SEO as well. Google is always changing the game for SEO experts, and you have to know how to go with the flow. The fact is no one knows for sure what Google is looking for. We can guess, run case studies and be pretty sure on many things, but giving the same advice over and over again isn’t going to get any of us anywhere. So what else can we do? Build Relationships We hear this a lot in the social media world. But the more relationships you build with site owners, bloggers and reporters the more likely you can get your articles out to the right audience. Creating a funny infograph or article is great, and you could get a lot of link juice from it, but what about the next week, month, or year? The more relationships you build the more likely you can get your great content out to the right Reach Out To Other Writers Obviously your company needs to come up with great content-for both your site as well as others. But another way to get back links is to have other people write about your business. One of the reasons you create content is so people will link back to it-so start reaching out to writers and give them information they will want to write about. Press releases are one great way to do that, but remember reporters get tons of press releases and phone calls from PR pros every day. This is where you need to get creative and figure out a reason why someone would want to write about your company. Fresh Ideas Having a great plan is, well, great, but just as Google is consistently changing, so should your plan. What works great one day could work against you on another day. This is why you need to consistently think of new ideas to get backlinks, viral content etc. This is much easier said than done however. If it was easy we would all have great PageRank, and not need to read up on SEO every day. Mind mapping tools and weekly meeting to brainstorm are a great idea. One idea could morph into many and the next thing you know, you could have the next few months of content ideas in just a few meetings. Trial and Error SEO is also a game of trial and error. You won’t know what works until you try it. Don’t be afraid to take chances and see if your theory is right. Good or bad, it is a learning experience. The tools are out there, and writing great content and submitting to social bookmarking sties can work-but there are other ways to get exposure. It just takes some creativity and hard work. Just like with other art forms, sometimes you have to create a mess before you can start creating masterpieces. This isn’t to say you need to bomb your SEO efforts completely and lose revenue, it just means you can stumble a little on new efforts while you’re hitting home runs with your “tried and true” efforts. Shannon Suetos is an expert writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as phone systems & VoIP Service at Resource Nation. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| The Fuse For Explosive Internet Marketing Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:00 PM PDT 
So What Are Keywords? When a person goes to Google and performs a search, the first thing they do is type what they are looking for and hit the “Search” button. The words typed in the search box is the keyword phrase used for that particular search. For example, if I am looking for Nike Shoes, I would go to Google.com and type “Nike Shoes Asheville, NC” (without the quotes of course). The words “Nike Shoes Asheville NC” is my keyword phrase. I could be the only person that types “Nike Shoes Asheville, NC” which would make that keyword phrase practically useless. However, if that particular keyword phrase is typed by 1,100 people per month, then it would be a viable keyword phrase to target for a shoe business. So in essence, think of keywords as “what people are typing in Google, Yahoo, and Bing” to find information, goods, or services. Good keyword phrases are ones that are used frequently and poor keyword phrases are seldom used for a given search. How Can You Find “Good Keywords”? Keywords can be researched using “keyword tools.” There are free tools as well as tools which cost a fee. Google’s keyword tool is one of the most popular. All you do is go to the site, type in the keyword phrases you think are viable, and then hit “search”. Google’s tool will analyze the words you typed and return keyword phrases that have traffic volumes attached using all or part of the keyword phrase you submitted. I personally don’t trust just one tool, but rather use several tools to cross reference keywords such as Wordtracker. The process of proper keyword research can take hours of time and financial resources to get a good picture of the keywords you should use. Also, by doing this research on your own, you will prevent SEO firms from selling you a campaign with ineffective keywords (extremely common problem) that seem viable. The More the Better? This research leads some businesses to think, the phrases with the most search volumes are the ones they should choose. After all, shouldn’t the keyword phrase with the most volume achieve the most traffic, which in turn, renders the most sales? The answer is usually a surprising, “No”. This is because when someone first performs a search, they could start with a generic term like “shoes”. The person would then realize the term produces results that are too ambiguous to be of value. So the same person will perform additional searches, fine-tuning their decision making process until they are at the point of purchase. So the best keyword could look like “Discount Reebok shoes in New York NY”. This makes the phrase “Discount Reebok shoes in New York NY” more valuable than “shoes” even though “shoes” This type of situation is often why SEO firms will use tools such as PPC and Analytics to see what keywords are producing the most viable traffic which results in an actual sale. Now That You’ve Found the Keywords, What’s Next? It’s time to hire an SEO firm. My recommendation is to interview SEO firms and don’t let them know you about your research. I would allow them to present their keyword analysis. From that data, you can tell a lot. If their proposal doesn’t show viable keywords, then either they are wanting to use keyword phrases of little value OR you may to perform additional research because you may have missed something. SEO is such a complicated process, I would not recommend trying to take on this job in-house unless you have specific online marketing professionals. Your IT Department, Graphics Department, and even Website Design Department will need to gain experience and training before being able to tackle the challenge of climbing the ranks of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. John Carroll, Co-Founder, MaxWebGear.com,/a> Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
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