When a company wishes to sell or Improve the sales of its products or services, it may decide to advertise. Newspapers and magazines carry advertisements, as do billboards,televisions, and radio. Marketing is the wider process of creating a product or serice, advertising it, and sellinf it
Let’s say you want to be the next Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sam Walton or Jeffrey Bezos. This is far from realistic, but you just want to be a successful small business owner and don’t exactly have the massive marketing budget. After all, it requires thousands and thousands of dollars. It would be wrong if you give up your business plan and go back to your fulltime job, just because you don’t have big advertising budget.
A decade ago, enterprises had few options to advertise their product. Now, they have plenty of innovative advertising platforms where they can launch, promote their products/service with little or no investment. There is tremendous increase in the number of Internet users all around the world and this has led to remarkable increase in a user’s online social networking activity.
How innovative is your Marketing? I believe there will be hardly anyone who uses the Internet and is not aware about social networking websites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Google+, Linkedin etc. Social media, a word-of-mouth marketing from the online communities has become the cheapest medium to promote a product or service as it is available for free to everyone. It would not be wrong to say that today almost all Internet users have an active profile on at least one social networking site. These people can spend hours on these websites. These social networking websites are witnessing millions of hits each day and enable people to post any kinds of content like blogs, text, comments and videos etc.
Social media advertising is real game changer: So, these social networks are attractive, affordable platform to advertise product and services for small business owners as it has reshaped advertising at its core. Internet and mobile marketing are moving rapidly toward more integration with social media functionality.
Get proactive with Social Media Advertising: From automobile, education, healthcare and hospitality to jewelry, boutique, restaurant, retail and stocks — No matter what kind or size of business you run, social media marketing is the suitable tool to reach your target audience. Social media is beneficial to your business because: it is inexpensive, data driven, easy to track, drive sales, and supports sales through other channels.
It’s all about connection: The genuine connections with guests, existing customers and perspective customers are an important fundamental that underpins any marketing innovation. Keep on thinking how to connect on a personal level with your audience.
Online presence without web portal: Creating your own website is cheap these days. But, many startups cannot afford to set up and maintain their company website. In order to save money, these companies are creating pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. These are also starting their blogs and listing their firms in free business directories like Manta.com.
How to get more form Social network: I think, social websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter allows business owners to carry run pretty low cost campaigns. Offer your Facebook fans with something extra that is not available on your blog or website. Consider uploading images from your PowerPoint presentations by using the Facebook video application. Coupons and offers are a great way to get noticed too!
Social media Ad spending: Merely advertising on a social media platform doesn’t mean that you will get tons of customers over the night. There are cases when many new and upcoming businesses have spent money on their social media advertising and they are losing money in the process. I’m not saying that making a social networking page wouldn’t help your business. Presence on a social networking website will surely help boost your company and product visibility. It would be good idea not to jump into buying ads at social site until you are sure how effective your strategies are going to be.
Pay per click advertising is intimidating to some. They do not completely understand what PPC is and they fail to see the benefits of using something like this for their own business. Pay for click is a great way to grow a business online and to increase the return on investment. PPC is simple, once you really get an understanding for how it works. If you are new to the scene and you are trying to figure out the ins and outs of running an online business, you need to do a lot of research. You might want to work with an expert who is willing to show you the ropes and guide you through the process of setting up successful sites and turning your basic ideas into ideas that generate money. At the very least, you need to do a tremendous amount of research in order to find success in the Internet marketing world.
PPC is an advertising method that lets you put your advertisments in text on a search engine page. Think of one of the popular search engines and what you see when you type in a search term. Several results pop up, both in the center of the screen and off to the side. Some are sponsored results, meaning you are paying for them to be there and others happen naturally based on how well you have built your site. PPC usually appears on the natural list, sometimes called the organic results, and you only pay when people choose your entry.
Using PPC allows you to target a specific geographical area. If you find that customers are more interested in your product from a different part of the world, PPC allows you to focus on that country or region. You do not need to set up a shop in a certain country to achieve results. You simply select a given country as your target and those people are going to be driven to your site. If you think your product or service is better suited for a particular region of the world, this is going to save you money because you can set your focus on one place.
PPC gives you control over the cost of your campaign. You decide what you want to pay for each visitor that follows the ink. This enables you to outbid those who might want to use similar search result terms and get more attention and more visitors than you. However, if you want to keep your costs reasonable, you can avoid the expensive terms and stick with the amount you want to pay.
The best part about PPC is that you get fast results. Visitors come to your site and you have little to worry about in regard to building an optimized site to get higher rankings. It can take weeks or longer to build a site that is capable of producing the results of PPC as quickly. Once you set up your PPC campaign, you are set to go and you will see visitors increase.
About the Author: Penny Lane has searched the term pay per click to find a company to do her e-marketing. She thought the pay for click is a great way to increase her online business. The additional offender groans.
Some writers get overwhelmed and frustrated at the huge amount of content online. If you’re such a writer, you need to understand that you are unique. What you have to say is unique, compared to everyone else who writes online. While there might be a lot of information available about the same topic, that doesn’t mean that you can’t offer a fresh perspective.
If you’re worried about writing fresh and unique content to post on a website, blog, portal, etc., these tips might help you out. Remember, being a writer means actually writing. If you’re sitting around worrying about being unique and don’t write a word, then you’re just wasting your time.
TIP #1: Write daily. One of the best ways to ensure you write fresh content is to simply write every day. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to publish an article or two online every day. Keep a journal that you write in by hand. Jot down your thoughts from the day. Take notes from your favorite book. Write some favorite quotes. The trick is to continue writing on a daily basis.
TIP #2: Don’t compare yourself to others. The quickest way to throw yourself into writer’s block is to start comparing your work with other’s. Don’t do that. You have a special, unique voice all your own. Your work won’t be like someone else’s.
TIP #3: Read offline. One mistake some writers make is constantly reading articles and content on the Internet. If you want your writing to be unique and fresh, take your reading offline. Go to the library and borrow some books on your favorite topic. Read the newspaper. Consuming too much information online isn’t good for you. You need diversity and variety. So take your reading habits off the Internet.
TIP #4: Take a break from your computer. One of the best things I’ve found to rejuvenate my writing is to totally take a break from my computer. Sometimes the rat race online gets to be a little too much. When I start feeling overwhelmed, I get up and walk away. Sometimes I even turn off my laptop for a few days at a time. It’s good to clear your head and get your thoughts together.
TIP #5: Go back to a pen and paper. This is the one thing I’ve discovered that works best for me. If I’m writing something that requires research, I conduct my research, then get off the computer. In fact, I’ve learned that sometimes I write a lot faster by hand than I do on the computer. There are way too many distractions on a computer. Grab a pen and notebook and do some quick brainstorming or outlining by hand. Your thoughts will be more unique and your writing will almost always flow better.
Commitment: Every successful project I’ve ever worked on has involved a client whose team is enthusiastic and engaged. Whether you’re big or small, one uninterested department or person can sabotage everything.
Planning: Success in any pursuit begins with setting goals and developing a plan to achieve them — detailing the strategies and tactics you’ll use, the people and resources needed, and so forth. Search marketing is no different. Read: Planning an SEO Campaign
Product/Service: Although you can fool some people into buying crap for a while, real long-term success involves a product or service that people want or need. There’s no substitute for quality.
Education/Information: You’re a business owner; you don’t need to become an SEO expert. But you’ll succeed faster if you have access to great information. And as fast as the search marketing industry changes, ongoing access to intelligent information is critical.
Patience: True, there are exceptions every now and then, but for the vast majority of companies big or small, search marketing is a process that takes time to implement correctly. There are no short cuts, no quick fixes. Success almost always takes many months, if not a year or more.
Design & Usability: Yes, there are some ugly sites that make lots of money; but there are more that don’t. Your best bet is to have a web site that’s attractive and easy to use. Get out of your customers’ way and let them do what they came to your site to do.
Keyword Research: If you target the wrong keywords, you’re doomed to fail. You’ve heard that a million times, I hope. More than that, you also need to know what to do with your keywords.
Analytics: How will you know you’re successful if you have no way of measuring what you’ve done? Measure, analyze, adjust strategies and tactics as needed.
Tools: Having access to appropriate SEO tools can give you an advantage over the competition. Of course, more important than the tools is knowing how to interpret the data they provide.
Crawlability: A search engine cannot index pages that its spider cannot crawl. Be careful with the Flash movies, the complicated DHTML and javascript, the robots.txt file, etc. Here are 5 common crawlability mistakes you need to know about.
Content: This can take many forms: a blog, articles, videos, a FAQ page, or even user-generated content like product/service reviews. When you get this one right, you’ll have an easier time getting…
Links: Your great content isn’t going to rank well without links, preferably from relevant, quality sites. I brain-dumped (almost) everything I know about links early last year.
Social/Local Findability: Let me explain this since I might be inventing a new term. Social Media Marketing and Local Search are musts. The size and scope of your company may dictate which you emphasize more, but neither should be ignored. Local SEO is a must for most small businesses, but social media can work, too. Bigger companies that target an audience more than a location will find social media offers a lot of opportunities. In either case, the goal is findability. You want customers to be able to find you as easily as possible, and you can do this on social media sites that make local networking easier.
Reputation Management: It’s imperative to know what people are saying about your company. This isn’t just for Big Business, either: An old client of mine runs the only roller skating rink in our area, yet is probably losing business because they have a couple negative reviews on a certain Local Search site. Given the growing influence of user reviews, knowing how to manage your reputation is a must.
Trust: In my first post of 2007, I said trust is the No. 1 factor, and nothing has changed since then. Trusted domains are powerful domains. When you have trust, from users and search engines, you’re on the way to search marketing success. Don’t miss this more recent article: Why Trust Matters & How To Earn It.
As you climb the pyramid, you’ll find buzz/word-of-mouth marketing or maybe community helping you along. To a large degree, these are two sides of the same coin. It’s the people factor, the human element that often separates the winners and losers in search marketing. Get people talking positively about you, whether it be one-to-one conversation among friends or in the larger setting of an online community, and you’ll climb the pyramid that much faster.
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We spend so much time talking about what your SEO provider should and shouldn’t do, what strategies and tactics the SEO provider may or may not employ on your SEO campaign, what makes a great SEO provider, and so forth. Let’s talk about the other side of the equation: What should the client do? If this were the 1960s, I might say, Ask not what your SEO provider can do for you; ask what you can do for your SEO provider! Okay, cheesiness aside, the question is this:
What traits make a great SEO client?
There are several things that make a great SEO client. The one I’m going to start with in this post is commitment.
What I Mean by ‘Commitment’
In short, if you want to succeed with an SEO campaign, a PPC campaign, a social media marketing campaign, you name it … you must be fully involved in the entire process. That process goes from
A) planning, to B) developing a strategy, to C) implementing tactics, to D) measuring what worked and what didn’t, to E) repeating steps B, C, D, and E.
No shortcuts. No sitting out one of those steps. No deciding you’ll let the SEO company worry about measuring results because you don’t have time. That’s what I mean by commitment.
What if I’m a sole proprietor?
In my previous job, the best clients I had were sole proprietors — one man or one woman flying solo. What made them great? They already knew the value of commitment because they couldn’t get a business off the ground without it! Once we established a solid working relationship based on trust, it was never difficult to complete those five steps above, no matter how busy and overworked the client was.
What if it’s not just me running the business?
Several years ago, I worked with a pair of very smart guys — partners in a business they were passionate about and excelled at. But they couldn’t agree on anything where their web site and search marketing was concerned. One dropped out of the picture every now and then and was hard to reach. The other would submit change requests without his partner knowing. The project as a whole stalled — “failed” as far as I was concerned — because they were not equally committed.
Problems crop up as companies get bigger.
The Product Development team might be the ones pushing the idea of a search marketing campaign.
But the Owner/President might see it as a waste of time. Result: Project failure.
The Marketing gal — she’s more interested in print and television, not this SEO stuff. Result: Project failure.
Maybe the Tech/Web site guy isn’t interested in fixing those crawlability issues you have. Result: Project failure.
Conclusion
In both my current and previous jobs, the best clients were the ones who showed the greatest commitment. It’s not a coincidence that theirs were also the most successful projects.
It only takes one person in a company to undermine a search marketing campaign. Commitment is your first job; it’s the first trait of a great client.
I’ve been a bad blogger. I’m swamped at work and have been distracted outside of work, and I’ve been trying to get by here on SBS with list links and even some of my best Flickr photos. I can’t remember the last time I posted something helpful / educational. My bad….
Let me take a stab at making things better.
I often get asked to review a web site and give quick feedback on the site’s SEO. The issue: Is the site doing well, or in desperate need of SEO help? To answer those questions, I’ve developed a speedy system to go through a site and take a quick SEO snapshot. I’m going to give that system away here. On a smaller site, this should take about 20 minutes. Even on the biggest sites, it’s never taken me more than an hour.
SEO Your Site in Less Than an Hour
A. Visit the home page, www.domain.com.
Does it redirect to some other URL? If so, that’s bad.
Review the Page Title. Does it use relevant, primary keywords? Is it formatted correctly?
Review site navigation:
Format — text or image? image map? javascript? drop-downs? Text is best.
Page URLs — look at URL structure, path names, file names. How long are URLs? How far away from the root are they? Are they separated by dashes or underscores?
Are keywords used appropriately in text links or image alt tags?
Check meta description (length, keyword usage, relevance).
Check meta keywords (relevance, stuffing).
Look for anything unusual/spammy (keywords in noscript, H1s in javascript, etc.).
If javascript or drop-down navigation, make sure it’s crawlable.
Sometimes cut-and-paste code into Dreamweaver to get better look at code-to-page relationship.
B. Analyze robots.txt file. See what’s being blocked and what’s not. Make sure it’s written correctly.
C. Check for www and non-www domains — i.e., canonicalization issues. Only one should resolve; the other should redirect.
D. Look at the sitemap (if one exists).
Check keyword usage in anchor text.
How many links?
Are all important (category, sub-category, etc.) pages listed?
E. Visit two category/1st-level pages.
Repeat A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5 – this will be quicker since many objects (header, footer, menus) will be the same. In particular, look for unique page text, unique meta tags, correct use of H1s, H2s to structure content.
Check for appropriate PageRank flow. Also look at how they link back to home page. Is index.html or default.php appended on link? Shouldn’t be.
F. Visit two product/2nd-level pages.
Same steps as E.
Also, if the site sells common products, find 2-3 other sites selling same exact items and compare product pages. Are all sites using the same product descriptions? Unique content is best.
G. Do a site:domain.com search in all 3 main engines.
Compare pages indexed between the three. Is pages indexed unusually high or low based on what you saw in the site map and site navigation? This may help identify crawlability issues. Is one engine showing substantially more or less pages than the others? Double-check robots.txt file if needed.
H. Do site:domain.com *** -jdkhfdj search in Google to see supplemental pages.
All sites will have some pages in the supplemental index. Compare this number with overall number of pages indexed. A very high percentage of pages in the supplemental index = not good.
(Note: The above is no longer a way to view supplemental results in Google, and Google has said it no longer distinguishes between a main set of results and a supplemental set.)
I. Use Aaron’s SEO for Firefox extension to look at link counts in Yahoo and MSN. If not in a rush, do the actual link count searches manually on Yahoo Site Explorer and MSN to confirm.
…..END…..
That’s what I do when making a quick SEO site analysis. Important: This is for identifying problems, not fixing them. And it doesn’t replace a real and complete SEO analysis. (There are several shortcomings, for example. Here’s one: Steps E and F assume that all category pages across the site will be the same, and that all product pages will be the same. This is not always the case, so you may miss problems/issues that a real, deeper analysis would reveal.)
Questions for you:
- What other flaws do you find with this? - What other steps do you take when doing a quick SEO analysis?
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Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.
1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.
2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.
3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.
4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.
5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.
6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.
7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.
9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.
10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.
11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.
12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.
Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.
13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.
14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.
15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.
16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.
17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.
18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.
19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.
20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.
21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.
22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.
23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.
24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.
25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.
26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.
27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.
28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.
29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.
30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.
31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.
32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.
33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.
34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.
35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.
36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!
37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.
38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.
39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.
40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.
41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar
42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.
43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.
44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.
45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.
47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.
48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.
49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.
52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.
53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.
54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.
55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.
Google has launched the new application called Google +1 very recently. If you have seen carefully, there is a +1 sign next to each search result in Google search results page. In this article, let’s take a look at this new tool on how it works, what are its effects on PageRank, are Google+1 and Search Engine Rankings related to each other, and how you can use it on your website.
Basically +1 is acts same as that of “Like” button on FaceBook or “Follow” on Twitter. But the effects of +1 are different from other two, as Google is basically a search engine as well as social media and blogging platform too. With +1 launched, Google is trying to strengthen its position in social media sector. As far its working is concerned, it will add one vote to the search result, website or blogpost, if a user presses on +1 sign next to it. When more number of people press +1, means vote for your website, it will be more trustworthy for Google.
Adding the Google+1 button to your own website is very easy. You have to copy-paste the following code on your website’s homepage and it will start working instantaneously. You need to place inside the <head> or just above the </body> tag of the webpage.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script> <!– Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render –>
<g:plusone size="tall"></g:plusone>
Now comes the important question. Are Google +1 and Search Engine Rankings connected to each other in any way? Whether +1 also affects the Google PageRank of a website, is still not very clear. Some people say that it affects not directly but indirectly somewhere down the line. Whereas others claim that the PageRank is not at all affected by this new tool. However, there is good news for PPC marketers as +1 is going to be a permanent addiction in the Google AdWords. The anti-spam mechanism is already in place and if someone tries to vote more times to his or her own website to improve score, the website can be penalized.
According to some experts Google +1 is going to work in phases. During the first phase, Google will collect all the information for analysis and then during next phase, it will try to provide more personalized experience for searching and ranking operations.
Every small business loves the exposure, empathy and sense of community that having a website that's a daily destination for consumers can generate. But getting people to visit on a regular basis can be a challenge, especially if updates are infrequent or all you have to offer is the occasional monotone press release or product announcement. Thankfully, building a website that's "sticky" enough to keep users engaged and coming back doesn't have to require investing thousands or reinventing yourself as the next online media empire. All it takes is a little elbow grease and personal touch, as indicated by the simple strategies below, each designed to send your homepage's daily number of visitors soaring:
Connect and Communicate: Make no bones about it: Blogging should be an essential part of any modern website. After all, a few clicks is literally all it takes to post updates in real-time around the clock, creating a steady stream of content that promises something new and exciting with every visit. Better still, professionals at all experience levels have the capability of readily doing it, and the practice also helps put a personal face on your organization, shining the spotlight on the individuals behind it. However, to really captivate an audience enough to keep them returning, take note: You'll also need to provide content that's dynamic, unique and offers measurable informational or entertainment value, plus speak in a language that all can understand. In short, the occasional pre-approved sound bite from the HR guy or gal won't cut it. Rather, you need to address audiences like you're having a normal conversation, and provide content with meaningful substance to the reader. Making-of articles, features detailing how to get more from your products, partner profiles, project diaries, step-by-step how-to guides, interviews with notable personalities or internal stakeholders: All present compelling ways to connect with audiences while also keeping them interested and informed, providing ample incentive to keep coming back.
Emphasize Community Building: As social media insiders well know, creating a sense of community around your website is one of the most powerful tools for engaging and ultimately enthralling prospective fans. But doing so doesn't simply mean throwing up a sponsored message board then leaving it to stagnate, or e-mailing customers sporadic newsletter updates that regurgitate existing material easily found elsewhere. Rather, you have to not only encourage discussion and actively take part in conversations by dedicating internal time and resources, but also make customers feel as if they truly have a voice in the discussion by listening to their concerns, responding and sourcing feedback at every opportunity. Implementing programs that recognize and reward valued contributors is also vital, as is creating fan-based initiatives that allow community members to contribute and share ideas, concepts and creations of their own. Even simply giving enthusiasts the chance to submit designs for your next fundraiser's logo or arranging times where they can chat with top execs to provide input on upcoming ventures won't just engender goodwill. They'll also excite and empower a legion of amateur brand ambassadors--an essential source of free ongoing updates and constructive conversations, which will both attract users to and keep them enamored with your site.
Design for Mass Distribution: Sharing is good--even more so if you've got a message worth spreading and it winds up in front of millions of eyeballs. As such, you should be not only updating your website with unique pieces of content (surveys, research reports, custom editorial clips, guides to solving common problems, unique looks behind-the-scenes, etc.) designed to grab viewers' attention, but also making everything from blog posts to pictures, photos, PDF documents and videos shareable, embeddable and ready to be commented upon or re-tweeted via social media platforms. When it comes to corporate assets, the tendency--especially among hyper-competitive start-ups--is always to tightly hold and control. But often, the more powerful strategy is to design pieces of content with the specific idea in mind of seeding them throughout the user community, as it's a great way to build brand awareness. Beyond heightened exposure and additional media mentions, using your website to disseminate unique, specially branded pieces of content can also lead to improved search engine optimization results through a larger number of incoming links. And, more important still, generate heightened word of mouth surrounding your homepage, letting countless potential readers know exciting things are happening there on a regular basis.
Focus on Value: Exclusive specials, contests, promotions and timed discounts can all be powerful drivers of website traffic, especially in these cost-conscious times. By offering direct bargains and rebate programs on both an ongoing and sporadic basis through your online headquarters, you can keep customers' interest piqued, and generate additional sales. These marketing programs become even more valuable when coupled with Facebook, Twitter and other social marketing tools, which have the potential to help news spread like wildfire online. Just make sure that the only place such bargains can be found is on your homepage, and be consistent in terms of the pages to which you drive this traffic, to establish in shoppers' minds the importance of regularly checking a certain destination. Similarly, establishing relationships with key bloggers and members of the media can also help reinforce the message, as can a regular series of e-mail or newsletter updates designed to inform current and prospective buyers. Customers get to save on purchases while you benefit from enhanced publicity and heightened sales, creating a win-win situation for all.
Use Targeted Demonstrations: While special membership options, premium subscription packages and frequent buyer programs can all prove great incentives, services that you freely give away are often just as important as those that you reserve for more exclusive clients. Whether you're looking at offering complimentary computer virus scans by having users visit your homepage, providing a suite of free continuing education resources or simply hosting an archive of complementary, corporate-branded webinars on software engineering, realize: Providing helpful services or information at no charge that solve pressing, evergreen problems or answer important questions can all serve to generate a steady source of online traffic, and provide a ready supply of leads to upsell on premium services. Sometimes you have to give in order to get. It may seem counterintuitive, but ultimately, the practice makes a ready way to demonstrate your organization's capabilities to a potentially lucrative client base, while also giving them a taste of the benefits to be had by partnering on more advanced or long-term services
