Hispanic-targeted efforts gain more ad dollars: study

admin    Web Marketing     Dollars, Efforts, Gain, Hispanictargeted, More, Study

Marketers allocated more of their marketing spend last year than in 2008 to targeting Hispanic consumers. However, that spending failed to reach pre-recession levels, according to the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies. The study is the latest indicator of the growing consumer clout of US Hispanics.

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5 Reasons CPAs Should Include SEO Into Marketing Efforts

admin    Website Marketing Companies     CPAs, Efforts, Include, Into, marketing, Reasons, Should

Many CPA and accounting firms are engaging in discussion about how to use limited marketing resources to best position the firm. There is debate about whether firms should continue to invest in traditional marketing activities like advertisements, sponsorships, direct mail and email marketing or venture into the world of website marketing-more specifically search engine optimization (SEO).

While most marketing professionals I have interacted with find the concept of SEO appealing there is a great deal of reservation about how to sell the strategy to management. Altering or changing long standing marketing activities can be difficult especially in the middle of the economic situation the country is currently facing. Finding the most effective way to present new ideas to the Partner group is imperative especially if your firm is a ’slow mover’.

To help position SEO as a viable marketing strategy for you firm, we have outlined the key benefits of SEO and how it can have a positive and meaningful impact on your firm’s marketing efforts. The five key benefits of SEO include:

There are many other ways SEO and inbound marketing techniques can help drive practice growth. However, the ones listed above have been used successfully in selling Partners on the benefits of such tactics. As you continue to present new ideas to your management team remember to always spell out the benefits and value in terms they can understand. CPAs and accountants are not marketing professionals and because of this you have to present changes in terms they can understand. Focus on meaningful benefits like less time in the sales process, more time to address client needs and ability of the firm to attract a larger number of prospects. In light of our current economic situation I believe these benefits will appeal to them in a meaningful way.

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Online Tools to Make SEO Efforts, Effortless

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Effortless, Efforts, Online, Tools

There are different kinds of online tools for different aspects of SEO, each having their own unique feature to provide assistance, that is, to make SEO efforts seem a little more effortless.  Some came from popular sites such as SEOmoz or SEOBook. Others were from independent programmers (who do optimization techniques as well) that offer free or paid SEO tools for specialists alike. Here is a comprehensive list of popular SEO tools, arranged based on their individual specialization.

Backlinks

Quality backlinks is one of the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization. It is not enough just to have a lot of them, it is the quality along with the quantity that helps websites rank better in search engines. For backlinks, specialists commonly use tools that would help them determine the health of their links. Here are the 3 most popular ones.

Raven-seo-tools.com

Raven is an SEO tool which provides everything from content management, research and analysis, campaign management, and many more. Some of its features include a Firefox toolbar, keyword analyzer, design analyzer, link manager, and backlink analyzer. Raven offers free limited access on their services and a paid one, for full features.

Webuildpages.com: Backlink & Anchor Text Tool

Knowing who is linking and what link text or anchor text they’re using is one of the most important aspects in search engine optimization. This tool checks backlinks and shows the anchors used to link to the website.

Webconfs.com: Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer

Similar to Webconfs’s tool, this one determines the backlinks of a website and the anchor texts used as well.

Visit an online SEO Philippines site to learn more about SEO and their strategies.

Domain

Aside from backlinks, analysis of the domain is also important. Here are some of the tools used to analyze the strength, age, and status of a website’s domain:

Centralops.net: Domain Dossier

To learn about a site’s domain and IP addresses, specialists use Domain Dossier.  Among its features include WhoIs, network WhoIs, DNS info, service scanner, and traceroutes.

Webconfs.com: Domain Stat Tool

This tool shows statistics of the domain or its competitor’s. Stats include Alexa traffic rank, domain age, Yahoo WebRank, Dmoz listings, number of backlinks and pages indexed in Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

seoegghead.com: View HTTP Header Tool

Much like the name of the tool is, View HTTP Header Tool checks on the domain’s HTTP header and its competitor’s.

Learn about the different procedures and processes taken by SEO enthusiasts by visiting an online SEO Philippines site.

Keyword Analysis

Keyword research and analysis is the most important aspect in SEO. This involves doing a research of the keywords that would be most appropriate for the site and analyzing its weight or importance. Here are some tools  which could be helpful to implement this.

Seochat.com: Keyword Density Tool

The keyword density tool is useful for helping webmasters and SEO specialists achieve their optimum keyword density for a set of key terms. This tool analyzes a website’s chosen URL and return a table of keyword density values for one-, two-, or three-word key terms. In an attempt to mimic the function of search engine spiders, it filters out common stop words (since these were also ignored by search engines). It avoids filtering out stop words in the middle of a term as well.

Linkvendor.com: Keyword Density Checker

LinkVendor’s Keyword Density checker lists the most frequently used keywords of a website and calculates its percentage share in popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask Jeeves.

Webconfs.com: Keyword Density Checker – Keyword Cloud

This tool from Webconfs crawls the given URL, extracts text as a search engine would, removes common stop words and analyzes the density of the keywords. The Keyword Cloud is a visual depiction of keywords used on a website — keywords having higher density are depicted in large fonts. Ideally your main keywords should appear in larger fonts at the start of the cloud.

Web Popularity

Constant checking on the site’s gaining popularity on the web is also needed. This is to assure that the SEO campaign is still on the right track. This also serves as a way to learn if the strategy used in a campaign is effective or not. Below are the tools used to see a site’s popularity in terms of links.

Webmaster-toolkit.com: Link Popularity Checker

This tool shows how many websites are linking to the site. Website popularity is an important factor in search engine ranking. The more popular the site is, the better it will be ranked on engines like Google or Yahoo.

Marketleap.com: Link Popularity Check

Link Popularity Check is one of the best ways to independently measure a website’s online overall visibility. This tool works by calculating the total number of links, or what they call “Votes”, that a search engine has found linking to a website. This also generates useful benchmarking report to quickly show where the website stands in comparison to competitors and other major online players.

Webconfs.com: Reciprocal Link Checker

Reciprocal Link Checker ensures that the link partners are linking back to the website. It also determines the anchor text used by the link partners.

Get to know more about SEO campaigns and the processes involved in it by visiting an online SEO Philippines site.

Google PageRank Checker

Google is one of the primary search engines in which SEO specialists and enthusiasts direct their attention to. Its  ranking tool – Google PageRank – determines the state of the website’s importance and popularity around the web. This in turn will be the basis if the websites is gaining success in regard to search ranking position in Google.

Selfseo.com: Check Google PageRank

Check Google PageRank is a tool used to check a website’s PR without installing the Google toolbar. This features other components such as Alexa Rank, DMOZ Listing, Google/Yahoo/MSN backlinks, AltaVista/All the Web results and Website Thumbnail.

Linkvendor.com: Multi PageRank Check

With the Multi PageRank Check, one can easily check the PageRank of a website from different Google data centers.

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Automating Your Online Marketing Efforts

admin    Web Marketing     Automating, Efforts, marketing, Online

Raise your hand if this sounds like your typical day.  Wake up sometime between 6am and 7am, get yourself/and or your kids ready for the day ahead, spend 30 minutes to an hour commuting to work, work 8-9 hours, spend another 30-60 minutes commuting home, run a few errands and/or do a few household chores, prepare or pickup dinner, eat dinner, get kids ready for bed, and finally sit your energy depleted body down in front of a computer to market your home business.In case you were wondering, both of my hands are raised.

For many of us building an income online, this is our reality.  We’ve heard all the pep talks about how “you must work your business like a business”.  Unfortunately, a little thing called “life” never seems to want to cooperate with our plan to “work our business like a business”.  This means most of us are reduced to working our home business whenever we get a few moments which probably doesn’t amount to much if your daily routine is accurately depicted by the first paragraph of this article.

Failing to overcome this time management hurdle is often the main reason why so many give up on their home business within a few months or even weeks.  It can be an especially cruel reality when you’ve come into the business via slick marketing tactics.  We’ve all seen the so-called online marketing gurus claiming; “you can make millions spending just 5-10 minutes on your computer each day!”.  It can be a devastating discovery to some when they realize success online actually does take time, effort, commitment and persistence.

While success in 5-10 minutes a day is a bit of a stretch, there are ways to reduce the time and effort spent marketing online. Automating as many of the processes as possible is a must when faced with time challenges.  Getting the word out about your website in as few mouse clicks and/or keystrokes as possible should be the goal. 

Whatever your chosen method of online marketing is, there is an abundance of automated tools available.  Some of these tools are very reasonably priced and can even be used on a free trial basis before purchasing.  As a matter of fact, completely free tools are readily available for some niches.  For instance, bloggers can download free content directly to their blogs in many cases with just a short search of the Internet. 

A simple Google search with variables of a phrase such as “automated online marketing tools” should yield you plenty of good results to look into.  Automating your home business marketing efforts will pay huge dividends in reduced time and effort and maybe more importantly – reduced stress and frustration.

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Measure Your Search Marketing Efforts with a Weekly Googleprint

admin    Google Optimization     Efforts, Googleprint, marketing, Measure, Search, Weekly

It’s easy. Just type your subject in quotes in Google’s search box. This is one of the quickest and easiest ways to test your search marketing efforts. Each week you can track which of your search marketing efforts is paying off and which isn’t doing so well. The results may surprise you.
For instance, you might be surprised to see your Craigslist ad showing up surprisingly high in your Googleprint. Placing an ad on Craigslist not only gets your name out but also gets you site picked up by the search engines.
You can also find out what doesn’t work; for instance, all those URLs you stuck on Twitter are fun but probably don’t count for much. Using search Googleprints is also a good way to see what your competitors are doing. If they are buying Google search words that will turn up too.
And don’t forget to click past the first page and examine other pages. Every now and then look at the first five pages to get a sense of what is happening on the lesser hits, especially if your search is a big generic one.
So how can one tell just what is going on? Much has been said about figuring out the Google algorithms or the way Google comes up with its search results. Forget it.
Even an engineer would have trouble figuring out exactly what Google is up to and Google certainly doesn’t want to let the cat out of the bag. Those algorithms are Google’s greatest intellectual property.
The truth is the Google algorithms change on a regular basis and if you are monitoring your Googleprint you can see how search results change when algorithms change. Sometimes these changes can be somewhat dramatic significantly changing your Google footprint. But you won’t know unless you are tracking your Googleprint.
It’s obviously important to remember that yours is not to reason why. Your chore is to see the application and results of the Google algorithms. If you begin to see the results, you can begin to understand the bigger picture and how that affects your search marketing efforts.
Don’t expect any great revelations, but if you keep a steady finger on the pulse of the algorithms they will begin to make sense.
The basics don’t change very much and they are most important; change your homepage with fresh, original content daily, focus on keywords and keyword strings and publish, link and backlink as much as possible. Avoid scams and spam.
Regular Googleprints also help you check for spammers and scammers that affect your Googleprint; in fact, you may have recourse.
For instance, a short while back when checking my Googleprint I was dismayed to see that the number one hit was a scam. This scam had lifted my name and business name and had posted it on a website that was selling porn.
I flagged and reported the site, as well as probably hundreds others also did. Within 24 hours it was gone; barred by the Google God. Or Goddess. Or their Googlenesses. The lesson here is take action and don’t panic. Panic gets you nowhere when dealing in the search world.
If you are just starting out with your search marketing efforts, make a weekly copy of your Googleprint and save it for reference. Over a period of time you can review your Googleprint snapshots and see which of your search marketing efforts is more effective.
You can also check your Yahooprint and MSNprint as well. But clearly Google, as the biggest and most important search engine, is critical to search marketing and your search marketing campaigns.
Think search.

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What Are The Easiest/quickest Online Marketing Efforts For An Independent Band Just Releasing A Cd? Blogs?

admin    Web Marketing     Band, Blogs, Easiest/quickest, Efforts, Independent, Just, marketing, Online, Releasing

I am looking for the quickest techniques in order to get new music out onto the Internet, without the use of a marketing or PR company. Looking for the easiest DIY techniques that are actually working in today’s online music environment. Interested in myspace techniques, iTunes tips, facebook, etc. Anyone have any connections?
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Focus Your SEO Efforts On Google And The Rest Will Follow

admin    Google Optimization     Efforts, Focus, Follow, google, Rest

When optimizing your website for the search engines, you really have three choices on which one to optimize for – Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Each search engine has certain criteria that is emphasized more and the factors that help you rank well differ from search engine to search engine.
For example, do a search for the term “sports” and you’ll find that ESPN holds the top spot in Google, while Yahoo! Sports holds the top spot in Yahoo and Fox Sports holds the top spot in MSN.
Of course, then again, if you do a search for “hotels”, you’ll find that http://hotels.com has the top spot in all three search engines.
So what’s a person to do when optimizing their websites?
My advice is to focus your attention on optimizing your website to rank well in Google. Yahoo and MSN combined don’t send as much traffic as Google will if you hold the top spot. Since Google gets nearly half (about 49%) of ALL search engine traffic, it’s makes sense that you’d want to focus your efforts on Google.
Also, since Google has the reputation for providing the most relevant results, Yahoo and MSN tend to always be playing catch up. So what’s working well in Google will likely work for both Yahoo and MSN.
However, if you optimize for just Yahoo or MSN, you’re not likely to rank as well in Google.
One thing I also like about Google is how fast they’re currently updating their index. You can get a website up, get a few links, and be indexed in less than a week. Yahoo and MSN tend to be a lot slower in getting your website indexed. Also, the rankings change less often in Yahoo and MSN, which is great if you hold the top ranking, but not so great when you’re trying to climb up in the rankings. With Google’s frequently updating index, you get more feedback on how well your search engine optimization efforts are paying off.

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Importance of SEO Marketing in Online Marketing Efforts

admin    Website Design Resources     Efforts, Importance, marketing, Online

Online marketing or Internet marketing is simply the marketing of products and services by utilising different Internet related resources. Websites are used by a lot of firms and large business corporations to reach a wide audience with their products and service offerings. SEO marketing is applied to increase the search engine ranking of your website, thereby increasing the number of hits that your website gets.

 

The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and this technique is used to increase the quality and quantity of website visitors. Majority of customers who use e-commerce websites for purchasing products uses search engines to find the right websites that provides them with their required products and services. Therefore, it is imperative for the websites to have an aim to appear on the first page of search engines to get noticed by maximum number of visitors. SEO marketing techniques are meant to meet this objective of the marketing efforts.

 

SEO marketing is emerging as a very popular technique in online marketing, all over the world. On page changes in the website combined with the pursuance of some off page factors can go a long way in improving the search engine rankings of your website. Increasing the search engine rankings of a website is not a one time effort, but involves a continuous attempt towards improving the quality of a website.

 

There are a lot of SEO marketing firms that offer SEO services. But before giving this responsibility to a particular firm, you have to make sure that the marketing firm never follows black hat SEO techniques, as it can seriously impede the search engine rankings of your website.

 

 

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Internet Marketing And Seo – Where Should I Focus My Efforts?

admin    Website Marketing Resources     Efforts, Focus, Internet, marketing, Should

There are so many tactics to boosting your site and keyword rankings. Currently I am trying a little bit of everything such as link building, blog posts, article writing, social media marketing, forum posting, etc. I want to know the tactic(s) that I should be focusing on most because doing all of this is extremely time consuming.
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Social Media Marketing Success – Three Steps on How to Maximize Your Efforts

admin    Social Media Marketing     Efforts, marketing, Maximize, Media, Social, Steps, Success, Three

Social Media.

Social Media Marketing.

THOSE 2 things has been written and talked about the last 2 years a LOT. But believe it or not, not a lot of small businesses or home businesses are using this powerful business and marketing “Zone” yet. Many people, because it is on the internet, shy away for it as if it were the plague.

”I am not a geek” people tell me. Well, we have “ungeeked the geek” for many small and home business owners, and made social media make sense to them

But there are exceptions.

I was talking with a business owner the other day and she made the comment, “I don’t go to those kind of sites. I don’t have time to do that as my business is struggling and I need to go and find more customers.”

That says it all.

That shows a total lack of understanding of what social media/web 2.0 is really about, and what it can do for the average small business and home business -even on a local basis. If people really “got it” about social media marketing, they would be running to the social media zone and staying there.

There is a lot of talk that it is not “proven” as it is too new and the jury is still out on it being a viable marketing process.

I totally disagree. The social media marketer is paving a path for those to follow through a jungle that has never been explored, nor walked. People like proof. People like results. But it is the social media marketer that will create the way that will birth new millionaires with business folks who do “get” the Web 2.0 world. It is not that hard to understand either.

If you can send an email, you can “do” social media marketing. You can master twitter, facebook, myspace, blogs, wikis, podcasts, article marketing, and all the other parts of the new media, if you can send an email. Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, it does take a little effort-but what doesn’t? We have expanded our business tremendously with social media tactics, and everyday, we wake up with dozens of new leads for our training and consulting business in our email box. How would you like to have that happen to you?

You can. You can tap into an endless pool of leads that will just keep increasing, if you decide to jump into the Social Media zone. And we will be glad to teach you how to maximize for maximum Success with your Social Media efforts.

All you need to do is make a decision that you will take the time and study and learn social media a little at a time, and learn the culture, and the processes of each website.

Here are 7 websites that you must register with to get started in social media if you have a small or home business. Each have “help” tutorials or videos about how to use them properly, and also there is a LOT of information on the web as well on “how to”:

1) http://www.facebook.com

2) http://www.twitter.com

3) http://www.mashable.com (A GREAT website for learning generic social media.)

4) http://www.stumbleupon.com

5) http://www.digg.com

6) http://www.youtube.com

7) http://www.socialmediatrainingnetwork.com’ (A GREAT social website for learning social media tactics for small and or home businesses.)

And then do three things after learning how the site works:

1) CONNECT.
2) COMFORTABLE.
3) CONSTRUCT.

1) CONNECT.

The main thing you need to do is connect with people on these sites, and become a friend with them. Most of these sites have a process to befriend folks. Follow their process. Sound easy enough? But there is a type of friend that we teach that you must become. An “Addition Friend.” This is simply a friend that ADDS to people’s lives, not takes.

On the social media scene, most people are looking to Add, Enhance, Increase, and Enlarge a part of their life. YOU must help them do that with connecting with them and showing them new information about what you do, and how what you do can help them and change them for the better. It MUST not ever be a sales pitch, but simply information that will impact them enough that they may want to connect with you further about that in their life.

If you are a real estate agent, give them info on the 5 Biggest mistakes made while buying a home. If you are a CPA, give them some info on the 3 biggest mistakes made on tax returns. If you are in skin care, give them the 7 best ways to keep your skin healthy. You get the idea. You can find this type of information all over the web. Just send them the web address (url) to the article or blog post with a short note saying you thought of them when you ran across this.

We call it “Connection Marketing” and it WORKS when you allow it to.

CONNECT with the person –> CONNECT with their goals –> then CONNECT them to valuable information that will help them achieve them. Then most of the people Will then connect with your interests and be willing to help you with yours.

2) COMFORTABLE.

You must get the people on the social media sites COMFORTABLE with you.

How?

Talk about them, and how you can help them reach their goals and dreams- either with what you do, or with what you know. We call it “Comfortable Conversation(TM).” You must hold online “conversations” with people and get them comfortable with you, and comfortable with staying connected with you. You do this by talking about what THEY are interested in, and then you PROVE to them you are serious about adding value to their life.

It is ALL about Value in the social media arena. People expect Value in your messages and communication, and if you give them things that will help them in their endeavors, (blog posts on their industry, articles on doing what they do better, etc,) they will get very comfortable with you, and even helping you with YOUR endeavors. They will be moving towards you quickly if you practice that focus in your social media efforts.

3) CONSTRUCT.

Simply, in Social media Marketing, you must Construct a bridge between you and the person that eventually leads OFFLINE and onto the telephone.

THAT is the secret to Success in social media marketing. We call it the “TIO Factor.” Take It Offline and let the personalization begin.

You have connected with the person- in person-at least in voice.

You have gotten them comfortable with you by your interest in helping them achieve their goals.

Now you must construct a path that allows you to say, “What is your contact number? I would love to chat with you for real over the phone.” Then just do that. It may take a few days or a couple of weeks. But if you could pick up 10 new customers with this conversation would it be worth it?

Of course it would be. And how would you do that?

Ahhh–That is another article on Social Media Marketing Success.

blessings…doug

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