Mobile Advertising is an Effective Way to Advertise
Posted by Kevin in Mobile Advertising, Pay Per Click Advertising on January 25th, 2010
Mobile advertising is a powerful way to advertise because mobile devices are used by business people and regular consumers. According to a tech panelist, mobile advertising is three to five times more effective than online advertising. Consumers browse the internet for news and information. In addition, consumers use their mobile devices to go on social networking sites such as Facebook,Tweeter, and share pictures.
More consumers are using mobile devices for the holidays to find deals. According to Deloitte LLC, nearly one in five consumers are expected to use their mobile phones to assist with holiday spending. 55% of consumers planned to find store locations, 45% research prices, 40% find product information, 32% get discounts and coupons while 31% read reviews. More importantly, one in four shoppers expected to make a purchase with a mobile phone. Furthermore, the time time is now to start utilizing mobile ads in your marketing program.
Site Missing from Indexes
Posted by Kevin in Search Engine Optimization, Spam on January 19th, 2010
There are experts who will advise you to submit your site early, often and submit many web site pages. Do not listen and only submit your home page as a last option.
Submitting your web site is a last option because you were unable to get links to your web site or your web site was blocked by the spiders. If you have to submit your web site, only submit your home page. A site map allows spiders to find everything. Many times individuals submit their sites over and over without checking to see if the spiders blocked their site.
You may receive unsolicited e-mails offering to submit your web site to thousands of search engines. These emails reference some statistics of millions of visitors that this will generate by submitting to thousands of search engines. Always avoid automated submissions. These automated submissions are considered spam and your web site can be banned for excessive submissions.
News Corp Taking on Google with Bing
In 2009, News Corp took on Google. News Corp dislikes the fact that Google provides access to News Corp’s massive amount of content without paying for it. News Corp is threatening to block Google from indexing News Corps’ web sites and is negotiating a deal with Microsoft to provide exclusive search engine access to web content on Bing. Under the deal Microsoft would pay News Corp for access, which is reportedly still under negotiation.
Watch Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp founder explain News Corp Sites May Be Removed From Google click www.youtube.com/watch?v=sewucH3rOPM
This can be monumental if approved. This can lead to other media companies following News Corp’s path. Bing could leverage content access rights to challenge Google.
What are Web Site Hits?
Posted by Kevin in Web Statistics on January 12th, 2010
In the beginning of the web, web site traffic was measured in hits. Hits are the number of computer files that your Web Server serves to your visitors. During the early stages of the web, this made sense since most web pages consisted of text from a single file. For example, if every page consisted of one file then the number of hits were the same as the number of page views. This was an easy way to measure page views because your web server logs a request every time it serves a file.
In the late 90s, hits had no meaning at all. Pages were a more complex combination of multiple text and image files, therefore the hit metric was unable to tell you how many actual pages were viewed.
While the volume of hits is an indicator of Web server traffic, it is not an accurate reflection of how many pages are being looked at. Each time you type in your web address, the browser hits the website’s server for the document. The server sends the web page to the browser. Once the browser begins to display the information, it continues to hit the server for any additional elements needed. For example, a logo will represent one hit as the server returns that image to your browser. Because of how hits are measured, this number is inflated and different from page views or visitor counts. More images in a website leads to a greater number of hits being recorded.
Tracking Offline Sales to Your Web Site
Posted by Kevin in Marketing, Track Offline Sales on January 11th, 2010
If you have a web site and are having a difficult time tracking offline sales listen up. If there are no systems in place which enables you to track your offline sales to your web site, all is not lost. It is not difficult to set up special phone numbers or print discount coupons.
If you are still having difficulties following the steps above try to estimate them.
- Ask the customers when they buy if they used your web site prior to buying.
If your company uses warranty cards, update your warranty cards that asks about the use of your web site.
Add a question to a survey. Your business may regularly send surveys to your customers. Add a question regarding whether customers used your web site prior to their last purchase.
You can use estimates to perform trend analysis checking ups and downs from month to month. Furthermore, you can also implement systems which accurately track sales.
Professional Web Design
Posted by Kevin in Web Design on November 6th, 2009
How does your web site design look these days? Does your web design look professional compared to your competitors? Do the links work properly on your web site and does your web site download fast?
If the answer is no, it is time to change your web site to a professional web design. After all, image is everything. You do not go on job interview with ripped jeans and expect to be hired. You dress for the job that you want and those that look the part get the job.
Web site appearance needs to be kept up as well as the web site copy. Every word on your web site needs to be read over. The web site copy needs to be error free and look professional. First impressions do matter and often times your business is judged by how well written the copy and design is. Furthermore, the time is now to update your web site design and copy because your competitor is just one click away.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an integral part in your success in marketing. Email remains one of the most powerful tools for marketers. Email is inexpensive, targeted, direct and offers immediate returns. Email marketing increases traffic to web sites, drives results, awareness and engagement. According to a June 2009 Marketing Trends Survey, 42 percent of nearly 1,000 global leaders plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009. 81% percent of the global businesses leaders plan to increase what they spend on e-mail marketing. Veronis Suhler Stevenson reports spending on email marketing will expand at double-digit rates for the next five years expanding at 18.5%.
Email marketing is trackable and cost effective. It is more result oriented for performance. Look at your web statistics when you do an email marketing campaign. This will show an increase in traffic on your web site. There is email marketing software that track whether your email is opened such as E-listmail Click here for e-listmail.
E-mail allows an opportunity to connect to your customers and prospects. There is a limitation if email does not engage in results or users unsubscribe.
Three methods to increase the chance of success in email marketing include:
1. Personalization
2. Branding
3. Call to Action
Click here to watch a video on email marketing
The time is now to utilize email marketing to increase branding and results.
5 SEO Add-ons for Firefox
Posted by Cory in Internet, Search Engine Optimization on October 21st, 2009
Firefox is a great browser, and one of the things that makes it so great is it’s wide selection of add-ons. Some of these add-ons are great for SEO work. We’ve compiled a list of 5 SEO add ons that you can get for Firefox:
RankQuest SEO Toolbar
RankQuest SEO(Search Engine Optimization) Toolbar provides you quick access to more than 30 intuitive SEO tools. Alexa Rank and Page Rank provided by Alexa and Google respectively ensures the popularity of the site.SEOpen
SEO services: Track sites placement at Google and Yahoo for any keyword. Watch Google PageRank (PR), Backlinks, Saturation over time. Graph and table presentation of the data.SEOQuake
Seoquake is a Mozilla Firefox SEO extension aimed primarily at helping web masters who deal with search engine optimization(SEO) and internet promotion of web sites.Foxy SEO Tool
Foxy SEO Tool offers tools for search engine optimization (SEO), web traffic and page analysis for webmasters and web professionals.Keyword Spy
KeywordSpy SEO/PPC Plugin – Do your competitive research in SEO & PPC right from your browser! Download the revolutionary plugin which will change the way you do keyword research & competitor tracking, while you browse on Google, Yahoo in Real-time.
YouTube is an Effective Way to Advertise
Posted by Kevin in Marketing, Social Media, User Generated Content on October 1st, 2009
Video is important way to increase brand awareness and reach a large audience. Video is just as significant as network TV. A Comscore April 2009 report states that 72 percent of US Internet users watch video clips monthly.
A program advertisers should use is YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. It allows Internet users to able to create their own accounts and channels with profiles and plenty of favorite videos. Anyone who goes to the site can view the videos that are posted on this site. Youtube Channel offers fans a brand platform to comment and share their opinions of the products.
Here is a video smallbiztrends.com/2009/08/youtube-small-businesses.html that demonstrates how to use YouTube.
Youtube also allows businesses to show off their products. It offers high visibility for their brands to connect to consumers. The Nielsen Company reports that YouTube reached 87.7 million unique visitors a 22% year over year jump in June. In addition, it is a great way to increase brand awareness by natural search, which allows for videos to be picked on search results with site links, images, videos, and news links.
Online Polls/Surveys: How and Why to Use Them
Posted by Cory in Social Media, Surveys/Polls, User Generated Content on September 28th, 2009
Polls (surveys) are a well known, effective way of measuring information/opinions. More formally known as opinion polls, polls ask various groups of people questions related to a certain topic. In the past, polls were only done through mail or telephone, however the power of the internet has brought new methods of polling as well as new types of polling altogether.
A poll using the internet is known as an online poll. Here are some of the many advantages to using a poll to capture opinion, especially an online one:
- Information is Provided Directly by the User
Because the user interacts directly with the poll, there is no need for a middleman. This reduces costs, and ensures that the data is as close to accurate as possible. - Cost
The cost of an online polling system is extremely low in comparison to a phone based or mail based polling system. This is because there is not a high requirement for employees to complete tasks such as recording information, compiling information, etc, because it can all be complete by a computer. - Size
The size of an online poll can be as large, or as small, as you want it. The survey will only run however long you want it to collect data. - Sampling
Online surveys allow you to target the survey to whichever demographic you see fit. Here is an example, someone may fill out some preliminary information, such as their age or location, and then the software will determine if their answers match the demographic you are looking for. - Results
Survey software is automatically able to compile & analyze the results, both while the survey is running and when it is finished. Because the analysis is done by a computer, there is no need for a statistician to analyze the results for you, so you save both time & money. - Incentive
Many times you can offer an incentive to a user for completing a survey, such as being entered into a drawing to win a coupon, gift card, etc, which gives a better chance of people giving information. - Speed/Timing
Because computer transactions are instant, you are able to see instantly the results of a survey, as well as the exact time the survey was filled out. Also, the creation and use of surveys is extremely short when they are online.
Now that you know some of the benefits to online surveys/polls, here are some of the companies that provide online surveys:
Go to one of these sites, sign up, and then create your first survey and spread the link. Some sites will spread the link for you. If you aren’t sure of the best way to create and manage a survey, let a company like RP Design do it for you.
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