Today successful marketer is the one who leverage advantages from both-SEO as well as Social Media Marketing (SMM). Social media (SM) flourishes where people are, and marketers propel there only. Earlier SMM used to be a standalone strategy but with time it was being realized that if it is united with marketing efforts it could generate even better results rather than working in isolation. SM is such a necessity for every individual today that in order to search for anything, he approaches SM addressing branded keyword terms. Moreover, high click trough rate was noticed as and when the customers had been showcased to SM.
Primarily, SM influences areas like branding, customer help desk, and customer relationship management. But it does not limit here only. It has additive, unbelievable outcomes across various marketing channels that help to have strong relationship with target audiences. It results in raising the brand value in its market.
How Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing are inter-connected?
The initial glimpse does not showcase any connection between the two since SMM is more of off-site interaction whereas SEO approaches to drive traffic to a website.
SM helps in link building. Marketers create interesting and unique content and share with potential users via various social media channels. This content is then distributed and discussed in discussions groups and forums generating links. This way content will reach more people and this buzz will pull potential users to search engines, from where they get re-directed to a particular website.
SM allows using wide range of keywords instead of using a limited set of targeted keywords. Marketers project a search marketing strategy to compute socially promoting keywords which helps in enhancing the brand value. Besides driving traffic to a website, SM promotes websites content via its social network thereby influencing SEO also.
The marketers can boost search engine visibility using pervasive “Share this” buttons in which they provide certain code to distribute your content. This will increase the inbound links to your website. While running a promotional contest, you may provide your users with a tool to share content created by them. In your blogs you can allow outsiders to link to your posts which will help building brand credibility and hence building a community of brand supporters.
Now marketers need to take care while sharing links via social media that links should not include tracking code. This will affect Page Rank giving no SEO benefits. While making headlines in content, use targeted keywords to aid optimization. You may use independent page titles independent to get the max SEO value.
Looking at the increased usage of mobiles for accessing SM, marketers should incorporate mobile into their social media strategy.
Social media is no doubt a commitment. Proper time and man power is required to keep you updated for latest trends and for active participation. It would surely pay off. SM gives you an option to keep your brand live in front of potential users giving constant new content to search engines for indexing. This way your website is crawled frequently. Doing this way increases long-term outcomes on SEO by enhancing quality as well as quantity of website references.
Through SM you can have valuable consumer insights. It enables to determine unique keywords via customer interactions. From these insights you can bid on correct keywords to increase conversion rate.
Marketing is a holistic process. In online marketing, marketing through social media definitely affects brand awareness and SEO.
April 6, 2010
March 29, 2010
How to Prevent your Website from getting Penalized by Search Engines Giants like GOOGLE!
SEO is an incredible way to popularize your website online. It is also the most reasonable technique to have high rankings in the organic search engine results. SEO work starts by analyzing the search engine algorithm that tells how website ranks on the search engine and then using these techniques on your website. Successful SEO campaign results in generating more sale leads and more business for the company.
I am into SEO for the last 3 yrs. and from my prior experience my advice is that one should patiently learn all the workable techniques and then apply them to get your website ranked higher in search engines. You should try to avoid the probability of getting your website penalized by Google by using certain unethical tactics. I am hereby listing some ways which helps to stay clear of any penalties from search engines.
(1) Alter the link text in your inbound links
"Inbound links” refers to external links that point to your website. Try to follow correct way for creating good quality links to your website to avoid dropping of your website rankings on the search engines. Avoid using same link text more than 10-12 times to prevent from getting penalized by Google. Google can easily make out that you are doing this to increase SEO ranking of your website. The websites with lots of existing inbound links with different anchor text will never be in danger if they have variance in the link text.
(2) Generate good quality content if participating in affiliate programs
If you participate in affiliate programs for making money through commissions then focus on the quality of your content. The quantity should also be that much that it should be labeled a "thin affiliate" site. Try and add value to your potential visitors to mitigate the risks of getting penalized.
(3) Keep your content unique and informative
Content is a king and Google never favors the duplicate content. Try to keep the content on your website quite relevant to the product or service that you offer and convey your message via your website in a clear understandable manner. You can take reference from similar websites already present over the web. By keeping the content of your website unique would prevent your website from getting penalized by Google. Always remember.....the more unique the content is, the better your site will rank!
(4) Do not create too many inbound links in short time span
Don’t create too many inbound links in a short span of time and prevent yourself from being susceptible in Google eyes. Avoid making 500+ links over the night. This would surely aid in penalizing your website. Adopt a certain strategy of creating random number of links each day; this would lower the susceptibility level in the eyes of Google.
(5) Be careful about keyword density
Keyword density is the percentage of the total amount of targeted words in the content of your website. Do not use target keywords unnecessarily. Keep good content to avoid the penalty that might arise due to excess usage of keywords on any of your web pages. Google gauges this thing that you are doing just to increase its ranking on search engines. To play secure, I would recommend keeping your keyword density as low as 5%. Moreover, if user finds your website content useful then he will often visit your website.
(6) Do not to be too keyword specific in link text of navigation
In case you want to rank or optimize your website over certain keyword, you may use the target keyword in the navigation text instead of using the link text "home page" for your homepage. This works well for small websites (5 pages or less). It is best not to be too keyword specific if you have a large site which might give negative effect. Remember what I said about varying link text in point 3? Well this applies to link text on your website as well.
(7) Avoid irrelevant words
Try to use relevant keywords on your website which are of real value for your product or services. Using irrelevant keywords makes Google suspicious about you thence increasing the probability of getting penalized. This is not at all a good way to increase the ranking of your website.
(8) Avoid using sneaky redirects
Google doesn't seem to like web pages that serve the purpose of redirecting you to another page. Let's say you have a web page that ranks well for a particular keyword but only contains a link that takes you to another web page or site. Google doesn't like these type of redirects because the web page has no content a human user would be interested in; only a link to another web page. This can therefore be misleading if the page ranks high on Google. This is because the users who click through onto the site would be expecting to see some useful content related to the keyword it is ranking for.
(9) Avoid inter-linking domains
Basic SEO knowledge showcases that one way links work best. Its not like giving reciprocal links, it just makes Google a bit suspicious for your identity. Do not do much inter-linking for your domains. It would sound good initially but later will effect negatively ending up with getting penalties from Google. In order to link domain together, you may link more than two sites in a loop or circle. Doing this way you may achieve the SEO benefits.
(10) Never use hidden text or links
In early days of SEO, having hidden text and links on your website loaded with your target keywords used to work like a treat which used o result in good rankings. But this is completely unethical. That was the reason why Google altered their algorithm accordingly to rectify this issue. This should be avoided otherwise you could be called upon as using black hat SEO methods which increases the chances of getting banned.
Briefly, I can suggest the above mentioned tricks to prevent you site from getting penalized by Google search engine. This way you can definitely expect sure shot high SEO ranking for your website, thereby having a clear image in view of Google.
I am into SEO for the last 3 yrs. and from my prior experience my advice is that one should patiently learn all the workable techniques and then apply them to get your website ranked higher in search engines. You should try to avoid the probability of getting your website penalized by Google by using certain unethical tactics. I am hereby listing some ways which helps to stay clear of any penalties from search engines.
(1) Alter the link text in your inbound links
"Inbound links” refers to external links that point to your website. Try to follow correct way for creating good quality links to your website to avoid dropping of your website rankings on the search engines. Avoid using same link text more than 10-12 times to prevent from getting penalized by Google. Google can easily make out that you are doing this to increase SEO ranking of your website. The websites with lots of existing inbound links with different anchor text will never be in danger if they have variance in the link text.
(2) Generate good quality content if participating in affiliate programs
If you participate in affiliate programs for making money through commissions then focus on the quality of your content. The quantity should also be that much that it should be labeled a "thin affiliate" site. Try and add value to your potential visitors to mitigate the risks of getting penalized.
(3) Keep your content unique and informative
Content is a king and Google never favors the duplicate content. Try to keep the content on your website quite relevant to the product or service that you offer and convey your message via your website in a clear understandable manner. You can take reference from similar websites already present over the web. By keeping the content of your website unique would prevent your website from getting penalized by Google. Always remember.....the more unique the content is, the better your site will rank!
(4) Do not create too many inbound links in short time span
Don’t create too many inbound links in a short span of time and prevent yourself from being susceptible in Google eyes. Avoid making 500+ links over the night. This would surely aid in penalizing your website. Adopt a certain strategy of creating random number of links each day; this would lower the susceptibility level in the eyes of Google.
(5) Be careful about keyword density
Keyword density is the percentage of the total amount of targeted words in the content of your website. Do not use target keywords unnecessarily. Keep good content to avoid the penalty that might arise due to excess usage of keywords on any of your web pages. Google gauges this thing that you are doing just to increase its ranking on search engines. To play secure, I would recommend keeping your keyword density as low as 5%. Moreover, if user finds your website content useful then he will often visit your website.
(6) Do not to be too keyword specific in link text of navigation
In case you want to rank or optimize your website over certain keyword, you may use the target keyword in the navigation text instead of using the link text "home page" for your homepage. This works well for small websites (5 pages or less). It is best not to be too keyword specific if you have a large site which might give negative effect. Remember what I said about varying link text in point 3? Well this applies to link text on your website as well.
(7) Avoid irrelevant words
Try to use relevant keywords on your website which are of real value for your product or services. Using irrelevant keywords makes Google suspicious about you thence increasing the probability of getting penalized. This is not at all a good way to increase the ranking of your website.
(8) Avoid using sneaky redirects
Google doesn't seem to like web pages that serve the purpose of redirecting you to another page. Let's say you have a web page that ranks well for a particular keyword but only contains a link that takes you to another web page or site. Google doesn't like these type of redirects because the web page has no content a human user would be interested in; only a link to another web page. This can therefore be misleading if the page ranks high on Google. This is because the users who click through onto the site would be expecting to see some useful content related to the keyword it is ranking for.
(9) Avoid inter-linking domains
Basic SEO knowledge showcases that one way links work best. Its not like giving reciprocal links, it just makes Google a bit suspicious for your identity. Do not do much inter-linking for your domains. It would sound good initially but later will effect negatively ending up with getting penalties from Google. In order to link domain together, you may link more than two sites in a loop or circle. Doing this way you may achieve the SEO benefits.
(10) Never use hidden text or links
In early days of SEO, having hidden text and links on your website loaded with your target keywords used to work like a treat which used o result in good rankings. But this is completely unethical. That was the reason why Google altered their algorithm accordingly to rectify this issue. This should be avoided otherwise you could be called upon as using black hat SEO methods which increases the chances of getting banned.
Briefly, I can suggest the above mentioned tricks to prevent you site from getting penalized by Google search engine. This way you can definitely expect sure shot high SEO ranking for your website, thereby having a clear image in view of Google.
March 17, 2010
Life Lessons from Bill Gates
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
View more Rules
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
View more Rules
March 3, 2010
How to Increase and Improve Search Engine Visibility
Since long, we had seen and even tested various techniques and guidelines for generating search engine traffic. A decade back, SEO became a full time career for a few years. Since then so many methods have been evolving to control and manipulate the engines to get front page search results. As on date, scenarios have been changed.
Many of these earlier followed practices and techniques are still very much relevant as they were then, so here I am collating the key ones.
Commence with your Domain Name
Select the domain name, relatively short and easy to spell. Avoid hyphens and or unusual characters for branding purposes, than SEO. Search visibility remains there even with perplex, long character riddled domain, but such domain names are hard to remember without the assistance of a search engine.
Build Quality Inbound and Outbound Links
Your site is ranked by search engines based on the amount of inbound links it has from other sites. Spend some time and get authenticated sites linking back to you called inbound links; it influences the search engine ranking.
Google Page Rank
Websites are ranked with higher Page Rank if Google conceives them to be important and influential. Higher Page Rank gives better search results and rankings. Authoritative sites usually have high Page Rank. You should take care of it but do not focus completely on it.
Relevant Keywords on Web Address
Publish content on your site with relevant keywords with headline formatted in the permalink/web URL. For instance, if your site has a page with images on wild animals, format the URL like: http://www.yoursite.com/images/wild-animals.html or http://www.yoursite.com/wild-animals.html Mention the sub-directory with target keyword of the subject matter.
Headlines and Page Titles with Target Keywords
Along with relevant keywords in your URL, place the keywords in your headlines and page titles as well. It would help even if no other optimization is worked out otherwise it would be hard for search engine to spot your existence.
Include Blogs
Blogs are considered to be the major source information for everybody. Search engines give preference to blogs for fresh and timely content. If tweaked correctly it can be a powerful tool for search engine traffic generation. Configure your permalink structure immediately after installing your blog. Install plug-ins like "All in One SEO Pack" available for WordPress. You may also leverage RSS to convert search engine clicks into a return visitor.
Keywords as Anchor text
Generally, anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms and its results since it gives descriptive information to search engines about the content of a hyperlinks destination. Avoid using "click here", it would hamper search engine visibility.
Web Analytics
In order to measure and understand your traffic patterns and behaviors do set up Google Analytics at the very start.
Use Sitemap
Sitemaps list down all the pages pertaining to a particular site that helps to notify search engine about URLs on your website available for crawling and indexing, which might be left undiscovered by Google's normal crawling process.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google's Webmaster Tools helps to see your website the way Googlebot looks at it. It finds out which sites link to yours, also looks for search queries that list your site and which of your site's pages are indexed, and also shows up certain errors (if any) Google encountered while crawling your website. Make your site as Google friendly as possible. This gives higher visibility in search results.
Publish Quality Content Frequently
Publish quality content on a regular basis so as to be frequently seen as more reliable than sites that seldom produce content. Keep on increasing content on your website to yield more indexed pages, in turn more visibility, increasing the quantity of search clicks to your pages.
Headline Tags
Use headline tags (h1, h2, etc.) for targeted keywords and phrases. Search engines recognizes and assigns greater value to keywords found within headline tags.
Do not Forget Other Search Engines
Do not overlook other search engines like Yahoo, MSN while you keep considering Google, the gorilla, that produces the biggest quantity of search traffic. Yahoo has a resource for web publishers, as does Microsoft to help you better optimize your pages for their engines.
Consistency
Keep on testing different permutations and combinations to understand the criteria the search engines looks for when indexing your pages. Focus on what works and run with it.
Last but not the least
If you have active participation in social media, you are already ahead of the game. To have profiles at Social Networking Websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter helps in getting indexed, and always rank on the top of the search results. This is even great if your objective is personal branding. You have to be active and maintain consistency to own your name in Google. Social media is the most invaluable tool for traffic generation, if executed correctly. User generated content and the applications that power them such as, blogs, wikis, videos, social networking sites, bookmarking, microblogging, etc are the leading mechanisms for search engine traffic, and keeps on increasing with time.
To optimize a website to be ranked higher in search engines is not very complex. Use of techniques suggested above will definitely pay off. You must not expect instant results. It takes time to build up content, establish inbound links, tweak and re-tweak.
Many of these earlier followed practices and techniques are still very much relevant as they were then, so here I am collating the key ones.
Commence with your Domain Name
Select the domain name, relatively short and easy to spell. Avoid hyphens and or unusual characters for branding purposes, than SEO. Search visibility remains there even with perplex, long character riddled domain, but such domain names are hard to remember without the assistance of a search engine.
Build Quality Inbound and Outbound Links
Your site is ranked by search engines based on the amount of inbound links it has from other sites. Spend some time and get authenticated sites linking back to you called inbound links; it influences the search engine ranking.
Google Page Rank
Websites are ranked with higher Page Rank if Google conceives them to be important and influential. Higher Page Rank gives better search results and rankings. Authoritative sites usually have high Page Rank. You should take care of it but do not focus completely on it.
Relevant Keywords on Web Address
Publish content on your site with relevant keywords with headline formatted in the permalink/web URL. For instance, if your site has a page with images on wild animals, format the URL like: http://www.yoursite.com/images/wild-animals.html or http://www.yoursite.com/wild-animals.html Mention the sub-directory with target keyword of the subject matter.
Headlines and Page Titles with Target Keywords
Along with relevant keywords in your URL, place the keywords in your headlines and page titles as well. It would help even if no other optimization is worked out otherwise it would be hard for search engine to spot your existence.
Include Blogs
Blogs are considered to be the major source information for everybody. Search engines give preference to blogs for fresh and timely content. If tweaked correctly it can be a powerful tool for search engine traffic generation. Configure your permalink structure immediately after installing your blog. Install plug-ins like "All in One SEO Pack" available for WordPress. You may also leverage RSS to convert search engine clicks into a return visitor.
Keywords as Anchor text
Generally, anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms and its results since it gives descriptive information to search engines about the content of a hyperlinks destination. Avoid using "click here", it would hamper search engine visibility.
Web Analytics
In order to measure and understand your traffic patterns and behaviors do set up Google Analytics at the very start.
Use Sitemap
Sitemaps list down all the pages pertaining to a particular site that helps to notify search engine about URLs on your website available for crawling and indexing, which might be left undiscovered by Google's normal crawling process.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google's Webmaster Tools helps to see your website the way Googlebot looks at it. It finds out which sites link to yours, also looks for search queries that list your site and which of your site's pages are indexed, and also shows up certain errors (if any) Google encountered while crawling your website. Make your site as Google friendly as possible. This gives higher visibility in search results.
Publish Quality Content Frequently
Publish quality content on a regular basis so as to be frequently seen as more reliable than sites that seldom produce content. Keep on increasing content on your website to yield more indexed pages, in turn more visibility, increasing the quantity of search clicks to your pages.
Headline Tags
Use headline tags (h1, h2, etc.) for targeted keywords and phrases. Search engines recognizes and assigns greater value to keywords found within headline tags.
Do not Forget Other Search Engines
Do not overlook other search engines like Yahoo, MSN while you keep considering Google, the gorilla, that produces the biggest quantity of search traffic. Yahoo has a resource for web publishers, as does Microsoft to help you better optimize your pages for their engines.
Consistency
Keep on testing different permutations and combinations to understand the criteria the search engines looks for when indexing your pages. Focus on what works and run with it.
Last but not the least
If you have active participation in social media, you are already ahead of the game. To have profiles at Social Networking Websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter helps in getting indexed, and always rank on the top of the search results. This is even great if your objective is personal branding. You have to be active and maintain consistency to own your name in Google. Social media is the most invaluable tool for traffic generation, if executed correctly. User generated content and the applications that power them such as, blogs, wikis, videos, social networking sites, bookmarking, microblogging, etc are the leading mechanisms for search engine traffic, and keeps on increasing with time.
To optimize a website to be ranked higher in search engines is not very complex. Use of techniques suggested above will definitely pay off. You must not expect instant results. It takes time to build up content, establish inbound links, tweak and re-tweak.
February 17, 2010
How Online Business Networking could Effectively Leverages LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most popular professional as well as business networking website. It is one of the businesses social networking website being used by numerous professionals to share useful information and also for the purpose of networking. Every day the participation at LinkedIn is increasing exponentially.
The excelling features of LinkedIn like listing your professional experience in your public profile and recommendations from previous and current employers, coworkers, clients, and other professional connections make it a quite good platform for building professional network. It is populated by a various types of individuals, including professionals and many entrepreneurs also. These people can become ideal prospects for your business. The profile may be used by the employers and even clients to locate the best available resources. Also, group discussion and Question-Answers sharing at LinkedIn: LinkedIn Groups facilitates discussion and information sharing in areas of common interest. The discussions are focused on specific domain areas and are quite helpful to specialized business needs.
You may find some workable methods for using LinkedIn as below:
a) Establish a credible profile, make it public - Your professional experience matters a lot and the recommendations on your profile make it more credible in order to be taken seriously. To have recommendations means a lot to enhance and in verification of your profile content.
b) LinkedIn Groups - The groups are monitored and administered by owner of that Group like in Facebook. To join a Group at LinkedIn, an application needs to be sent to the Group owner, who validates your profile and checks for your knowledge about the Group’s overall interest area. Do not abuse your membership. Your postings’ gets removed by Group owners in such a case. If they gauge that you are doing self-promotion then its assured you would be deleted from that particular Group.
c) LinkedIn Groups could be an effective feature to be leveraged for your business. If you contribute in group discussions effectively, and provide helpful information to a community, this helps to develop good professional relationships, and eventually establish sound contacts. These contacts could professionally help in future.
d) The views you share and your participation in a Group, determine your effectiveness in making connections and eventually helps to turn these connections into leads for your business.
e) You may use the professional contacts made via LinkedIn to be used otherwise. In case you find some person really interested in your offerings, you may contact them through their personal emails for further communication.
In short, try and focus on the techniques mentioned above and see how fast it could help to build up strong and huge workable professional network.
The excelling features of LinkedIn like listing your professional experience in your public profile and recommendations from previous and current employers, coworkers, clients, and other professional connections make it a quite good platform for building professional network. It is populated by a various types of individuals, including professionals and many entrepreneurs also. These people can become ideal prospects for your business. The profile may be used by the employers and even clients to locate the best available resources. Also, group discussion and Question-Answers sharing at LinkedIn: LinkedIn Groups facilitates discussion and information sharing in areas of common interest. The discussions are focused on specific domain areas and are quite helpful to specialized business needs.
You may find some workable methods for using LinkedIn as below:
a) Establish a credible profile, make it public - Your professional experience matters a lot and the recommendations on your profile make it more credible in order to be taken seriously. To have recommendations means a lot to enhance and in verification of your profile content.
b) LinkedIn Groups - The groups are monitored and administered by owner of that Group like in Facebook. To join a Group at LinkedIn, an application needs to be sent to the Group owner, who validates your profile and checks for your knowledge about the Group’s overall interest area. Do not abuse your membership. Your postings’ gets removed by Group owners in such a case. If they gauge that you are doing self-promotion then its assured you would be deleted from that particular Group.
c) LinkedIn Groups could be an effective feature to be leveraged for your business. If you contribute in group discussions effectively, and provide helpful information to a community, this helps to develop good professional relationships, and eventually establish sound contacts. These contacts could professionally help in future.
d) The views you share and your participation in a Group, determine your effectiveness in making connections and eventually helps to turn these connections into leads for your business.
e) You may use the professional contacts made via LinkedIn to be used otherwise. In case you find some person really interested in your offerings, you may contact them through their personal emails for further communication.
In short, try and focus on the techniques mentioned above and see how fast it could help to build up strong and huge workable professional network.
February 9, 2010
How “Social Media” being quoted by the professionals in Online Media industry.
It is well said "Content is king but marketing is queen, and the queen rules the household". Or we can say “Great Content Market Itself”.This is very true for Social Media. It is all about Word of Mouth. You have to be very communicative and interactive with your networks to keep them engaged with you. They will stay tuned and remain hooked with you unless and until they will find value in the engagements with you.
Its presence in a business today is increasing day by day. According to Forrester Research, it will be rising exponentially by 2014. Here is how “Social Media” being quoted by some of the professionals in Online Media industry.
“It is the future of everything on Web. There will be social networking sites for everything you could imagine. Instead of this, stumble upon mentality, it will focus and more demographically delineated. It will still be wide open but it will have an organized chaos mentality to it”.
“Where Time, Network, and Trust (TNT) intersects.”
“The Wild, Wild West... it's certainly evolving by the minute though. Refinement is coming and several players will emerge as leaders of their particular genres; genre being social, and professional. It's here to stay, no doubt. Jump on board or get run over!”
“To individuals, it is friendship and communication. To groups with a message, it is a way to get the message out. To businesses is it a way to obtain exposure and establish credibility. All together, this is so powerful that it will continue to grow and become major use of the internet”.
"At times remarkable because of its ease of use and ability to connect to a single person or masses, and at times scary because of its immenseness."
"It is not really a new concept. Today we see many different forums and communities for virtually any human need, personality and interest. The one common trait for all of the successful communities (past to present) are that they built value to sustain and then monetize their members."
"SM is marketing nirvana for those that are truly invested in managing customer relationships. The long term focus on Relationship Marketing is back in vogue and illustrates that corporate focus needs to be on a 12-36 month timeline, not a 3 month ROI on tactical ad campaigns. Really depends if the organization has the appetite to go that long."
"It is a tool for broadening conversation and creating community that, if used intelligently, can be valuable for sharing of knowledge and building relationships
It is easy, enjoyable, effective and economical. It seems like a day will come when social networking tools will become fee-based."
"SM is Business. It's the direction that all media is moving. It's not a fad or a temporary thing. In 2008 we called it Web 2.0; early 2009 we called it Social Media. Now, in late 2009 people are referring to it as Media and Advertising.
It's a platform for having a (meaningful) conversation, in my opinion, through which one may be able to build the authority and influence."
"LinkedIn is the business meeting, FB is the hallway conversation, and Twitter is the cocktail party.
It’s a big honking' volume. Customers share recommendations (good and bad) with their friends. Humans have always wanted to be heard and to connect.
It is taking over as the best way to get the word out and target your message. I've found it very productive already. Work is flying in!"
"Social Media is an Opportunity and a Blessing too, a tool for sharing, collaborating and marketing"
"It is a communication channel to converse and engage directly with your customers, friends, fans, opponents, decision-makers, and thought-leaders.
It is literally changing the way individuals, businesses, governments, etc communicate. The one to one marketing model is over. It is now many to many, there is no turning back."
Some neural or negative quotes are as :
"Social media is expanding our ability to connect and share corporate as well as personal information in ways that weren't available in the past. This presents new challenges and opportunities, but we cannot forget that authenticity and quality are still much more important than quantity when it comes to true and viable business relationships."
"It will ultimately fail since the number of "people" who want to know you for selfish reasons far out-weighs the number of people you know or will ever want to know you for "personal" reasons. This ratio dictates the security platforms that surround all SM's, thus draining their lifeblood (connectivity) before they even get started!"
"When you put thoughts or ads in newspaper, it might reach 1 Lac people and might interest 5K people (5%). But on FB, it will reach approx. 5 crores and will interest only 5 Lac (1%)."
"SM may give reach to mass audience but it makes difficult for business to pull right kind of people to turn them into customers compare to other media. Other media allow you to reach targeted audience, whereas it lets you to connect with the entire pool of users in any network."
"Finding customers through SM is like finding water in desert. It is a try to filter the 10% valuable information vs. 90% waffle. Just like a black hole that sucks you in."
Last but not the least:
"The problem is that so many people still operate in a Web 2.0 mindset! Those days are gone. The two worlds are no longer independent of each other. The relationships we make in real life carry over into the virtual realm, and vice-versa. It’s a marriage and the strength of each will sustain the other. Social Media isn't going anywhere. In fact, there is only growth in the future."
Its presence in a business today is increasing day by day. According to Forrester Research, it will be rising exponentially by 2014. Here is how “Social Media” being quoted by some of the professionals in Online Media industry.
“It is the future of everything on Web. There will be social networking sites for everything you could imagine. Instead of this, stumble upon mentality, it will focus and more demographically delineated. It will still be wide open but it will have an organized chaos mentality to it”.
“Where Time, Network, and Trust (TNT) intersects.”
“The Wild, Wild West... it's certainly evolving by the minute though. Refinement is coming and several players will emerge as leaders of their particular genres; genre being social, and professional. It's here to stay, no doubt. Jump on board or get run over!”
“To individuals, it is friendship and communication. To groups with a message, it is a way to get the message out. To businesses is it a way to obtain exposure and establish credibility. All together, this is so powerful that it will continue to grow and become major use of the internet”.
"At times remarkable because of its ease of use and ability to connect to a single person or masses, and at times scary because of its immenseness."
"It is not really a new concept. Today we see many different forums and communities for virtually any human need, personality and interest. The one common trait for all of the successful communities (past to present) are that they built value to sustain and then monetize their members."
"SM is marketing nirvana for those that are truly invested in managing customer relationships. The long term focus on Relationship Marketing is back in vogue and illustrates that corporate focus needs to be on a 12-36 month timeline, not a 3 month ROI on tactical ad campaigns. Really depends if the organization has the appetite to go that long."
"It is a tool for broadening conversation and creating community that, if used intelligently, can be valuable for sharing of knowledge and building relationships
It is easy, enjoyable, effective and economical. It seems like a day will come when social networking tools will become fee-based."
"SM is Business. It's the direction that all media is moving. It's not a fad or a temporary thing. In 2008 we called it Web 2.0; early 2009 we called it Social Media. Now, in late 2009 people are referring to it as Media and Advertising.
It's a platform for having a (meaningful) conversation, in my opinion, through which one may be able to build the authority and influence."
"LinkedIn is the business meeting, FB is the hallway conversation, and Twitter is the cocktail party.
It’s a big honking' volume. Customers share recommendations (good and bad) with their friends. Humans have always wanted to be heard and to connect.
It is taking over as the best way to get the word out and target your message. I've found it very productive already. Work is flying in!"
"Social Media is an Opportunity and a Blessing too, a tool for sharing, collaborating and marketing"
"It is a communication channel to converse and engage directly with your customers, friends, fans, opponents, decision-makers, and thought-leaders.
It is literally changing the way individuals, businesses, governments, etc communicate. The one to one marketing model is over. It is now many to many, there is no turning back."
Some neural or negative quotes are as :
"Social media is expanding our ability to connect and share corporate as well as personal information in ways that weren't available in the past. This presents new challenges and opportunities, but we cannot forget that authenticity and quality are still much more important than quantity when it comes to true and viable business relationships."
"It will ultimately fail since the number of "people" who want to know you for selfish reasons far out-weighs the number of people you know or will ever want to know you for "personal" reasons. This ratio dictates the security platforms that surround all SM's, thus draining their lifeblood (connectivity) before they even get started!"
"When you put thoughts or ads in newspaper, it might reach 1 Lac people and might interest 5K people (5%). But on FB, it will reach approx. 5 crores and will interest only 5 Lac (1%)."
"SM may give reach to mass audience but it makes difficult for business to pull right kind of people to turn them into customers compare to other media. Other media allow you to reach targeted audience, whereas it lets you to connect with the entire pool of users in any network."
"Finding customers through SM is like finding water in desert. It is a try to filter the 10% valuable information vs. 90% waffle. Just like a black hole that sucks you in."
Last but not the least:
"The problem is that so many people still operate in a Web 2.0 mindset! Those days are gone. The two worlds are no longer independent of each other. The relationships we make in real life carry over into the virtual realm, and vice-versa. It’s a marriage and the strength of each will sustain the other. Social Media isn't going anywhere. In fact, there is only growth in the future."
February 8, 2010
Transparency in Business
There is hardly a conversation about social media today without discussing the concept of transparency. Customers and stakeholders increasingly expect it as the new operating standard.
Transparency is to be open, honest, and accountable and about responsibility. People listen and make evaluations and decisions based upon what you say. To make your business more transparent:
a) Be Real — Spread Awareness about What You Know
Talk about the things that you are aware of. Just stick to this. Then make sure to specialize in specific related areas.
b) Share Opinion, But Listen as well Stay Open to Other Views
You are fully responsible about the information you share. If you find someone else’s views good, then do appreciate. That kind of openness earns respect. Sharing your opinion is actually a part of marketing strategy.
c) Be Honest
Put all the appropriate details. Do not neglect anything that could be important for anybody else, it might affect your online credibility.
d) Be Well-timed and Responsive
Respond instantly. Being a part of social media, remember that timeliness impacts your success and failure. At the moments of controversy, timeliness plays significant role.
e) Consider Grouping
None of us can work as an island in social media world. Transparency means creating groups and communities. Educate customers and generate ideas for new products and services. Targeting right audiences makes lot of difference.
Sometimes, it’s hard to share the truth openly. But adopting transparency would definitely help to be more real, honest, and creditworthy and connects better with customers makes lot of difference.
Transparency is to be open, honest, and accountable and about responsibility. People listen and make evaluations and decisions based upon what you say. To make your business more transparent:
a) Be Real — Spread Awareness about What You Know
Talk about the things that you are aware of. Just stick to this. Then make sure to specialize in specific related areas.
b) Share Opinion, But Listen as well Stay Open to Other Views
You are fully responsible about the information you share. If you find someone else’s views good, then do appreciate. That kind of openness earns respect. Sharing your opinion is actually a part of marketing strategy.
c) Be Honest
Put all the appropriate details. Do not neglect anything that could be important for anybody else, it might affect your online credibility.
d) Be Well-timed and Responsive
Respond instantly. Being a part of social media, remember that timeliness impacts your success and failure. At the moments of controversy, timeliness plays significant role.
e) Consider Grouping
None of us can work as an island in social media world. Transparency means creating groups and communities. Educate customers and generate ideas for new products and services. Targeting right audiences makes lot of difference.
Sometimes, it’s hard to share the truth openly. But adopting transparency would definitely help to be more real, honest, and creditworthy and connects better with customers makes lot of difference.
January 26, 2010
Top Social Media Channels to Optimize a Website
Search Engine Optimization is a hypercritical attempt to rank a website higher in the search engines so that with the help of relevant keywords, search engines like Google will find the website on the first page of Google. Further, the objective is to optimize so as to be found online as easily as possible.
You may look at some of the pointers below to optimize top most social media channels greatly in use.
Facebook
You can participate in Facebook by making your personal profile, groups and Pages. As you all are aware that you can promote and optimize your website using Facebook but how you can purpose it efficiently drive traffic to your website is of utmost significance.
To efficiently use Facebook, make a group or page profile for your business instead of personal since they are much more transparent to search engine crawlers. Choose a vanity URL that contains your keywords. When you post content, always include video or imagery because Facebook users like visuals more than plain text. Try to keep updates at least 2-3 times per week. And then using Analytical tools for insights, you may analyze the number of interactions and overall engagement with your page and posts.
Blogs
In order to showcase true commitment and passion via blogs and to stand out from a crowd, you must sustain over long periods of time with good frequency. The initial thing needed would be to buy your own domain name rather than renting one. Keep regular update with new unique new content and also promote your Blog on Twitter regularly since Google now has feature called real time search feed into Twitter API. You may include share buttons to other social media channels also so that visitors can add your blog and posts.
YouTube
The emerging facts and figures showcase the increasing impact of Social Media “Online Video”. Initially, create your own YouTube Channel and mention the link of your blog or website in the description section for your video to link back to your site. Do mention the category and the tags of your video in tags section. Now you may also promote your YouTube video on Twitter.
Twitter
Twitter is a great way to connect, communicate and promote your content from your blog or website. You should add your website’s URL in your profile info. Also, place a “retweet” button on your blog articles and integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer appearing at the bottom of every page of your site. This helps to drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines. Do include “Follow me on Twitter” buttons on your emails and blog. Try to shorten your tweets to max. 120 characters so that it allows space for people to “Retweet” your “Tweet” with their comments like “Good post”
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest professional networks which is growing rapidly and is considered to be one of the top social media channels. LinkedIn helps to connect to your trusted professional contacts so as to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. You must optimize this platform to enhance you and your company’s brand. Initially create a public profile to build an on-line presence for yourself, use its questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as an expert in that particular subject, start conversations, and answer questions to endorse your candidacy and expertise so that it can drive good traffic. Do activate Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces on the homepage of your website.
Following these top Social Media Channels definitely helps to optimize your website so as to rank higher on search engines.
You may look at some of the pointers below to optimize top most social media channels greatly in use.
You can participate in Facebook by making your personal profile, groups and Pages. As you all are aware that you can promote and optimize your website using Facebook but how you can purpose it efficiently drive traffic to your website is of utmost significance.
To efficiently use Facebook, make a group or page profile for your business instead of personal since they are much more transparent to search engine crawlers. Choose a vanity URL that contains your keywords. When you post content, always include video or imagery because Facebook users like visuals more than plain text. Try to keep updates at least 2-3 times per week. And then using Analytical tools for insights, you may analyze the number of interactions and overall engagement with your page and posts.
Blogs
In order to showcase true commitment and passion via blogs and to stand out from a crowd, you must sustain over long periods of time with good frequency. The initial thing needed would be to buy your own domain name rather than renting one. Keep regular update with new unique new content and also promote your Blog on Twitter regularly since Google now has feature called real time search feed into Twitter API. You may include share buttons to other social media channels also so that visitors can add your blog and posts.
YouTube
The emerging facts and figures showcase the increasing impact of Social Media “Online Video”. Initially, create your own YouTube Channel and mention the link of your blog or website in the description section for your video to link back to your site. Do mention the category and the tags of your video in tags section. Now you may also promote your YouTube video on Twitter.
Twitter is a great way to connect, communicate and promote your content from your blog or website. You should add your website’s URL in your profile info. Also, place a “retweet” button on your blog articles and integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer appearing at the bottom of every page of your site. This helps to drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines. Do include “Follow me on Twitter” buttons on your emails and blog. Try to shorten your tweets to max. 120 characters so that it allows space for people to “Retweet” your “Tweet” with their comments like “Good post”
LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest professional networks which is growing rapidly and is considered to be one of the top social media channels. LinkedIn helps to connect to your trusted professional contacts so as to exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. You must optimize this platform to enhance you and your company’s brand. Initially create a public profile to build an on-line presence for yourself, use its questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as an expert in that particular subject, start conversations, and answer questions to endorse your candidacy and expertise so that it can drive good traffic. Do activate Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces on the homepage of your website.
Following these top Social Media Channels definitely helps to optimize your website so as to rank higher on search engines.
January 18, 2010
Improvise Alexa Rank of Your Website
Alexa is one such website that provides traffic statistics for many websites. You can measure the number of visitors on your website via this ranking tool but to track visitors count using this tool it is necessary that this tool should be already installed on the visitors’ browser. Unfortunately, most of the visitors don’t have this toolbar pre-installed on their browsers. Due to which you can’t say that Alexa Rank gives true indication of visitors on your website, it’s only a subset of your visitors.
Keeping this in view, Alexa addresses some of these concerns as:
• Traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should not be regarded as authentic one.
• The closer a site gets to #1, the more trustable its traffic ranking becomes.
Looking at this we cannot say that Alexa ranking is an accurate ranking system, it is important only if you plan to monetize your website. But there are some way outs to improve the Alexa rank of your website. They are as:
1. Append An Alexa Rank Widget To Your Website
Setting up this widget on your website will help increase its rank. Using this widget, all the visitors of your website would be tracked. Loading of a page take time with a widget added on that page. In order to still retain its benefits, preferably place it at the very bottom of your website, or say at the end of your source code.
2. Do Install Alexa Toolbar In Your Browser
Set your website as your homepage. Doing this way, you can increase the rank of website’s traffic rank because your visits to your website will also be reflected in your rank.
3. Encourage everybody to Install the Alexa Toolbar
Try to make aware everybody, your visitors as well as your friends, that installing Alexa toolbar helps to give correct number of visitors to any website.
4. Use Alexa Auto-Surfing Websites
This approach is workable only if your Alexa rank is too poor, but these websites sends visitors to your website that have this toolbar installed for sure.
5. Hunt for Webmasters
Generally, web developers and tech-savvy people have installed the Alexa toolbar in their browsers. So, if you visit discussion groups, forums, tech blogs, etc., you can ask for feedback on your website, thereby increasing website visits.
Therefore, it’s crystal clear that Alexa traffic rank is not a true indicator of your website’s visitors. It can count near to real visitors, only if considered along with other performance metrics. Heretofore, using above mentioned tips, you can improve your rank, thence the value of your website could be enhanced in front of potential consumers.
Keeping this in view, Alexa addresses some of these concerns as:
• Traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should not be regarded as authentic one.
• The closer a site gets to #1, the more trustable its traffic ranking becomes.
Looking at this we cannot say that Alexa ranking is an accurate ranking system, it is important only if you plan to monetize your website. But there are some way outs to improve the Alexa rank of your website. They are as:
1. Append An Alexa Rank Widget To Your Website
Setting up this widget on your website will help increase its rank. Using this widget, all the visitors of your website would be tracked. Loading of a page take time with a widget added on that page. In order to still retain its benefits, preferably place it at the very bottom of your website, or say at the end of your source code.
2. Do Install Alexa Toolbar In Your Browser
Set your website as your homepage. Doing this way, you can increase the rank of website’s traffic rank because your visits to your website will also be reflected in your rank.
3. Encourage everybody to Install the Alexa Toolbar
Try to make aware everybody, your visitors as well as your friends, that installing Alexa toolbar helps to give correct number of visitors to any website.
4. Use Alexa Auto-Surfing Websites
This approach is workable only if your Alexa rank is too poor, but these websites sends visitors to your website that have this toolbar installed for sure.
5. Hunt for Webmasters
Generally, web developers and tech-savvy people have installed the Alexa toolbar in their browsers. So, if you visit discussion groups, forums, tech blogs, etc., you can ask for feedback on your website, thereby increasing website visits.
Therefore, it’s crystal clear that Alexa traffic rank is not a true indicator of your website’s visitors. It can count near to real visitors, only if considered along with other performance metrics. Heretofore, using above mentioned tips, you can improve your rank, thence the value of your website could be enhanced in front of potential consumers.
Target your Potential Customers
The word “Marketing” refers to locate and connect with your ideal customers who are in need for your products and services and are fully willing to pay with open heart.
We approach the potential consumers following several strategies e.g. via social networking and all. To have good sales and constant increase in profits in your business, focus primarily to acquire and maintain long-lasting customer relationships. Build a group based on loyalty, your real fans who trust you enough to repeatedly buy from you and even refer others as well.
Follow a few steps before considering an ideal customer and also to make your business more profitable:
1. Try to cull out the standout features that make your product and services unique and special. Figure out why would one be interested to do business with you when so many others are present in competition. Mention your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) clearly.
2. Its human tendency to buy what they want to, or what they think or need. The whole decision revolves around the customer. They are least bothered what you think they need.
Always try to attract and approach “ideal customer" because it leads you to a different framework for your future actions. Try to dig into the specific dimensions and characteristics of the people who are best suited for your product so that you can communicate with them more strongly. Converse in their language about the things that mean the most to them.
There are two general approaches to factor in your ideal customer: demographic and psychographic.
Demographics provides you countable and measurable facts and figures about people
• Gender, age and their marital status, and disabilities, if any
• Parents, kids and their interests, challenges
• Cultural/educational background, health/wealth status
• Residence details-city, country
• Entrepreneur, job-part time/full time, small or large company or a government employee
• Which car do you owe, your Income?
• Hobbies, Favorite foods, restaurants, magazines, movies, TV shows
• Where do I go to spend vacation?
• And alike
Psychographics refers to beliefs, values, and aspirations
• Issues of passion like environment/health, child care
• What tribe/culture or life experience has made them to which they withstand today? To what "tribes" do they already belong that might be in synch with yours?
• State of mind like what frustrates or makes them angry, what keeps them awake whole night, what do they dream of, which issue dominates their life, what do they tried and failed number of times, etc.
Demographic approach gives you the black and white stats and Psychographics approach resonate the significant part of their life.
Keeping these two distinct approaches in mind, can help you in clarifying and attracting you potential customers who are loyal, whom you can trust and even appreciative fans who will become the core of your business.
We approach the potential consumers following several strategies e.g. via social networking and all. To have good sales and constant increase in profits in your business, focus primarily to acquire and maintain long-lasting customer relationships. Build a group based on loyalty, your real fans who trust you enough to repeatedly buy from you and even refer others as well.
Follow a few steps before considering an ideal customer and also to make your business more profitable:
1. Try to cull out the standout features that make your product and services unique and special. Figure out why would one be interested to do business with you when so many others are present in competition. Mention your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) clearly.
2. Its human tendency to buy what they want to, or what they think or need. The whole decision revolves around the customer. They are least bothered what you think they need.
Always try to attract and approach “ideal customer" because it leads you to a different framework for your future actions. Try to dig into the specific dimensions and characteristics of the people who are best suited for your product so that you can communicate with them more strongly. Converse in their language about the things that mean the most to them.
There are two general approaches to factor in your ideal customer: demographic and psychographic.
Demographics provides you countable and measurable facts and figures about people
• Gender, age and their marital status, and disabilities, if any
• Parents, kids and their interests, challenges
• Cultural/educational background, health/wealth status
• Residence details-city, country
• Entrepreneur, job-part time/full time, small or large company or a government employee
• Which car do you owe, your Income?
• Hobbies, Favorite foods, restaurants, magazines, movies, TV shows
• Where do I go to spend vacation?
• And alike
Psychographics refers to beliefs, values, and aspirations
• Issues of passion like environment/health, child care
• What tribe/culture or life experience has made them to which they withstand today? To what "tribes" do they already belong that might be in synch with yours?
• State of mind like what frustrates or makes them angry, what keeps them awake whole night, what do they dream of, which issue dominates their life, what do they tried and failed number of times, etc.
Demographic approach gives you the black and white stats and Psychographics approach resonate the significant part of their life.
Keeping these two distinct approaches in mind, can help you in clarifying and attracting you potential customers who are loyal, whom you can trust and even appreciative fans who will become the core of your business.
January 12, 2010
Popular Online Marketing Tools
Every individual or a company has their own modes to market their product. Everyone prefers distinct modes and methods of marketing their product or services. Here I am collating some of the online marketing channels with high success rates viz. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Email Marketing, Pay-Per-Click, Mobile Marketing, and Video Marketing.
1. Search Engine Optimization
Most of the companies, big or small, focus on maximizing clicks and conversions from organic searches. With SEO, it is easy to increase rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. But with search ranking, it is only half won story. One should target the potential visitors from all the specific locations, simultaneously focusing on ranking. Examine the metrics of your online marketing campaigns to extract maximum results. Try and focus to resolve the questions like:
Are search results targeting yours potential customers? Work upon title tags and meta descriptions looking at the ones used by your competitors. Pay attention towards their offers of free case study, flattering product sample or discounts.
Does your live content address your target audience’s needs? Think from customer’s perspective e.g. whether your customer finds your content relevant or not. Customers prefer solution instead of surprises.
Besides optimizing titles and meta descriptions, organic search increases CTR, thereby influencing subsequent search rankings.
2. Social Media
No doubt social media is not that justifiable in terms of ROI when compared to other online marketing tools. To measure success, define certain goals. Social media participation definitely brings loyalty to your brand. To track and measure results, use certain online tools to gauge traffic from social media channels. You can check whether it meets its potential targets like:
• Increase brand awareness
• Relevant traffic
• Improvement in trust and confidence among customers
• Valuable feedback from potential customers
• Improve standard and social search engine visibility
• Build up database for email marketing
• Drive sales and increase matured leads
Focus on specific goals so that you can measure definite results of your social media efforts.
3. Email Marketing
Regardless of what the critics say, email marketing is not going to vanish in 2010 even. It’s as important as any other online marketing channels. Instead, integrating email with social media is going to be a popular thing for coming years.
Try to bring email marketing to the next level by encouraging email subscribers to not only forward content via mail, but also to get social with mail and share it via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Promote followers and readers to subscribe to your e-newsletter and tutorials for reaching defined results.
4. PPC
Generally companies get so busy with other online marketing activities that they simply forget to efficiently run PPC campaigns. PPC efforts could certainly increase conversion rate e.g. for betterment, you can try ideas like:
•Try several ad versions that provide different results of your product, service or company like one is cost-effective and other one emphasizes on convenience.
•Try different headlines on your landing page. Google Optimizer is a great tool for this.
•Try launching different ad campaigns all together like one with free case study and other with a product coupon.
5. Mobile Marketing
Make your website optimized for handheld devices too such as mobile phones.
Apart from net banking, purchasing commodities, downloading mobile ring tones, playing games, consumers are doing a lot more than this from their mobile devices. Now they have started their participation in social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, creating additional opportunities for engagements and traffic to the mobile version of your company web site. Consider few tips like:
•Keep basic font format
•Eliminate ads to conserve screen space
•Take out images unless they are necessary
•Remove Flash, Java or any plug-in content
6. Video Marketing
Google is pushing video as a larger component in search results. Properly formatted online video are getting more clicks than ever before. Do include closed captioning and alt tags in video formats. Live videos add value to business making your content and site more searchable.
These are the channels which I have seen committing approx. 80% assured results.
If you know any other online marketing channels that can increase success rates, do share with me.
1. Search Engine Optimization
Most of the companies, big or small, focus on maximizing clicks and conversions from organic searches. With SEO, it is easy to increase rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. But with search ranking, it is only half won story. One should target the potential visitors from all the specific locations, simultaneously focusing on ranking. Examine the metrics of your online marketing campaigns to extract maximum results. Try and focus to resolve the questions like:
Are search results targeting yours potential customers? Work upon title tags and meta descriptions looking at the ones used by your competitors. Pay attention towards their offers of free case study, flattering product sample or discounts.
Does your live content address your target audience’s needs? Think from customer’s perspective e.g. whether your customer finds your content relevant or not. Customers prefer solution instead of surprises.
Besides optimizing titles and meta descriptions, organic search increases CTR, thereby influencing subsequent search rankings.
2. Social Media
No doubt social media is not that justifiable in terms of ROI when compared to other online marketing tools. To measure success, define certain goals. Social media participation definitely brings loyalty to your brand. To track and measure results, use certain online tools to gauge traffic from social media channels. You can check whether it meets its potential targets like:
• Increase brand awareness
• Relevant traffic
• Improvement in trust and confidence among customers
• Valuable feedback from potential customers
• Improve standard and social search engine visibility
• Build up database for email marketing
• Drive sales and increase matured leads
Focus on specific goals so that you can measure definite results of your social media efforts.
3. Email Marketing
Regardless of what the critics say, email marketing is not going to vanish in 2010 even. It’s as important as any other online marketing channels. Instead, integrating email with social media is going to be a popular thing for coming years.
Try to bring email marketing to the next level by encouraging email subscribers to not only forward content via mail, but also to get social with mail and share it via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Promote followers and readers to subscribe to your e-newsletter and tutorials for reaching defined results.
4. PPC
Generally companies get so busy with other online marketing activities that they simply forget to efficiently run PPC campaigns. PPC efforts could certainly increase conversion rate e.g. for betterment, you can try ideas like:
•Try several ad versions that provide different results of your product, service or company like one is cost-effective and other one emphasizes on convenience.
•Try different headlines on your landing page. Google Optimizer is a great tool for this.
•Try launching different ad campaigns all together like one with free case study and other with a product coupon.
5. Mobile Marketing
Make your website optimized for handheld devices too such as mobile phones.
Apart from net banking, purchasing commodities, downloading mobile ring tones, playing games, consumers are doing a lot more than this from their mobile devices. Now they have started their participation in social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, creating additional opportunities for engagements and traffic to the mobile version of your company web site. Consider few tips like:
•Keep basic font format
•Eliminate ads to conserve screen space
•Take out images unless they are necessary
•Remove Flash, Java or any plug-in content
6. Video Marketing
Google is pushing video as a larger component in search results. Properly formatted online video are getting more clicks than ever before. Do include closed captioning and alt tags in video formats. Live videos add value to business making your content and site more searchable.
These are the channels which I have seen committing approx. 80% assured results.
If you know any other online marketing channels that can increase success rates, do share with me.
January 6, 2010
Project Management made easy through Project Management software
In today’s technology driven world, you can collaborate with your employees, manage your project team and make your project a success. No project is too daunting when you have project management software to manage your business. Scrolling the net for top most Online Web-based Project Management Software, I have collated an useful list of such software with their basic standout features:
Tenrox-It facilitates resource management, project planning, scheduling & tracking, cost accounting, time & billing and expense tracking. It includes intuitive project planning tool that's easy to use;
project plans are interchangeable with Microsoft Project files; and outstanding time tracking, cost accounting and billing capabilities.
project plans are interchangeable with Microsoft Project files; and outstanding time tracking, cost accounting and billing capabilities.
Basecamp-It is the leading web-based project collaboration tool to share files, meet deadlines, assign tasks, centralize feedback, and make clients smile. It works with a variety of iPhone apps, third-party invoicing and time tracking tools, graphic design review software, and widgets.
Wrike- It is a flexible online project management interface that comes with a plethora of features that includes easy management for 50+ projects in one workspace, solves the email inbox chaos problem, boosts team collaboration, save managers up to 25 hours a month and double team productivity.
ProofHub:-It lets you easily organize your projects and quickly create client/project extranets. It helps your internal team keep your conversations, ideas, schedules, files, to-do lists, milestones and more at a password-protected central location. It is an inbuilt proofing tool and also features Real-time chat.
Project Drive- It is an easy to implement web-based project management software that is fully customizable to your projects and your workflow. It offers better control and efficiency, ensuring the successful completion of your projects in time and within budget.
Celoxis:- It improve collaboration and streamline management of projects, time sheets, expenses and even business processes specific to you organization.
Vertabase-It is the easiest way to manage better. It provides advanced resource planning, easy-to-use project management, project tracking and comprehensive document management. It features portfolio views, executive dashboards and, and automatic notification.
Genius Project-Genius Inside is a multi-faceted and can be used by experienced computer users and beginners alike. It features easy to use interface, complex, informative charts, budget planning dashboard and automatic email notification.
ActiveCollab- It is a project management & collaboration tool that you can set up on your own server or local network. It help team members keep track of projects, assign tasks, highlight important deadlines and activities, see progress and discuss any issues or concerns.
These are most well-known and majorly used online project and team management web-based services, but with attention and use comes criticism and complaint. Share the one that you used and found the BEST one.
January 5, 2010
Marketing of Products Through Website using 5 W’s and an H
In today’s technology driven world, one needs to be crystal clear with 5 W’s: Who, What, Where, When, & Why and an H. People make snap decisions everyday - to use products, services, and even software too. The focus should be whether you are giving your potential customers the information they need to make split second decisions about your products/services or not.
Who
- Who is this for? - Communicate clearly who your target market is and try not to be too subtle. The visitor to you website should know if you are talking to them or someone else.
- Who is using it? – Exemplify the target users if possible to make things more clear. People generally follow up things which are pretty tried and tested ones.
- Who created it? – Disclose your real identity, no need to hide behind an isolated corporation. Tell the potential users exactly who you are.
What
- What is this? – Make it clear whether it’s a website, a mobile app or an iPhone app. Come right out and say what it is. Instead of presenting an idea, communicate exactly what it is.
- What does this do? – Tell the real features of your product or services and spread the real picture giving its benefits to satisfy your potential customers. Say it clearly.
When
- When is the best time to use it? - Mention certain case scenarios to let the potential customers know when your services could benefit them.
Why
- Why use this at all? – Try to mention the advantages of your product/services in front of the product/services provided by your competitors. This would need a different angle to achieve their faith in you.
- Why is it better than other similar apps? – To help people in making educated decisions, outline the similarities and differences in the services provided by you and your competitors.
How
- How do I use this? – Lastly, never forget to give detailed description of using your product or service. You can take help of podcasts and videos to give an idea about your product/service and can outline the steps in text as well.
This is the way you can map the theory to practice to increase the success rate.
Who
- Who is this for? - Communicate clearly who your target market is and try not to be too subtle. The visitor to you website should know if you are talking to them or someone else.
- Who is using it? – Exemplify the target users if possible to make things more clear. People generally follow up things which are pretty tried and tested ones.
- Who created it? – Disclose your real identity, no need to hide behind an isolated corporation. Tell the potential users exactly who you are.
What
- What is this? – Make it clear whether it’s a website, a mobile app or an iPhone app. Come right out and say what it is. Instead of presenting an idea, communicate exactly what it is.
- What does this do? – Tell the real features of your product or services and spread the real picture giving its benefits to satisfy your potential customers. Say it clearly.
When
- When is the best time to use it? - Mention certain case scenarios to let the potential customers know when your services could benefit them.
Why
- Why use this at all? – Try to mention the advantages of your product/services in front of the product/services provided by your competitors. This would need a different angle to achieve their faith in you.
- Why is it better than other similar apps? – To help people in making educated decisions, outline the similarities and differences in the services provided by you and your competitors.
How
- How do I use this? – Lastly, never forget to give detailed description of using your product or service. You can take help of podcasts and videos to give an idea about your product/service and can outline the steps in text as well.
This is the way you can map the theory to practice to increase the success rate.
January 4, 2010
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is the type of marketing that is mainly focused on getting found by potential customers.
In traditional or outbound marketing, companies used to focus on searching for expected customers, using techniques with poor targets and most of times interrupting people. This type of marketing involves cold-calling, T.V. advertising, print advertising, junk mails, and trade shows. But these techniques are less effective and more expensive.
Today, Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing completely. The most successful key components of an Inbound Marketing campaigns are:
a. Get Found
Create Content via Blogging – It mainly surrounds the content. The substantial content in any Inbound Marketing campaign is a tool that to attract potential customers to your website for your products or services. You must create web pages, write blogs, participate in the blogosphere and then publish this content to drive traffic to your website.
Optimize via Search Engine Optimization - SEO is the practice of building your website and the inbound links to your site to maximize its ranking in the search engines, where most of your customers generally begin their buying process. It eases the potential customers to find your content. You must do on-page as well as off-page SEO and use channels like Youtube, Twitter to optimize your remarkable content.
Promote via Social Media - Social media magnifies the impact of your content. When your content is distributed across and discussed over the network of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic, and is more likely to drive qualified and specific consumers to your website. You can even run PPC campaigns to promote the website.
b. Convert
Convert Visitors to Leads via Landing Pages - Convert a targeted stream of traffic into mature leads. Design a well-crafted offer on a landing page specifically for the audience you will be driving to the page.
Lead Tracking and Intelligence – After generating lots of traffic from myriad sources like Google, social media sites, the blogosphere, create a magnet that sucks in prospects from all over the web. Look into the conversion paths on your website. Use your intellect to gauge where might people land, and what paths through your content they might take. And then put right offers in front of a given visitor to maximize the chance of converting it into a lead.
Lead Management – Use the analytic traffic tracking tools to keep a track and then manage the matured leads. Identify the hot prospects to increase the total count of potential customers.
c. Analyze
Marketing Analytics – Regularly post and comment on articles, and check your traffic, leads and landing page conversion rates. Schedule properly to write, optimize, publish and promote your content.
Competitive Analysis – Keep a close eye on your competitor’s presence in the market. Analyze and identify their hot prospects closely.
Lead Scoring – You need to strategize for further gains. Generate marketing reports and make new offers and landing pages to enhance the substantial traffic on your website.
January 3, 2010
Are City Fountain and Vatika losing their charm?
Vatika is most popular, lively and frequently visited place of Panchkula. Every person loves to spend their weekend at this most prominent spot of the city. Over the weekends the parking lots are completely full. The residents from nearby cities like Chandigarh, Kalka and Pinjore have similar passion for this spot. The fountains at “City Fountain” area with colorful lightening enhance this perfect awesome scenery. People are commonly seen doing their evening walk here. Even kids have a jolly good time in its play section with toy train, swings along with the parents cheering them. In its vicinity it has one restaurant named “Wah Delhi” and a small “Dollar Shop” on one side and a big shopping complex “Vishal Mart” on the other. The famous chain of restaurants known as “Hot Millions” used to do a brisk business when they were running their fast food chain from ‘Vatika’.
Unfortunately, all these things are past now. Haryana Government had spent crores of rupees to develop this park. But suddenly it seems like government has lost all its interest. The garden nowadays has altogether deserted except some young couples sitting there at some place or other in the park. Even the restaurants “Hot Millions” and “Wah Delhi” have closed their outlets. Fountains are not in working condition most of the times. The stagnant water in the fountain makes it full of dirt and silt. This all implies that as if the Haryana Government as well as HUDA (Haryana Urban Development Authority) has lost their interests completely to take care of this city’s center beauty. Even no light of hope is seen from our Honorable Union Minister of Tourism Kum. Selija, also elected as MP from Panchkula. After winning the elections, she is also least bothered about the current situation of the city's beauty. In these situations, we can’t expect any new project from her side when old projects are given such a rude treatment.
Hopefully, government of Haryana, honorable tourism minister Kum Selija, and HUDA will do something in near time to maintain this center beauty of Panchkula.
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