There are actually quite a few free keyword selector tools on the internet that can help you come up with a much more powerful keyword list than you probably can on your own. These tools offer all kinds of information that can help you make firm and sound decisions to help you avoid wasting money on guesswork.
The most recognized tool is Google Adwords Keyword Tool. All you have to do is enter your main keyword and watch as a whole list crops up. You can see as you go through the list that there is an objective and easy to understand statistical application to each word on the list. This tells you how popular the keyword is.
Some people reverse the theory of using the most popular and try to gain high search results using mid to low rated words. For some niches, this has paid off. Look before you leap, as some niches don't have a lot of wiggle room.
Of course, you're not limited to Adwords. Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery websites offer you help that is just as thorough, although formatted a bit differently. The user friendly versions of these tools makes it easy for just about anyone to find the words they need to start setting their business apart from the rest of the crowd.
Check in often. Don't assume that because today your top five keywords were listed as such that they will remain the top five in another month. While many will stay relatively static, the internet and its applications is a fluid ideal. This means that even the best statistics are bound to change from time to time. Checking back regularly will help ensure that your efforts (and advertising money) are focused in the right area.
There are more free keyword selector tools like these popping up all of the time. It's not a bad idea to use two or three and compare the results. It only takes a moment of your time and can save enough waste to make it a worthwhile daily endeavor for serious web business builders.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Using a Twitter Profile to Gain a Following
When you use Twitter for marketing purposes, one of the first things you want to focus on is your profile. This will not only indicate to other users who you are, but whether or not you have something of interest for them. How you create your profile can either encourage or discourage others from becoming part of your marketing success.
Keep your profile highly intentional and well targeted. Stick to the plan and don’t mix your personal profile with your marketing profile. Don’t include unnecessary personal information, pictures of your pets or your most recent vacation, or stories of that funny thing your two year old did the other day if it has no bearing on your marketing.
Use a real name, not a company name. Most people will use their real name, although some people prefer to use a pseudo name when they start marketing on Twitter in case they make a mistake and have to create a whole new campaign. If you use a company name you’re going to turn people off. A real name is a personal connection.
Your username should reflect something important, powerful, and relevant. You can use branding here if it fits. You can also use your profession. Avoid usernames that are irrelevant and personal like soccerguy, catlady021, or sailingfan if they have no bearing on your business.
Make sure you take the time to enter the information that is requested in the profile set up. People like to know who they are dealing with and that there is an actual person on the other end. An incomplete profile is actually a red flag that will keep potential followers away.
Your bio is the place to interject who you are. It’s not a resume or a chance to write a brief cover letter. This is where you can bring some of your personality and even an interest or two into the limelight. You can present yourself as a real person here. This helps to create connection in the right setting.
While you might be tempted to lock your Tweets to feel like you have control over who is following you and who isn’t, this is a bad idea. Remember that this is for marketing purposes. Any locked settings will often prevent someone from following you. Make it an open account. Set up a locked account for your personal Tweets, not your marketing ones.
A headshot is not a bad idea as it gives a face to the name. If you are busy on more than one site, it’s usually recommended that you use the same headshot for all sites. Tweeters are often Facebookers and etcetera. Maintaining the same look will help. However, use something different for your personal accounts. Avoid avatars, especially those that are cutesy and irrelevant.
Marketing isn’t just about being out there. It’s about being out there and getting noticed. Therefore, taking the time and using a custom background in order to reflect either your brand or the proper qualities of your business is a great idea. It shows your potential followers that you are not just here for a day to “see what happens” and it helps extend your familiarity.
Twitter has a very useful tool for helping your profile become more follower friendly. If you take a moment and use the grader (twitter.com/grader) you’ll be able to receive direct feedback in helping your profile reach more users in a more productive manner.
Labels:
email marketing,
internet marketing,
twitter
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
9 Ways to Unleash the Profit Potential of Landing Pages (Part Two)
Reiterate:
At this point, you’ve convinced them that you have the most powerful, easy to use, underpriced problem solver in the world. They are going to get free bonuses (list them again) and as a special thanks for ordering by the deadline or being one of the first hundred orders of the week, you’ll also include another special bonus. Make sure this bonus is even more intriguing and valuable than the first ones. You’re trying to create urgency so that they will respond right now instead of deciding to consider it for a few days.
Guarantee:
Provide the reader with the promise of a real guarantee and be prepared to stick to it. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to push off someone who wants their money back. If you need proof of attempts to use the product, include that in the promise. Let them know that any free benefits or bonus material they receive is theirs to keep anyway, just so that they feel like you’re willing to give away information even if it doesn’t work out as planned. They are better off for ordering and returning than they would have been for never ordering at all.
Use the guarantee and the other positive aspects to remind them that get all of this plus a solution to their problem if they respond immediately. Everything you’re offering is a package. If they want the package, they need to be in a hurry to get it.
Post Scripts:
Remind the reader of the urgency once again by reminding them how quickly they can have the answer to their problems. Remind them that receive more than just the product, but emotional benefits as well. Tell them how good they’ll feel, how they will finally experience peace of mind, and how they will be able to sleep better tonight knowing that they’ve made such a positive step forward.
Lift Letter:
This is a section devoted to those who have yet to make a decision. Give them a separate button to click on so that you don’t distract the users that are ready to order. Usually placing it below the “order now” button will help filter through the prospects.
This is a great place to add in some testimonials. Using people that didn’t initially order your product and found out later how much time and money they wasted is a good way to connect to the undecided. At this point, you want to take some time to remind the user that they stand to lose something without ordering your product. By giving them this information now, you give them more reason to consider the importance of action today.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
9 Ways to Unleash the Profit Potential of Landing Pages (Part One)
In order to create powerful conversion numbers, your landing page will have to carry a number of components that are known to provide proven success. Everything you write will have to contribute to making the right type of connection with the reader.
Instant Attention Grabbing Headlines:
We all know that it’s a competitive world out there on the internet, and if there is nothing to attract the attention of the reader they are simply going to move on. The first thing most readers see is the headline. Making it compelling enough to keep the readers’ attention often means the use of a pre-headline.
A pre-headline is just as it sounds. It come right before the actual headline and its main goal is to shout out something imperative to get the reader to develop interest in what you might have to say.
Your pre-headline is the attention grabber, which is then followed by the main headline. The main headline is still looking for attention from the reader but is more willing to offer up some more detailed information. Use the pre-headline to attract readers who are trying to solve a problem like, “End Your Financial Troubles Today!” Use the headline to give them a little peek into how you’re going to help them solve the problem like, “Use This Powerful Technique to SkyRocket to Powerhouse Profts.”
Support Your Headline:
Don’t forget your headline once you start writing. Back up your headline with some sort of evidence that what you’re saying is credible. Otherwise you end up looking like you tried to trick the reader into hanging out on your landing page. If you feel you can support your own claims through the use of your own personal experience or your position, use a subheading to indicate this and use a simple paragraph or two to explain why you get to be the authority on their situation.
Support the headline farther by expressing clear understanding of how challenging it can be to solve their problem. The more you address the difficulties, especially targeting the tricks they have been subjected to in their previous efforts, the better. This can include explaining how you understand that most marketing scams are there to take your money and offer little information, that the same information is found all over the internet just regurgitated in different ways, and that many of today’s leading programs intentionally leave out vital information.
Make sure that you can prove that your solution is different because it is ideal. List the benefits and list the differences between your solution and the other run of the mill solutions. Give them a reason to believe that they will have the power to solve their own problem if they just have what you are offering. The more personally connected they feel to your product the more likely they are to purchase it immediately.
The Power of Social Agreement:
Testimonials are good way to back up your statements from the previous paragraph. Testimonials show the reader that there are others out there who were feeling just as frustrated as they are and they were able to solve their problems because they went ahead and trusted your statements.
Free Benefits:
Always have a free benefit or two. Whether it’s a report on furthering your profits through other marketing means or its access to a list of marketing businesses that are proven winners, give away an extra bonus.
Keep it Easy:
By now you’ve provided the reader with tons of information, even if it’s compact and in bulleted form. This means that they are starting to feel like there must be a lot of complicated steps to the solution is there is so much information you feel you can share with them. Now is a great time to remind them that too can have success and it can be simple to follow and is priced well under market value. You want to encourage them to believe they are getting much more than they are paying for and that they will not be overwhelmed with any sort of difficult steps that they will find to be overtly taxing.
Part Two of this article will be posted tomorrow.
Part Two of this article will be posted tomorrow.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Building Backlinks For Better SEO
Having optimized content on your website is great, and may certainly help increase your searchability , but there are other online marketing methods associated with SEO that should not be ignored. The practice of creating strong backlinks can go a long way towards moving your website to the top of the search engine results, as well as enable visitors to find your website through many other corridors.
Backlinks work essentially by having a link to your website somewhere on an external site, preferably in a place where it is bound to get noticed. But SEO also comes into play when creating these links. For example, let’s say you’ve answered a question of a message board related to your industry, and you want to post a link that leads back to your own site where readers can get more information. Many people mistakenly paste a whole link into the message, which is often not search engine optimized, such as http://www.facebook.com/pages/Active-Web-Group/47276216541
Another mistake that that is typically made is the preference to create a hyperlink that simply says Click Here For More Information, or something similar. But suppose you create a hyperlink that says this: Free SEO Analysis
Now you’ve got searchable keywords integrated into your hyperlink, and search engines like that. If you can get links like this on websites that major search engines consider strong, quality websites or authoritative sources, it only increases your chances of achieving high search engine rankings.
For maximum effectiveness, try building backlinks on websites that contain content that is related to your own industry. You can also build backlinks on blogs, forums, and social networking sites. However, be careful not to spam your links across the Internet and on other people’s blogs or forum topics. This can quickly instill the community with negative thoughts of your brand.
Learn more about SEO: Increase Web Traffic and Improve Search Engine Rankings
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Top 10 Benefits of Social Networking for Businesses
Unless you live in the middle of the forest or at the top of a mountain, with virtually no human contact or connection to civilization, you’ve heard all about the rising popularity of social networking sites. Obviously neither of those scenarios apply to you, or you wouldn’t be reading this now. So you likely know all about Twitter, Facebook, Linked:In, and other popular sites. But are you aware of the benefits of social networking sites for businesses both large and small?
Many online marketing companies and self-proclaimed Internet marketing gurus are touting social network marketing as a must for any business, but how many of them help you to understand the reasons why?
In a nutshell, here are the top 10 benefits of social networking for business:
1. Increases Brand Recognition
2. Increases Website Traffic
3. Engages Potential Customers/Clients on an Interactive Level
4. Enables Additional Means of Advertising & Promotion
5. Decreases Online Marketing Costs
6. Acquires New Sales Leads
7. Facilitates Reaching Local Target Markets
8. Content Can Be Search Engine Optimized
9. Reach New Audiences
10. Strong Online Visibility/Social Networking Acts as an Extension of the Corporate Website
For more information about social network marketing and other online marketing solutions, contact Active Web Group. AWG is Long Island’s leading full service online marketing solutions agency.
Labels:
benefits,
online marketing,
social networking
Monday, May 3, 2010
Retailers Realize the Benefits of SEO
There are many online marketing solutions to choose from when seeking to increase your customer base, but Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is still the top priority and method of choice for retailers. Pay Per Click is a close second, and typically, retailers utilize a combination of both to increase the effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns.
Recent Internet marketing research studies have shown that most retailers claim that natural website search engine rankings produced by strong SEO are responsible for the most significant portion of website traffic. Retailers also stated that SEO click conversion rates were steadily rising.
Marketing budgets allocated to SEO have also increased: many retailers use half of their marketing budget for SEO marketing. These findings show that many of the misconceptions or general wariness of SEO held by retailers in the past is diminishing, and the online marketing solution is now instilling confidence among the majority of search engine advertisers.
However, as new technology advances and Internet trends work to shift a focus from search engine advertising to social network marketing and mobile marketing, many retailers and businesses have yet to catch up. There is a vast amount of SEO potential to be found in social network marketing, and it statistical evidence has already proven that social network marketing is a successful means of increasing your customer base and customer loyalty.
Retailers should not seek to leap into these new online marketing strategies until a solid SEO foundation is in place. To learn more how SEO can increase web traffic and improve search engine rankings, and to receive a free SEO analysis of your website, please visit Active Web Group. AWG is Long Island’s leading marketing solutions agency, with expertise in SEO campaigns, PPC management, E-Mail marketing, E-commerce, and website design.
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