Internet Expert Online

Blogs – The Basics

There are several advantages of posting quality blog content on a regular basis (@ once per week). They include:
• Search engines, particularly Google, love fresh content
• Blog content can help attract quality links
• You can utilize your blog to comment on other blogs, and attract additional quality links to your web site
• To your user, it makes you appear as an industry expert / leader, especially if you have good content.
• Blogs don’t need to be long. Focus on one point and user descriptive words in your tags section. Example: internet marketing consultant
• Making comments on others blogs is great. But PLEASE, make sure your comments are relevant to the blog, and are not general remarks, or worse yet, software generated spam. Spamming blogs is very bad!!
• In WordPress, or whatever blogging platform you are using, make sure comments need your approval before allowing them to post. I recommend WORDPRESS, Learn WordPress the quick and easy way! By Jessica Neuman Beck and Matt Beck. Or contact me at 801-739-8070, and I’ll have my computer whiz guy set up a nice one for you, that will match your web site. That’s how the pros do it!

Title Tags – What You Need To Know

Properly structured title tags can help increase your web pages relevance and organic rankings on the major search engines. This is probably the easiest and most important way for you to raise your search engine rankings for specific keywords or phrases. The title tag tells the search engines what a specific page of your web site is about.

It’s important that the title tag accurately reflects the content on your page. The title tag also appears at the top of a Web browser when a searcher visits an individual page. The title tag is located in the header of an HTML document.

Here’s some important information when writing your title tags:
• Limit your title tag to 70 characters or less.
• Use concise statements summarizing the main points of your content
• Title tags must be unique for each and every page of your web site
• Focus on two to three keywords per page in your title tag
• Include the company name in the title tag, typically putting them last in order
• Separate the keywords in the title tag with an |
• The title tag goes between the tag and the tag.

Here’s an example of a properly structured title tag:

U.S. Web Advertising Exceeds Newspaper Print Ads in 2010

Online advertising spending will finish the year with a 13.9 percent increase to $25.8 billion, compared with an 8.2 percent decline to $22.8 billion for print newspaper ads, New York-based researcher eMarketer said today on its website.

For many of us, we’ve known for some time this day was rapidly approaching. Not only have we preached that online marketing was going to exceed print advertising, but more importantly, that consumers were using the web to search, find and decide who to do business with.

Not only have online purchases consistently increased over the past few years, but consumers have increasingly relied on search engines and the web to research local business services, and decide who to do business with.

Additionally, internet advertising is easily tracked, measured and modified accordingly. You can see the number of visitors to your site, time on site, and in many cases, even conversion rates.

With Google AdWords / Pay per Click advertising, ad campaigns can easily be adjusted, increased, decreased or paused at any given time, for any reason.

If you’re not taking full advantage of all the internet has to offer for your business, now is the time to reduce traditional marketing and re-allocate those funds to effective internet marketing.

Glen Beck, the President & Your Business

If Glen Beck is correct, things will be going from bad to worse in the economy. Actually, he’s painting a picture of the bottom dropping out in the next 1-2 years. It is true that the country is essentially broke and continues to spend like drunken sailors.

However, our President paints a picture of economic resolution and slowly moving out of the recession / economic slowdown. Regardless of your political beliefs, one thing is true, the economy will continue to change and adjust. My hope and belief is that the American economy is on the verge of improving, and if Washington will reduce wasteful spending, the American people will get back on their feet.
I believe that small business is the engine that will drive the economy back to prosperity in this country.

So, what does all of this have to do with your business and internet marketing? My thoughts are that now is the time for small business to step up. The one’s focused on doom and gloom will be left behind. I have a client that deals in luxury items. His client’s tell him that people are tired of living as if they are broke. They are tired of holding on to their pennies and have spending fatigue.
True, there are people out there still hurting economically, and I certainly feel for those people.

My belief is that things are getting better for many working Americans. I also believe the majority of American’s like nice things, and enjoy treating themselves accordingly. And, many are weary of denying themselves of the things they want or feel they deserve. Most of us want a new car every few years, or a new …..

For those willing and able to get their message, product or service in front of the American buyers, now is the start of the wave. Meaning that people will start to buy again, and are increasingly searching for your products and services.

If you’ve been holding back, maybe now is the time to change those negative patterns and focus on increasing sales, revenues and bottom line profits.

Make sure your business, and your web site, is positioned prominently and effectively in front of your buyers. Go onto Google, and do some searches for your services, near your area. Make sure your business is easy to find, and that you are delivering a compelling message that will get them to call you, at the exact time they are ready to buy. If your web site looks old and out of date, look at getting a modern, visually attractive web site. Focus on optimizing the site so that it ranks high in the organic section of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Do some targeted Google AdWords / Pay per Click marketing and optimize your site for the map section of the major search engines. Install Google Analytics and track your internet marketing efforts. Furthermore, ask your new clients how they found you, and track those results.

Nothing last forever and the economy runs in cycles. The American people have tightened their belts for some time, and as we hopefully start to return to a more prosperous economy, I encourage you to intelligently position your business marketing efforts on the internet. When this country again returns to prosperity and normalcy, you’ll be glad that you have positioned your business to take advantage of the opportunities.

Doctor My Eyes, Google & Your Online Reviews

Recently, a discount fashion eye wear company made news for their tactic of garnishing negative reviews in order to try to achieve higher organic rankings on Google.

Google wrote in their blog on 12.1.10 “A recent article by the New York Times related a disturbing story. By treating your customers badly, one merchant told the paper, you can generate complaints and negative reviews that translate to more links to your site; which, in turn, make it more prominent in search engines. The main premise of the article was that being bad on the web can be good for business.”

This, in turn, caused Google to modify their algorithms so as to discount negative rankings influence in the natural search results. It also made me think, why in the world would any intelligent, ethical business person conceive of such a warped business model, just to get high organic rankings in the search engines. There are more effective (and ethical) methods for getting your web site to rank high organically.

Let’s review a few of these “best practices” methods regarding ratings and reviews:

• Do not post fake reviews about your company. First it’s illegal, and secondly, the search engines are getting smarter as to these tricks.
• Do not post negative reviews about your competitors. Not only is it unethical, but it could come back to haunt you and harm your business.
• Don’t obsess about negative reviews. Let’s face it; those that are unhappy tend to make it known, more so than your happy customers. If given the opportunity, respond to the negative comments in a professional, courteous manner and do your best to make the issue right in the eyes of the customer, if possible.
• When appropriate, ask your customers to write an honest review about your business, product or service via online.
• Encourage frequent reviews, and ask your client’s to do so via a variety of web sites that post reviews, such as Yelp, Yahoo, Google, Yellowbook, Citysearch, etc.

Finally, if you’re that concerned about your internet marketing results and how to increase your organic / natural rankings, contact and work with an ethical professional internet marketing consultant.
There is tremendous opportunities and rewards by ranking high in the organic search results, and a knowledgeable professional can have a big impact on those results, and your bottom line.

Ba-Da-BING, the Sopranos & Your Internet Marketing

For the past several years, one “family” has dominated the internet search marketing arena in the US. Not to say they are a monopoly, but let’s face it, there’s been little real competition. Perhaps, rightfully so. When you provide a high quality product and deliver valuable tools to your users, it’s easy to see why one search engine has been so dominate.

However, domination is not always in the best interest of the consumer, especially when you are paying to advertise with them. Think back to the days of the Yellow Pages advertising era. On the east coast, Bell Atlantic was the only real game in town. As they continued to change their name to Verizon, etc. their finally came some competition in the form of Yellow Book, and as a result, the rates came down for the advertisers. True, it divided some of the market. But in the end, it was beneficial to the market place and the advertisers.

The point is that competition is good for all. Until recently, we have not had a strong search engine provider in the marketplace. While I can’t say Bing (owned by Microsoft) is an underdog, as they have tremendous resources and capital, I can say that they continue to improve the quality of their product and service.

From Q1 2009 up to the alliance with Yahoo, Bing had quietly but remarkably increased its market share from 3.5% to 7.3% in 7 quarters. They have done so very steadily without any erratic jumps or drops.

So while Google continues to dominate the market, maybe it’s a time you divert some of your advertising dollar over to Bing. Diversification and competition make sense. You’ll also find them easy to work with, and I personally appreciate the fact that I can speak to a real person on the phone, regardless of how much (or how little) I spend with them.

I’m not advising you to abandon you Google AdWords campaign, nor am I promoting Bing, I’m simply advising you to diversify your advertising campaign.