There is no way to track effectiveness (or ineffectiveness)
It's impersonal
The target audience is too large
It's costly to redo or improve
There is no call to action
What surprises me is the number of small business owners that save their
marketing dollars just to waste them on ineffective advertising.
Then, they complain because nothing is working and they don't have any
customers..
I know what you're thinking,
"Isn't advertising and marketing the same thing?"
Well, not really. Let me explain the differences
.
Advertising includes: commercials, billboards, radio, and newspapers.
Marketing includes: emails, letters, postcards, and fax.
So how is follow-up marketing better than advertising?
You can track response rates
You can quickly change campaigns that aren't working
You can specifically target your audience
It leads prospects to an immediate sell
If you really want to attract more customers, you will learn to market
and leave the advertising to those gazillion dollar companies.
Does Your site needs an Extreme Marketing Makeover? Now you can get exposure to 100's of thousands of new customers or prospects every month if you know what to do! Visit SEO Specialist Online for a Free Web Site Evaluation for your Business.
Managing Your Brand To Perform In Universal Search Results
Achieving and sustaining top ranking visibility for your brand on important organic terms is increasingly getting tougher.
This is because natural text listings no longer rule on the search result page. There are many other elements that appear sometimes ahead of or intertwined with the natural results, including local listings with a map, shopping listings, latest news, top blogs, images, videos and even book reviews can appear.
Google calls these mixed result types Universal search; others call it blended search. These other elements can push what were once top performing organic listings into second or third page positions, as first reported by Lori Weiman from search engine land.
Consider these keyword examples:
“Desktop computers”. The natural listings are intertwined with three shopping listings. If you want your brand to show in the number one spot, you have to compete with the shopping listings that will appear above you.
“Pizza delivery”. Three natural listings on top, followed by seven map listings. If you are a pizza shop showing 4th in natural results, you are below the fold.
“Refrigerator deals”. You’ll see a forum with a description and four forum listings intertwined in the SERPs before you even get to the organic listings.
“Ghost”. If you’re looking for a product named with a word with multiple meanings, such as “ghost,” you may find several videos and image listings beating you out.
Just as SEO has finally become a commonplace tactic in the online search marketing mix, we now find that the evolution of the layout of the SERP requires a new approach. As brand marketers, we need to re-think our strategy for how to achieve top visibility for our brand on our major terms on the free SERPs.
We think of this as a new opportunity to be found in a growing class of page elements.
We hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable. Stop by for a Free Web Site Evaluation of your Business
Jim Gras
Senior SEO Strategist
Skype: jamiboy
800-897-6458
Steven Turner
SEO Strategist
Skype: saturner1251
888-301-9094
Lou Veltri
SEO Strategist
Skype: netbusopps
888-783-6196
Mike Augustine
SEO Strategist
Skype: luckylifestyledesigner
800-507-1945
Posted on 10/15/09 at 11:30:27 by Jim Gras
Category: General
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Page titles get seen by the search engines first and the searchers second.
Write a relevant page title and you have a much better chance of showing up for the right keywords in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Think of it as receiving a reward for helping the search engines figure out how to classify your page.
Recently, Yahoo has stopped supporting the Meta Keywords Tag. Google has never supported the Meta Keywords Tag and Bing doesn't support it, either.
So, I think we can safely say, "The Meta Keywords Tag is dead."
Writing a relevant page title has a much better chance of showing up for the right keywords in the search engine results pages. So it's YOUR reward for helping the search engines figure out how to classify your page.
Are you ready for 2010? Does Your site needs an Extreme Marketing Makeover? Now you can get exposure to 100’s of thousands of new customers or prospects every month if you know what to do! Visit SEO Specialist Online for a Free Web Site Evaluation for your Business.
Posted on 10/13/09 at 14:04:22 by Jim Gras
Category: General
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EXTRA - EXTRA Just In - The Meta Keywords Tag is Dead!
Now what do I do?
At the SMX East recent gathering, Cris Pierry, the Senior Director of Yahoo! Search, surprised everyone by saying that Yahoo! had stopped supporting the Meta Keywords Tag several months ago as reported by Srarch Engine Watch.
Google has never supported the Meta Keywords Tag and Bing doesn't support it, either.
So, I think we can safely say, "The Meta Keywords Tag is dead."
Actually, the first to notice that it had died was Andrew Goodman of Traffick, who declared way back on my September 2, 2002, " An End to Metatags "If somebody would just declare the end of the metatag era, full stop, it would make it easier on everyone."Inktomi and then Yahoo! Search continued to support the meta keywords tag, so some search engine optimizers continued using it, although it didn't have significant impact.
Time passed, Sullivan left Search Engine Watch to start Search Engine Land and Search Marketing Expo, and way too many search engine optimizers continued using the Meta Keywords Tag because there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.
Even those who realized that top search keywords actually need to appear high up in very visible locations, had trouble dealing with the death of the Meta Keywords Tag.
They would go through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are:
1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!) 2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?) 3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...) 4. Depression (I don't care anymore.) 5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)
But, now we can say the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead.
Are you ready for 2010? DoesYour site needs an Extreme Marketing Makeover? Now you can get exposure to 100’s of thousands of new customers or prospects every month if you know what to do! Visit SEO Specialist Online for a Free Web Site Evaluation for your Business.
We hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable. Stop by for a Free Web Site Evaluation of your Business
SEO link-building has become one of the main high leverage activities in any online business. The simple fact is that back-links will give you a high page rank and a high page rank will rank you higher in the S.E.R.P's. Obviously this means more traffic and more money, as reported by VodaHost General & Forum Administrator
Back-links make up 90% of your Google rank and because of this, link-building has taken on a life of its own. Most people seem to misunderstand it completely. For starters you should know that not all back links are good links. They can actually hurt you more than help you.
SEO Link-building is all about building links that are natural. Google did not design their ranking system to be manipulated. It was designed to reward good sites that get linked to it naturally. That's why getting the right links can be incredibly difficult if you try and do it manually.
Unfortunately, you have to build in links these days otherwise you will not be competitive. If you sit around and wait for sites to link to you, you might wait forever. The good thing is that this also give the "small guy" a fair shake to get good rankings in Google, Yahoo and M.S.N.
Most guys build Back-links kamikaze style; that is they go in there and just get as many links they can from wherever they can and at whatever cost. This is a recipe for disaster. Once your site gets marked by Google, you might as well start over again.
Rogue link-building techniques can render months of hard work useless, so be very careful when building Back-links. Here are the 7 deadly S.E.O link-building mistakes. Avoid them at all costs.
Mistake #1: Mass Link Packages
Obviously, some sleazy and unscrupulous people are out there selling link packages that are not even worth a mention. Most of the time they blast ads out to classified directories or other spam filled networks. These links are the equivalent of buying spam email lists. Don't do it. Your links might end up on banned sites that can really hurt your Google image.
Mistake #2: Link Exchanges
Back in the day, exchanging links was the main S.E.O link-building strategy. You link to me, I link to you and we both win. Right? Wrong! Google caught on to this when hundreds of link farms opened up. Google can easily trace reciprocal links and they simply don't count for much anymore. Getting links from big link exchange networks can actually hurt your business.
Mistake #3: Linking From Non-Indexed Sites
Most people who spend hours building those free Back-links make the mistake of building links on non-indexed sites. For your back links to count, the page on which you have your link has to be indexed. Having links on non-indexed pages means nothing. It's a waste of time.
Mistake #4: Not Using Anchor Text
At first this probably won't sound too scary, but if you build 2,000 links without relevant anchor text your site can easily pass for a spam site that just gets random links. By using anchor text that is related to your site, it gives your links link-juice; meaning it makes your links relevant and increases the perceived value of each link.
Mistake #5: Not Being Relevant
Google is getting smarter by the day. After all it is their business to provide the most relevant information for each and every search that is conducted. If they don't, people will stop using Google. That's why they protect it so vigorously. When you get Back-links from relevant and related sites that would naturally link to you, then the link will count for a lot. Unrelated and random links from any old site really does not make Google see your site as being important.
Mistake #6: Inorganic links
As I mentioned earlier, Google designed the page rank system to work organically. They are looking for links to come to your site naturally. For the most part that means, slowly and consistently over time from a variety of related sites. If you go and get 1000 links overnight from the same site then Google's alarms will go off and you might land yourself in some Back-linking trouble with the big G. Slow and steady wins the race - especially if you have a new site.
Mistake #7: Buying Links
High PR Back-links are worth gold. Quite literally. I've seen a single PR7 link sell for as much as $250 per month. There are a lot of link networks out there that make it their business to sell links on high PR sites. These links have become quite expensive, but the lure of instant results have people buying links like it's going out of fashion.
Google is catching on and there has been widespread reports of Google slapping page rank. If links are publicly traded then Google can probably trace them and penalize you.
SEO link-building is all about being as natural and as organic as possible. Always go after links that are 1-way, relevant and on sites with a high page rank. If you can get links on pages with a high page rank, even better. Don't fall for the quick-fix promise of so many link building services. In the long run, slow and steady links that look natural will keep sending more and more traffic your way.
I hope this information will help you develop your web-site to a more effective and profitable.