It’s a new year, and it’s time to get down to business. At the beginning of the year most business owners find themselves looking at where they are spending their money. It is a time for budget cuts and looking for ways to save some cash in the long run, as well as getting the processes of your business to run as smoothly as possible. I’m sure it is no different for you at this time.

One expense we all have to deal with is web hosting. In my time hosting sites I’ve probably tried all the hosting companies out there. And let’s face it, most of them sucked, which is pretty sad. Two sites that were pretty okay were Westhost and Pair, unfortunately those hosting sites experienced the “Digg Effect” and went under fairly quickly. Worst case scenario is when the hosting site shuts the entire site down. Obviously that defeats the entire purpose of a hosting company. If you’ve had this problem, and many of us have, ask yourself why you’re even paying for the service if they can’t keep your site up and running.
For a while a friend has been telling me about Tiger Tech (http://www.tigertech.net/).

That was one of the best business decisions I could have made. I did a trial with one of my sites, and when of my stories got a lot of hits I got an email form TigerTech. They said they had noticed the server was under a heavy load. The customer service tech had a ton of suggestions for me to improve performance. They even offered to do some performance based changes for me, that they thought would improve things. After giving them authorization to go through with the changes, I switched other sites over to TigerTech. Look at that customer service. I mean, when was the last time your hosting company came through for you like this?

They are also not too steep on the pocket book, and have occasional sales. For the first fifteen days of this year they were only charging $20.10 for an entire year of hosting! I apologize for not reporting the sale sooner. Maybe next year it’ll be $20.11?

So you’re probably thinking the customer service is good, the price is good, but wondering – What about the performance? I will tell you. With the sites they are hosting for me there have been absolutely no performance problems. If I had to find a complaint I’d say it’s that they only offer shared hosting. I wish they would do reseller hosting options, and have a dedicated server option also. Maybe they will do that in the future. Hopefully.

For the record, this is not a sponsored post. I’m just really confident about recommending TigerTech since I do use them for my own sites. Check them out.

A “call to action” is the sort of statement that you make so that your viewers, or your target audience, potential customers or clients do something. More often than not this involves a request for more info, perhaps a phone call or an email, or sometimes opting into an email list or actually even purchasing what you want them to buy. This is usually something that will help the over all goal of the business, and is usually one of the better things that you can have on your web site.

A good call to action offers two core benefits:
•It gives your site some sort of focus- rather than just being there, it has a reason, something the viewer will then do.
•It can also help you to analyze things better.

However, there’s a good way to set this up and a bad way. If you simply don’t have enough information for the “why” the user should do what you tell them to, or what you ask- then they probably won’t. Many sites that sell products will list the benefits of those products right before the call to action. On occasion this can be also some sort of incentive- this is the part of the call to action blog where everyone likes to bring up Barack Obama’s fund raising website, and for good reason. That was one of the single greatest marketing feats of all time.

Another thing to remember, is to keep it very simple. Do not put a bunch of options into your call to action. It should simply be: call, donate, buy, email, opt in, register, or whatever option you’re looking for. Don’t mix it up. If you just want people subscribing to your email newsletter, there is no reason to also put another option on there for how they can find out about something else. You could have that as an option on another page- but keep each call to action down to “do or don’t”, basically.

Once you’ve got that, you have to give them a reason that they have to do it ‘right now’. I am sure that every one out there has seen something on a site, thought to themselves, “Hey, I’ll check this out later” and promptly forgot about it. If you create a sense of urgency, this won’t be a problem from your end of things. This means things like, “offer ends…” or “only valid until”.

Make sure that your call to action is appropriately right within the line of sight. Keep it towards the top and the center of the page. Make sure that it isn’t the same color as your back ground- you don’t want to just have a little drop down menu for this, make it really stand out. A good call to action can work out very well for you, but only if you are working with it in a way that makes the user want to actually take it. So, follow the above tips and your call to action should be very effective.

You more than likely know by now that sitemaps are a smart thing when it comes to helping your viewers to better get around your site. Ease in navigation makes it much smoother for the average internet user to find what they want to find, but also, what you want them to find. However, this is also one of the better ways to help the searches to crawl through your site, and index much faster than if you were not using a sitemap. This helps you to rely a great deal less on external links, and can also make internal links move a bit smoother- if you have any broken links that aren’t really accessible, this sort of circumvents that issue. (This is not to say you should not correct those problems, but it can help if you have some you have not noticed.)
Generally speaking for newer sites, a sitemap is a key element to getting it off the ground- this also helps when you have new content or updated pages. These are usually the standard way to submit your sites to search engines because it is a great deal easier- you submit, then you’re done- sure, the engines will index sites without them, but why make things more difficult than you have to? I am a firm believer in doing things not the fastest way, but the best way- but when you can do both at once, it’s definitely worth it. Here are the submission pages for both Bing and Google:
Bing:
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=
Google actually has an entire webmaster help blog on the subject of the various ways you can submit sitemaps:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/12/sitemap-submission-made-simple.html

But it is more than just creating a sitemap- many applications out there create these simple, rudimentary sitemaps that in the long run don’t offer you the level of control that you probably want. However, if you feel like you’d rather go with a sitemap application, Google has a great list to get you started:
http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators
Basically, you want your sitemap to point to the areas of the site that are the most important, it needs to be on the root directory, and you need to be sure that on each page of your site, it’s easy to find that sitemap again- this means, putting it on every page of your site. It does not so much matter how you format the links- this is just about making sure it’s easier for you to maintain, and for your viewers to get the context of what they’re looking at and for. When you combine the useability factor, with the search crawling ease- this is one of those things that for a little bit of effort could boost your traffic a bit. Keeping it simple, clean and using a static design can help, as well as utilizing a multi column sitemap to keep it much easier for users to navigate.

You already probably know about Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Digg, Linkdn, and the different networking sites, both social and otherwise. However, the web has a wide variety of resources available to those who are not only looking to be better informed, but also, great places to get link sharing going, and start discussions that can lead to more back links and other options for continuing to build a better search engine marketing plan. Through these sites you will find not only a wealth of information, but you can also begin to converse and interact with others who may be working on similar goals- and when you put those together, you are going to be able to begin networking in a way that will enable all to have a better resource for sharing both links and knowledge. The key to these sites, or any others out there like this- find ones that are relevant to your business interests, and then, begin networking. As you read, comment and share the things that you find of interest, you can then build your own sort of niche network- and once you have that sort of moving forward, you can then go on to submit your own content, which will be distributed as well. This helps to not only build relationships with your customer and client base, as well as your target audience, but also may be really helpful in situations where you have content you are wanting to turn viral.

Care 2 News Network.
http://www.care2.com/news/
This site focuses on environmental concerns, so if you are working on a greener company, or promoting a more environmentally conscious way of doing things- and you probably should be, this is a site where matters of politics, the environment, business and other issues are talked about. Not only is it a social networking sort of site, but frequently features links and other things of interest to a very vast audience.

Stumbleupon
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
You could not ask for a more specific search. Imagine having a remote control for the internet, and being able to flick through the channels with ease- this is Stumbleupon.

Searchles
http://searchles.com/
Offers customized search of video, Twitter pictures and a great deal more. Again, very customized, with personal groups that enable users to not only share but to also discuss various links and more.

Sphinn
http://sphinn.com/
Geared more towards marketing and optimization issues, has a wealth of information, links, but is also a wonderful way to share information across a wider scale.

Small Business Brief
http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/index.php
A great site with a lot of resources that you can use in any do it yourself search engine optimization plan, as it pertains to small businesses.

Chictini
http://chictini.com/
This is more product oriented, but it is a good place for those involved in retail to find out what products are being talked about and a good way to really figure out what users think about them.

Almost everyone out there has started a blog, and this is one of those areas where you either do really well, or you don’t- and there are very few that are in between. If you don’t think that there are some major players in corporate blogging, first have a look. The following is a list of just a few corporate blogs that I know about:
Google:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Dell:
http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/
Linkdn:
http://blog.linkedin.com/
Wal Mart (No kidding, Wal Mart has a blog):
http://www.checkoutblog.com/
Bank of America:
http://futurebanking.bankofamerica.com/
McDonalds:
http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/csr.html

I could probably keep going, if you wanted, but you get the idea. Blogs aren’t just for small businesses or online only places. How are these blogs making it work? Well, here are a few ideas to get you started in corporate blogging.

•It’s not ALL about you- make sure that you are not making the blog to only talk about the services or products that you provide. You might be trying to boost your sales or get your name out there, but this is dull. It’s boring, it’s dull and honestly, only a select few people enjoy a solid stream of information in that way. The success stories that you see not only talk about themselves, but they also talk about things that matter to a broader range of people. For instance, let’s have a look at the Whole Foods blog- since I did not mention that, the link is:
http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/
Now, you will note that the very first blogs on the page are not so much about Whole Foods- no, these are human interest stories- things that matter to a great number of people. Scrolling around the site a bit, you can see that there are not only recipes, there are stories about the FDA regulations, stories about Haiti, health and many other topics mingled in with deals and information about Whole Foods. This is smart for several reasons, from an SEO standpoint- these are high trend topics in the search engines, these are things that really do catch people’s attention. From a branding perspective, these showcase a caring, very involved company.

•Focus, people. This one may seem counter intuitive to the first point, but it isn’t. What is the message you intend to convey, the image of the company you’re looking to promote. For attorneys, you may want to blog about advocacy from time to time, you may want to add a bit of what you give to the community. Whole Foods’ blog may seem to run a gauntlet of information- but, it all has a common factor. This is a health food store- the topics are all about health food, healthy living, food in general, and yes, they throw in charitable causes for good measure- but it’s all very relevant to the image they wish to project, the theme of their business. Basically what you need to do with a blog is to ensure that you’re giving the reader what they came for.

There are generally three big reasons that people use Twitter in their social media marketing campaigns. Firstly, monetizing Twitter users through either recommending a product or a service or being able to get those back links- this is a pretty big reason. Secondly, as with any social marketing- it’s all about reputation and building a better one, you can then turn around, use Facebook and other social media sites to really bring this to full potential- so for this, it’s really intelligent. Lastly, some businesses like to use Twitter because it is a great way to get more traffic- the more followers you have, the more traffic you can direct to your web site, and the big goal there is to create viral marketing campaigns. These are all very valid reasons, but, there is one big mistake that I see pretty consistently in both Twitter and Facebook: Overfollow.

What I mean by overfollow is that businesses will add up just as many people as they can- without much thought to how this comes across. This has become known as “follow spam” and unfortunately is a practice that far, far too many people engage in without remembering, the point of a social media campaign is “social”. Have you ever been to a party where someone who wasn’t invited showed up and started to loudly make an annoyance of themselves? Don’t be that guy. Twitter addresses this by instituting a limit on the amount of followers you can add per day- and Facebook has a tendency to “pink box” those who they suspect are spamming. Pink boxing means you’ve got one warning, one strike, and next, you’re getting your account suspended on suspect of spam. Sounds serious? It could be, if social media marketing program time is important to you- and it should be. Your time is money, after all.

Now, it is understandable why this misconception is still being practiced- you need more followers or friends/fans to distribute your links and content. The problem is when you get into social media, you get into socialization and that’s something to consider. If you’re going to run a social media marketing campaign, you have to commit to actually being social in a way that doesn’t annoy people. However, the other part of this is quality versus quantity- if you have 12 thousand followers and only two of them  have not gotten annoyed- and only those two share your links, versus 100 followers who aren’t annoyed and who are sharing your links…well, you get the idea.

What happens is this- there are a bunch of applications geared towards making your online marketing easier. This applies to everything, from Twitter automatons, to those awful programs that spin articles that make no sense for content, to link swap programs- and these things aren’t out to help your business, they are out to help their business- so bear this in mind. When you use the automatons on Twitter, you get a serious issue with low value followers. This is where you run into having tons of followers, and yes, you look so popular- but the truth of the matter is your average internet user will know that you’re not interacting with each and every follower. They’ll probably spot the spam tactic, too. Remember, you’re looking for conversions, not trying to win a popularity contest.

For newer blogs, volume blogging may be the way to go. If you are really working towards gaining visitors so that you can develop your audience, blogging frequently pads your archives with the content you need and actually can be a natural way to gain more traffic from search engines. Once you do establish a fairly decent blog- that is, you’re getting the back links you need, you can also use volume blogging in order to cultivate an even broader audience. Generally speaking, the more posts you make, the more search traffic you will get- especially if you have a new blog, domain or web site that does not have the benefit of the sort of ‘grandfathered’ traffic that can come of that. This does not mean skimp out on the quality aspect at all- as a matter of fact, if you are going to work with a high volume of content or blogs- you have to be sure that it is quality. Anything less than top notch content will just look spammy and artificial.

This is also an incredible way to make use of the long tail keywords I’ve mentioned before- but before you do this, you will need to figure out which ones you need to include. Now, the argument on long tail is still going on- some say that this is not a good way to focus directly, but I have to disagree. When you have higher amounts of competition for your keyword groups of three- I think that using a long tail keyword phrase, which is one that is more than three words in a keyword group. For instance, imagine you’re doing a Google search on finding a good plastic surgeon. You have some questions about how a certain procedure works. You could Google search “nose job”, or “rhinoplasty” – the truth is, the majority of those who are seeking out plastic surgery are more likely to use the casual keyword, “nose job”- just as a side note, so including both of those keywords is smart. But what’s even smarter?
“What is the recovery time for a nose job”. Let me show you, rather than tell you, what I mean.
Google search nose job- and you get this result:

“Results 1 – 10 of about 7,920,000 for nose job”

Google search “What is the recovery time for a nose job” however, and it shows this:

“Results 1 – 10 of about 289,000 for what is the recovery time for a nose job.”

Now, you tell me which is more focused and direct? If you think about the services or products you provide and the questions your customers have asked you about them- these are useful in a more focused and direct approach. Throw these phrases into your blogs, and you will find that people who have very specific questions find you much faster.

•The branding implications are amazing. Social media sites give you and other businesses the opportunity to really show exactly what sort of knowledge, commitment and consideration you have for your target audience. In addition to that, because  there is that social factor, those who have benefited from your services or products can further express their satisfaction in a way that brings testimonials without having to ask for them.

•That customer interaction is a vital marketing tool, and one that is self sustaining to a point. You get to know your target audience better, but also, you can answer any questions they may have in real time, and this can be a wonderful way to take your customer service a step further without the overhead. The feedback you can get for whatever it is you do- be that supplying a product or a service, is definitely invaluable. It doubles in value when others are able to see how well you respond to the questions, concerns or even complaints of those who are interacting before them.

•This is an incredibly visible means of marketing. Most people prefer that which they recognize or know- using sites like Twitter, Facebook, or even Myspace can do just that. If you aren’t looking to get your finger on each and every internet pulse- you may want to consider that at least with Facebook and Twitter- the demographics are just slightly different and choose accordingly. Twitter is a older crowd- the largest slice being in the thirty five to forty four year age range. While it’s true that age range is less prolific on Facebook, current trends are indicating an upward climb towards better variety in demographics.

•Search engines love social media, now. This is very important- if someone is already interested in the services or products that you provide, they may be looking to find out who is their best bet. As with almost anything- it’s the person or business who provides the greatest level of information about why they can do what they do better, how they will do it, and showcasing those who are also interested as well as those who’ve already benefited is a big boost.

•It really is not all that complex. Though you will have to commit to spending some time not only building your social media profiles and followings, and you’ll have to also continue to foster and maintain those relationships with your target audience, customers and clients- all of this is done in a fairly straight forward way. Meaning, the most technical aspects of it are filling out the forms for your account, profile, and uploading photos. It’s really that simple. Once you learn what sort of content or link bait works for each of your profiles, it becomes about just maintaining a good relationship with those you’re reaching out to. Simple analysis of your numbers in regards to each method you try will show you which work best and usually- given that social aspect, why.

A big benefit of working with an online presence is that you have the ability to have a greater insight into those customers and clients that show interest in your business. You can find out their demographics, you can tell exactly what it is they are looking at and how long they spend doing so, and having all of this is a great value because it helps you to better gauge exactly what you need to change, what is working, and what isn’t. If you have pages that aren’t working, this information can help you to figure it out and you can either scrap them, or make some needed changes based on what you know about your over all optimization program.

I am going to focus on using Google Analytics because it is in fact a very good, free resource that can help you to figure all of these things out. When you’re wanting to set up an account, you sign up and if you already have a pay per click campaign through Adwords, you link the two together. Then, take a small bit of HTML and add it into the end of the web page you want to measure- you’d put it in there right before the </body> tag at the very end of all of your code. It runs on a twenty four hour sort of delay, so if you set it up on Monday morning, by Tuesday morning, you’d have your statistics for Monday and so on and so forth.

Then, you begin to collect the information- you want to pay attention to the following areas:

•Unique visitor: This shows just how many people are visiting your sites. If you are only getting a couple of users here and there, you may want to think about using your PPC to hit the target landing pages- but also, work with your keywords to find better ones,  to boost them a bit.

•Page view: every time someone downloads a page from your site, this is a page view. If someone refreshes the page, that’s another.

•Referrers: this really just refers to where the visitor came from- if they came from a search engine, it will say, if it was from another blog, or ad- this information is extremely useful. If you discover through the course of your research that one particular site is bringing you a great number of hits- you might offer to guest blog, you may look into other sites that are similar- the possibilities are really infinite here.

•Search terms: this is another area where you can figure out exactly what is working- and a great one. The ones that bring you the most hits, these are the ones you can carry over onto your other keyword-centric ad campaigns.

•Entry and Exit pages- these are not going to be home pages, these will be the landing page that brought your visitor in, and then, the page they look at before they leave- both are great information, because if you notice that perhaps this is a trend, you can tailor your site accordingly.

There are a number of reasons why your PPC ad campaign just might not be working. If you do a little trouble shooting, you can generally figure out exactly why it’s not resulting in the conversions you’re looking for. The biggest reason that anyone’s PPC just idles in the driveway is definitely lack of effective keyword research. This is something pretty easily resolved, and there are a number of different things you can do to figure out better keywords to be using. Adwords is probably the first that springs to most people’s minds and with good reason, but have a look around- there are a number of different ways you can address your keyword needs, and better tailor your PPC ad campaigns. For a free product, though, Adwords keyword tool is probably one of the best resources that anyone working a do it yourself search engine campaign can use- either in PPC or organic. Generally this will help you to better focus the keywords, and in doing so, have a broader range impact.

If you are using a smaller pay per click- it may just be that there is a case of click fraud going on. If you look at your click to conversion rates and then, when you see that the results don’t make any sense- you can compare that with the results on other search engines to find out which isn’t working the way it needs to be. Working with smaller searches is a great thing, because you’re not throwing in with the massively competitive world of Google, but it may be that if you are using them and it doesn’t make sense that they aren’t working- you need to switch your PPC up a little.

When you begin a ppc- particularly if you are using Adwords, consider opting out of the content network. You’re going to need to initially just focus on other things and it’s better to keep those campaigns a bit separate until you’ve got one moving forward and working out better for you.

What happens once you have the ad, and it’s working- it is drawing people to your site, but for some reason, you’re still not getting the results you want? Have a look at the landing pages. If you don’t have exactly what is supposed to be on that page, right there on the page, you’ve probably lost the potential customer or client on that. These have to take them where they not only want to go, but where they are expecting to go- you might consider creating a landing page for each one of the ad groupings you have out there.

If all else fails, consider that your ad is just a stinker. Test it against other ads by tweaking it here and there and then run them at the same time to see which results in better conversion. Change the headline, work with your keywords a little bit, compare your results and if it is not working- scrap it. If you sort of continually work with the ad, comparing it to the original- you’ll find that as you continue on, making improvements, that you end up with an ad that does bring you better conversions.

It does not really matter if your business is simply online, or if you actually have shop set up somewhere- you have to have a good marketing plan, complete with advertising and publicity. The potential customers and clients that are out there have to have a way to learn about not only what you can do for them, but why you can do it better than your competition. Whether you decide to go with radio broadcast, tv, online or print- you have to look at anything that creates visibility as a greater investment.

One great site I’ve mentioned before is mondotimes.com, which is a great first step to getting the word out there. This site offers quality leads for those who are looking to get their business noticed through various publications and has several really great plans to be able to get the lists of contacts that you need for a great media push. Once you have this list, you can then go on to craft the quality press releases and get your businesses’ story told on a wider scale. On the press releases, you have to really make sure that you are doing them correctly in order to use them to their full impact. You can get a great deal of very good publicity going with these- but only if they get picked up. A good rule of thumb though is to make sure that you have several different types of the same press release- one you will send to the media, one you get out there for the public, and one for online articles and the like. The one for your SEO plan can be a bit more keyword geared, a bit more optimized. The one for the media needs to be following the old school guidelines: What, who, when, where and why that is news. No pitches, no sales, no keywording. The one to your potential target audience can be a bit more casual, but still expressing what you can do for them, and again- why you can do it better than anyone else.
Another thing to focus on is your social media- these sites are more powerful for publicity than most people ever realized they would be- all of the social networking sites out there have become such commonly seen things. Everywhere you look these days, someone has a Twitter or a Facebook, most people use blogs and other outlets- but everyone is paying attention. For social networking, the right answer is to do exactly what the name implies. Get social. Promote your business in a way that is conversational, fun, and above all- not generic. If your social networking site is just you announcing sales- you are not doing it right.

Another tip you don’t really see people use as much as they should- set up a Google Alerts account and gear it more towards news- not just industry related, but if you can tie it in with your own interests it may help. Comment frequently on these news pieces. Write about the things that are impacting your target audience- this is especially beneficial in trust based businesses such as a physician or an attorney- if you can provide insights on current events in a way that is polite, tactful, but still expresses a knowledge, understanding and compassion for the situation- you can definitely build a stronger online and offline reputation.

There is a bit more to it than simply posting the content on your site or simply having a blog. There are a number of different ways that you can also fatten up your search engine optimization. When you write articles that are interesting, informative and above all- well written, you can create something that is actually worth reading. That probably sounds like it goes without saying- but have you had a look at some of the content that is out there, these days? I have an entire blog about the nonsense articles you see and why you see them, but, for now, let’s stick to some of the other ways you can get your content out there, your brand recognized and known, and more importantly- your message to a wider audience.

First of all, as I said- having the content on your own site is the first and best way you can begin to delve into some basic do it yourself optimization. However, if you’re wanting to reach out to an even wider audience, you may want to consider submitting your articles and content to some of the directories out there. There are literally hundreds of article directories out there, either free or paid that you can submit them to. When these are published, they make the articles available to various outlets, and once your content is in the applicable category, those who are seeking the information you have- get it. So, you do reach out to your target audience in a better way. Most of these directories are fairly high ranking themselves, so, in this it has some merit, as well.

Another thing is a bit of B2B networking. If you’ve come across a site that seems to be in line with the message you’re sending- there is no harm in sending them an email and letting them know about your article. Sometimes, you can work this out so that you get a link back to your own site- just a brief write up on another site, and a link to yours, for a double impact.

Some people also use email lists for this- while you can’t really customize your work, there, you can, however get it sent out on a wider scale. This one can be a little bit tricky because when you’re using email lists, there tends to be a great deal of duplicate content issues- so, you have to be sure that you have different articles on each of the web sites that you intend to promote through email lists.

One of the best tools for spreading your brand far and wide is definitely the “resource box”. If you have ever been reading a really great article, and you have come to the bottom of the page- there you find the author of the article, a brief little bio, and a bit about where they work and a link or contact information, you have seen a resource box. Consider making sure that yours stands out when you decide to submit your articles to any medium.

Considering video’s raging popularity, more businesses are dipping a toe into their own productions to create videos for search engine marketing. This is a great tool for your overall optimization plan, but if you thought that was where it stopped- creating a good video that will travel the ‘net over, that’s where you were wrong. The great news is, videos are every bit as optimized as any other content you have, and actually- perhaps more so for the share-ability factor they hold. The truth is, everyone loves a good video and most people would rather watch a video than read an article or a blog. Video blogging has become a big thing, and any number of the video sharing sites you find out there are just brimming with traffic, the videos themselves shared the world over.

Here are some great tips for powerfully optimized videos:

•Make sure that it is in fact a good video. If you have a great video, you’ve got the strongest foundation of all- the fact that it is enjoyable for people makes it great content, and above all, that is the central factor in getting things shared. Keep it at roughly ten minutes, unless what you have to say is so riveting that they cannot refrain from watching the whole thing.

•Use the most used formats. Saving the format of .wmv, .avi, or .mov is an easy way to make sure that users are actually able to watch it. If you’ve got a copy of it in all, you’re boosting your visibility three times over.

•If you do have more than one video on your site, make sure that you use thumbnails to display them. Studies have shown that plain links tend to put people off, and they trust being able to see a thumbnail more than they do a simple link.

•It may seem risky, but allow your viewers to rate your videos. Those videos that do have ratings seem to rank higher in the search engines.

•Make sure that you use a watermark, or have some form of contact information edited in to the video- perhaps a bar across the bottom. Something unobtrusive that continues to get your brand name out there.

•If you’re working with keywords- which you should be, make sure there is a keyword in the file name or in the URL itself. Search engines really favor this, and if you keep out stop words that the searches tend to gloss over, even better.

•The send to a friend option is YOUR friend. Make sure that you include this option on every video you produce for marketing purposes.

•Social bookmarking sites are also really great for getting the word out- use them to make your videos much more visible, as well as working with RSS feeds.

•Make sure your video is embeddable. This is a vital part of making it viral- people like to be able to post the video itself to their blogs, boards and other sharing mediums.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on video
• Google and Open Video « Christian Schaller
• Guitar Tabs

Many people do not realize it, but search engine optimization is actually an incredibly influential branding tool. Between all of the content out there, social media and bloggers, and different news organizations, those who have gotten to the top of the SERPs have also enjoyed a greater level of exposure. When more people catch wind of a concept, idea, service or product, you then have a higher level of brand recognition and this also brings about a greater level of trust. While many would argue that all branding is, is broad strokes marketing- I tend to disagree with that thought. I believe that you can integrate branding and search engine optimization together in a better way. The two camps are interesting to watch play out this sort of quarrel. If you look it up, you’ll find that some people favor SEO, others favor branding and each one will go to great lengths to explain why one is more impacting than the other- and I have to question why that is so.

Those who decry branding in favor of SEO will tell you that branding is expensive. It’s costly and you have to buy up ads all over the place, billboards, television, radio, movies and newspapers. They tend to focus on the fact that branding as it has been traditionally known, has been geared towards those with deep wallets and big advertising and marketing budgets. But here’s the thing- to give you a small slice of the way that things are tilting- two months after Hulu, an online television site launched, they released their statistics. At that time, Hulu users were streaming well over sixty three million videos.
This is just one website. Never mind the fact that there are many different music sites, online streaming live sites for news, radio, and yes, even television and movies. Then, you get into the blogs, the news sites, all the many different facets of the internet- ready at your disposal.

Seems to me that differentiating branding and search engine optimization is a bit nitpicky, don’t you think? Because if you look at exactly what SEO can do, it can hit every single aspect- apart from perhaps billboards, that the common conception of branding does. So, to me- it doesn’t mean that one is superior to the other, at all- it means that SEO is a newer way of branding on another level. To me, those who promote it in terms of “branding versus SEO” aren’t being entirely truthful and on the level. Consider one of the big arguments that is given for this argument is that “branding is just SO expensive”, but then you consider the time and effort spent working on a properly organized search engine optimization plan- it just does not make sense to me to quibble over the terminology, unless you were perhaps, not producing the search engine results that were actually worth the time you spent.

In short, return on investments. However, most people know that, already. What it is in regards to online marketing, however, sort of hones it, shaves it back into something a bit more specific.
This is actually a key component of online marketing, particularly as it pertains to the time used in setting up social media marketing- many people don’t address that issue. When you’re talking about ROI in regards to the use of free sites like Facebook and Twitter- how do you measure the actual investment that you’re giving? How much time will you be spending on these sites to market your business? If you’re not spending a daily amount of time- you may not be utilizing them to their fullest potential, but how much is too much?

The choice to go with social media marketing as a means of improving ROI, it’s not one that is an instant no brainer. It may seem like it, with how excitedly some of us talk about how beneficial it can be, but remember, your time is also money. The best way to make the most of that time is going to be in making sure that you’re not only doing things the right way, but that you are committed to it as much as you should be. The truth of the matter is, nothing in life is free- and social media networking is no different. Yes, social media marketing is a powerful tool in the online marketing game, but it’s not one that you can just pick up, use, and sort of allow to run itself. It is defined in cost, but time and effort- and those two things have to be in place, for a longer term, better result. Once you have your social media marketing rolling, then, you have to be able to track statistics and trends, and bring them all together to figure out what you’re Social Media ROI really is.

If you have not seen Oliver Blanchard’s Basics of Social Media ROI, you should. Not only is it pretty entertaining, it brings some very good points to the table, as well.

I’ve mentioned how you measure the impact of your social media marketing, before, but the way that Oliver Blanchard broke this down was excellent. While it may seem like an impossible thing to measure- it is not. There are tons of programs out there now with many options that will help you along, and once you have that information- you combine it with your sales, and you’ve got a reasonably good idea of what is working for you, what gets a “needs improvement” grade, and what you need to just scrap all together.

On February 10th, Facebook’s vice president of user growth, mobile and international, Chamath Palihapitiya made an announcement that Facebook has surpasses 100 million active mobile users worldwide.  This milestone is impressive considering just six months ago the social networked announced it had reached 65 million users on Facebook Mobile.

Palihapitiya stated, “Through this growth, we have continued to try to improve the experience of these mobile products.  We work with every major device manufacturer and many operators to ensure we provide the best possible mobile experience across thousands of different devices, mobile operating systems and carriers you rely on.”

The announcement continued and highlighted some of the recent mobile products Facebook has launched, citing the goal of offering value and user experience.  Below are the specific products mentioned:

Mobile Websites (m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com) allow users to access Facebook from any mobile browser and in over seventy different languages.  Facebook claims that they want to be certain people have a great Facebook experience regardless of what mobile device they use and they acknowledge the necessity of keeping up with new devices so that Facebook scales to the different devices without issues.

Text messaging has also been a priority for Facebook.  They want users to be able to update and stay connected using SMS text messaging.  They launched a URL shortening service called FB.ME that makes it easier for people to share content.  This is especially useful for people using text messaging that have a limited number of characters you can use per message.

Applications are a top priority, as Facebook is already one of the most requested services on mobile devices.  Facebook currently works with every major device maker and mobile operating systems to bring applications and integrations that will ensure Facebook works with each platform.  Updates have been released recently for applications for Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung.  Aside from these particular devices, Facebook also supports devices from HTC, INQ, LG Electronics, Palm, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.

According to the report, “Facebook has already become a primary way for millions of people to stay connected and Facebook’s lead is likely to be extended as more consumers use increasingly powerful mobile devices (with photo/video plus high speed access) and the communications options on Facebook (like voice/video chat and other services) continue to rise.”

comSource data shows that the usage of social networking via cell phones is small, but growing.  In December 16% of mobile device users over the age of 13 had accessed a social network or blog.  In September that number was only 13%.

Despite the positive changes Facebook has made in regards to mobile applications, a quick look through the over 800 user comments to this article will show that while Facebook may be making huge strides in mobile user satisfaction, there is much left to be done.  Frequent layout changes have left users both confused and frustrated.  Despite this, Facebooks user numbers continue to soar both on mobile and non-mobile devices.

It sounds like such a beneficial thing, a web site where you can go to report those corporations, businesses and companies that have not been on the level, or in some cases, were just dishonest and did not deliver on anything they’d promised. It’s a very noble idea, the thought that you could give people a voice and they could then make sure that nobody ever lost a dime to unscrupulous sorts of people. To me, empowering people in this way is a really great thing- and people deserve to get the kind of services and products that they pay for. I believe in that strongly.

The problem is, that not all consumers are exactly scrupulous themselves and so, when you have a web site that is nearly a Wiki for all it can be edited by anyone- you have a problem. I’m not afraid to say that it also seems of interest that such a noble cause would actually be a “for profit” private entity.

If you don’t know what this site is, it is a customer complaint site- however, unlike the Better Business Bureau or similar things- from what I can see, very little is done in the way of regulating this site to ensure the accuracy of the statements given. There’s a “rebuttal” form you can fill out- and end up in the middle of a flame war, or internet cat fight. Of all of these reports that I have read- and I’ve seen quite a few, it seems to me as though this is troll baiting where real lives, real businesses and real money are concerned, accusations of extortion and lawsuits against this site aside.

As far as what honest businesses that have been the target of people who use this site dishonestly, it’s hard. There have been whispers as to just how this site seems to manage to cling to the top of the rankings for anyone who has been named in it- and the resultant bad reputation that can come of that, but the truth is- theories true or not, it does seem to linger there on that first page, more often than not. Even when presented with evidence that a report is untrue, the site will not take it down. This is very problematic for businesses who have been the target of people, and something that quite a number of seos and reputation management companies deal with on a regular basis. The site was created ten years ago- has had more time to gain a longstanding following, and with all of the media mentions, the complaints are considered user generated- which is something Google also favors in the ranking algorithm, and it’s got so much content on it that it does in fact, get grabbed up as really relevant by the search engines. With that much content, updated that frequently and that big of a following, to beat it’s ranking, you’ve got to have a powerful combination of reputation boosting tools at your disposal.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on rip off report
• Top 10 Sneaky Sales Tactics – Ripoff Report
• Ripoffreport.com sues Complaintboard.com

Econsultancy and their partner ExactTarget, which is a global digital marketing provider, recently released their findings in a recent study that detail exactly how companies are dividing up their marketing budgets both online and offline in 2010.  Over 1,000 companies from the United States and the United Kingdom participated in the study in the form of an online survey taken in December of 2009 and January of 2010.  The report is said to compare spending trends across different traditional and digital marketing channels.

Some of the highlights from the marketing budgets report include:

1. 46% of companies say they are planning to increase their overall marketing budget for 2010.
2. 40% of companies have acknowledged they have restricted budgets for 2010 due to the economy.
3. A surprising 48% of companies admit to having a lack of understanding of digital marketing as their biggest barrier.
4. More than 50% of companies are planning to increase budgeting for mobile marketing.
5. 28% of marketers are shifting some of their budgets from traditional to digital medias.
6. Only a small 17% of companies have any plans to enlarge their budget for print media, 15% will increase amount of spending on radio advertising.
7. Print media is losing momentum, as most companies are planning on significantly decreasing print media such as newspapers and magazines, as well as radio advertising in favor of digital medias.
8. Companies concerned with brand reputation are the companies most likely to shifting budgets from traditional to digital channels.
9. An overwhelming 70% of the companies surveyed have plans in place to increase their budgets for social-media such as Facebook and Twitter.
10. Most marketers are unsure how to measure the return on investment (ROI) for funds spent on social media marketing.
11. Search engine optimization (SEO) is still important to most marketers, and 64% have plans to increase their SEO budgets in 2010 compared to 54% who plan to increase funding for retention email marketing budgets.
12. Paid search is still a high priority for many companies, as 51% had plans to increase their pay per click budget.

One of the reasons marketers are leaning toward shifting to digital marketing is that it is far easier to track how the budget directly impacts the bottom line.  Traditional advertising was at best a guess, as there was no concrete way to measure where customers originated.  While social media networking is a confusing prospect to many of the companies surveyed, it is too powerful of a tool to be ignored.  Overall, companies seem to lack t he training or staff to handle much of the digital marketing they want to accomplish, so this may be good news for consultants to step in and manage these aspects of advertising for the companies.

Any time Apple releases a new product the media goes wild. And it is with good reason, considering that some of the most successful techy gadgets out there today have come from Apple.  Many believe Apple has single handedly revolutionized how the average person listens to music, handles a cell phone, and now it is about to affect how one reads that very same media hype.

Apples latest innovation is the iPad. If you read any tech oriented news blog you have heard the hype. For those not overly familiar with what the iPad does, you may be wondering if you need to consider this top selling device in your marketing plans.  Here is the great news… absolutely not.

While the iPad can help people find you, the best thing about it from a small business owners prospective is it works to your advantage using channels you already should have in place.  Below are ways that you can be discovered by someone using their iPad.

iPhone apps are small programs that users download to do different things. A quick browse of the app store Apple offers will show you there are thousands upon thousands of apps. If your company has already developed an app for the iPhone, the iPad will also run this app, which will likely bring more traffic your way.

Local search is a big deal if you have a physical location you want people to be able to find.  While the basic iPad does not have a GPS chip like an iPhone, it will still show local results based on the origin of the internet connection.  The iPad with 3G capabilities does have the ability for the user to search for local business based on their specific location and get detailed directions to your front door. If you have put any effort into local search marketing, then you are all set on this aspect.  If you have a physical location and you have not worked on this, doing so should be a top priority.

Lastly, old-fashioned web browsing is done on an iPad just like it is on any computer. The same search engines one would use on their laptop or home computer will pull up results for search strings, allowing iPad users to search on the go.

So in regards to the impact the iPad will have on your digital marketing campaigns, it is only good news.  You may see more results from your efforts, without having to add any extra effort at all to what you are doing right now.

The only way the iPad might affect you is if you do not have local search as a priority in your marketing efforts.  If that is the case, it would be best to get ahead of the game and get that aspect of your plan up to speed so you do not get left behind when the droves of people go clamoring to purchase the iPad if need be.

As you well know by now, there are all types of content out there. You also know that content is king- if you glance around any SEO forum or blog, that’s the thing you’ll see repeated over and over. And, I just repeated it here. It’s vital to the success of your web site that you continually update with regular, fresh content. It’s not only for the search engines- but for your users also. As far as it goes, though, writing out content takes time. Many people may be great salespeople, lawyers, doctors, you name it- but they may just not be inclined towards writing. That’s pretty normal in and of itself. It’s usually not all that hard to optimize things, but wow. Three articles every other day, or a few blogs every day, and you begin to sort of go cross eyed whenever whatever program you use to begin text based content comes up. Even those of us who do write quite a bit, are sometimes stuck for what to write about, but, there’s a way around this and that way is user generated content. This is beneficial for a few reasons.

Think about it. You’re trying to build fruitful and profitable relationships with a target audience. The internet has shown us time and time again, that people want to be heard. Giving your web site visitors a chance to do that is great. It makes them feel as though you value their opinions in an even bigger way. It also generates content for you so that you can be doing other things. Granted, you cannot depend on user generated content for all of your needs, it can definitely help. It’s especially a good idea because whenever someone does something like this, they want to show it off. Instant back links. It’s a different sort of approach that has worked well for a number of people and businesses.

Many businesses have things like polls on their sites, or question and answer sections- these are all incredibly intelligent choices as they encourage the user to participate while at the same time, can display your know how and understanding of your niche. This also answers questions and, if when you’re putting it together for the site, you happen to frame those questions perhaps a bit long tail- you’ve got a winner.

You might be sitting there asking, “Well, what would my web site visitors possibly be able to say about my business/industry/etc?” You’d be pretty amazed, and you’d also be interested to know, if your business participates in anything charitable, you’ve got a shot right there for a marketing campaign that really pops. For instance, say your business is a regular supporter of Habitat For Humanity. Your employees or partners are often on site helping out, you even just donate a bit of money- however you handle it. If there were an incentive to participate, say, by a contest on your blog- there you go. Not only do you get to help out your great cause in a powerful way by raising funds and awareness, you will have people participating on your site.