E-Commerce Websites and Business Blogs

E-commerce websites benefit from common online marketing solutions such as search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC), but in an extremely competitive marketplace, businesses can further maintain and increase their share of the market with a business blog as well.

The blog is often overlooked as a viable marketing tool by many e-commerce websites for a variety of reasons, the most common of these being that managers simply don't understand the marketing potential. Essentially acting as an extension of your website, a blog's content can help lure in new customers and clients by attracting them with engaging, informative content. A well-maintained blog will continue to attract new visitors, which in turn will utilize the blog as a portal to your corporate e-commerce website. This serves to increase both brand awareness and ROI.

Of course, maintaining an effective blog can be time-consuming, as fresh content must be written on a consistent basis. If you do not have a copywriter on staff, you can hire freelancers to write content for your business blog, or retain the services of a web marketing agency.

You should also note that a blog is most effective not only when the content is fresh and interesting, but also when it is search engine optimized. Integrating SEO into your blog posts will ensure that your blog will be find easier and more often during relevant search engine queries. A solid understanding of SEO is essential, as well as experience and knowledge of which keywords might work best to capture the attention of your particular target market.

While you can take advantage of free keyword tools to help you choose and utilize keywords in your blog posts, an experienced SEO team can expand upon and improve the SEO of your entire blog. SEO keywords can be integrated into your blog description, metatags, links, and tags relative to each particular blog post.

Search engines such as Google also notice and prefer blogs that maintain consistent updates, so fresh content posted on a regular schedule is important to both the search engines and to your readers.

For further tips on maintaining an effective blog for your e-commerce website, you might want to read " RSS Feeds: An Easy Way to Generate More Traffic for Your Corporate Blog."

Contact Active Web Group, Long Island's leading full-service web marketing agency, for information regarding SEO content services, e-commerce, email marketing and more.

Email Marketing is Most Effective for Businesses Who Understand Their Customers

Taking time to properly research and understand the wants and needs of your customers leads to more effective email marketing campaigns. Gathering this valuable market data can be done through several means, such as surveys, keeping track of consumer buying habits, and engaging with the customers through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Not every option will be suitable for every brand or business, and gathering market data on specific target markets may be time-consuming and difficult for large companies with an expansive product line and several segmented target markets. Small business may have an advantage when it comes to understanding the needs of their customers, and effective email marketing is not only cost-effective, but also delivers the greatest ROI for your online marketing dollar.

While a combination of online marketing solutions is always preferred over a single option, in these difficult economic times, small business are finding that email marketing is an especially viable option when the marketing budget is stretched thin.

For a strong email marketing campaign, it is best to utilize the services of a full-service web marketing agency. The online marketing experts at a web marketing agency will be able to utilize and seize upon critical factors that will enhance and strengthen your email marketing campaign.

Active Web Group is the leading full service online marketing agency on Long Island, a pioneer in email marketing and website development. The online marketing experts and email marketing specialists at AWG can help you properly identify your target market and create or add to your email list, compose and design your email campaign messages, make any necessary modifications, and analyze your results.

If you want to decrease your marketing costs and increase your customer base, contact Active Web Group today!

RSS Feeds: An Easy Way to Generate More Traffic for Your Corporate Blog

The expansion of social media technologies and widget applications has made it easier than ever to reach a wider audience and attract more followers to your pages and visitors to your website and blogs. Many of these useful tools can be easily integrated into your websites and blogs to be utilized by visitors with the simple click of a mouse, thereby sharing and spreading your information to many others. Traffic generation possibilities are limited only by the quality of your content and how interesting or informative visitors actually find it.

If your business has a blog, or if you have at least visited a blog or two, you no doubt have noticed a link along the sidebar or at the bottom of each posts labeled as an "RSS Feed." This link essentially allows you or other visitors to subscribe to future postings. As new content is posted on a blog, subscribers can receive notifications via email or access to the actual content in a program that collects RSS feeds from any number of blogs that someone has subscribed to. If your content is of particular interest or value to a subscriber, they will certainly want to subscribe to the RSS feed. If your own blog doesn’t have a link to its own RSS feed easily locatable, it should.

To further capitalize upon the marketing capabilities of RSS feeds, you can submit your RSS feed link to blog directories. Blog directories allow you to categorize your blog and gain wider exposure with more specific target markets. There are many blog directories available: simply submitting the term "blog directories" into a search engine will bring up a large amount of popular listings.

Traffic generation for your corporate blog does take time. But as long as you continue to post to your blog on a consistent basis, and as long as you offer content that is useful, informative, or interesting to the user, your subscribers should continue to increase.

B2B Facebook Marketing Tips

There should no longer be any doubt that Facebook is a viable B2B marketing tool. While other social networks such as Linked:In and Twitter have their own advantages for B2B online marketing, Facebook should not be discounted simply because it appears to focus more on social friendship rather than social business.

Several studies have already proven that the social media platform is more than adequate for marketing to a business audience and networking with other professionals. However, there are three keys to successful B2B Facebook marketing that you'll need to follow in order to maximize the effectiveness of your Facebook B2B marketing campaign.

1. Content is Key

It applies to your corporate website, and it applies to your Facebook page as well. The consistent creation of specialized, unique, informative content is necessary in order to engage and attract the interest of other businesses and professionals on Facebook. Establishing yourself as an expert is critical, and reinforcing that perception is an effort not to be taken lightly or dismissed.

2. Optimization is Beneficial

Just Google and other major search engines utilize SEO as part of their algorithms in determining the placement of websites in search engine results, SEO can also benefit your Facebook page. Optimizing your content for search engines will help other businesses locate your Facebook page both through organic searches and also within Facebook.

You can utilize Facebook to more efficiently target specific audiences and businesses with rich keyword content in your company profile and in the content you add to the page. Determine what other businesses might use as their search terms when seeking the services or products you provide.

3. Interaction is Necessary

It isn't called "social" without a good reason. Users enjoy Facebook for its social networking capabilities, and B2B marketing on Facebook allows for tremendous networking capability. Direct messages of special news, events, press releases, videos, etc. can be sent directly to your followers within seconds, and your page can be updated continuously and effortlessly.

You'll be able to engage and interact with other professionals quickly, further instilling brand recognition and showcasing your commitment to professionalism and customer service.

For more information about B2B Facebook marketing and how to optimize your Facebook page to fully harness the powerful marketing capabilities of the social networking site, contact Active Web Group, Long Island's premier web marketing agency.

Monday Afternoon Online Marketing News Wrapup

Some interesting news in the world of online marketing today:

Mobile Marketing Expected to Account for $5.5 Billion in 2011

How to Find Your Ideal Internet Marketing Company Effectively
There are many reasons why an internet marketing company is useful for your online venture...

Online Job Market Gains 45%

Skills in Google App Engine development, HTML5, SEO, social media in high demand, finds Elance study.

Monday Morning Online Marketing News Wrap-Up

An interesting batch of articles today concerning online marketing methods Visa, the future impact of Web 3.0 (are we already done with Web 2.0? That was fast!), and how social networking is ever-growing, ever-changing.

What is Web 3.0 and how will it impact PR?

A video and summation of Web 3.0 and it's possible future effects on social marketing and PR

Visa launches a marketing push for online shopping service Rightcliq
The leading credit card brand launches today a major marketing push for its Rightcliq online shopping service. It’s an online wallet combined with merchant discounts, all wrapped up with social networking features.

Take Advantage of Increased Time Spent Social Networking

A new Nielsen study titled "What Americans Do Online" shows that Americans spend a growing percentage of their time online visiting social networking sites. Businesses need to be aware of trends like this in order to focus marketing efforts where the target audience spends its time.