Article Marketing Edge

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Social marketing is a new form of advertising that is just starting to become popular. Often social marketing is a favorite of small businesses because it is virtually free although in order to use it to drive traffic to a website the company still needs to use traditional search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques. It is build around the idea of link strategies and using personal networking to drive website traffic. Before the widespread use of social networking sites social marketing really wasn’t a viable option for most mainstream businesses but now the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook has made social networking and social marketing very popular. Link strategies that are often used in social marketing involve creating free accounts on these popular social networking sites and then using search engine marketing techniques to increase traffic and network with others who interested in the same topics or with customers. Using search engine optimization to create search engine marketing content on your social networking profile pages can help get your profile listed in search engine results pages and you can use search engine marketing articles to help gain readers and friends across the net.

This type of marketing isn’t just limited to using sites like MySpace and Facebook. You can use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to socially market your blog as well. Many companies these days prefer having blogs to having traditional websites because blogs are much more accessible to people and make people feel like they have a personal connection with the company. Blogging is hugely popular. Many popular blog sites are free so you can set up a free blog to be the front page of your web page and you can put links throughout the blog that lead to other pages on your web page so that your readers can find your other search engine marketing articles and information or buy your products. The best link strategies for blogs involve taking the time to form alliances with other bloggers. Blogging networks have huge followings and many times if you join a blog network or go to the blogs of people who share your interest or sell complementary products you can leave comments on that person’s blog that link back to your own site.

Even though that type of advertising can be a little time consuming it’s a great way to use search engine marketing to reach your target audience for free. Blogging communities also usually link to one another’s blogs which means that you can use your networking contacts to help you publicize your website. Social marketing can be tricky though because it’s more than just using search engine marketing, link strategies and SEO. There are a lot of social networking etiquette rules that need to be observed and if you don’t follow protocol you could be ostracized. When you’re using social networking you should never just post links to your website on other people’s blogs, that’s considered spamming. Take the time to read other blogs and leave relevant comments. Usually then you will be allowed to post a link to your own website.

Have you ever wondered how exactly search engine marketing works or how search engine optimization can help your business? Search engine marketing relies on the basic principles of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization makes it possible for a search engine’s spider to find your web page and add it to the search engine results page whenever someone does a search for a word or phrase that shows up on your website.

Search engine marketing uses search engine optimized content to make your website easier for the spiders to find and for people who are searching the web to find. A search engine uses thousands of little bots called spiders to index the millions of web pages that are on the Internet. These spiders start at the most well known websites and work backwards following links and searching for common words and phrases. Every page that the spiders come across with those particular words on them is indexed and saved. Those pages are the ones that show up in the search engine results page when someone uses Google or another search engine to look for websites on a particular topic. The place where each site shows up in the search engine results page ranking is based on the content of the site, how many times particular words and phrases appear on the site and the relevance of the site to those search times. That is why search engine marketing depends so heavily on search engine optimization.

If you want your website to show up higher on the search engine results page then you use to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization techniques in order to get the spiders to notice your site and put your site higher on the search engine results page. People who are using a search engine to look for websites will rarely click to the second search engine results page. It’s crucial that your site be on the first page of the search engine results page or people will probably not find your site. Using search engine marketing and search engine optimization is the best way to do that.

The number one rule to remember when you are planning out search engine marketing strategies or trying to figure out how use search engine optimization effectively on your website is that your website should have 100% original content. The spiders will place your site higher on the search engine results page if the content that is on your site is original. When websites duplicate copy the spiders pick up on the repeated phrases and language and will sometimes not index a site at all if the spider determines that the content is too similar to the content on another site.

Search engine optimization and search engine marketing is more than just taking one word or phrase and repeating it a certain number of times. The content on the site has to be fresh and engaging and also contain the keywords or key phrases that will bring traffic to the website.

If you’re just starting to build your website now is the best time to start planning your search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategy. The best time to introduce the SEO planning of a website is when the site design is ready and the site is ready to be launched but there is no content yet for the site. Just before the site launches is the time to bring in an SEO consultant to provide some SEO services. After the design of the website is done an SEO consultant can give you suggestions about what keywords and key phrases you need to add into the site HTML as Meta tags and where those tags should go. Once the site is tagged and the design and navigation has been tested it’s time to add in content. Having SEO content on your site from the start will give your web site a big advantage over older websites that might already have a bit of a following but haven’t had any SEO services by a professional SEO consultant.

For a new site where that site ends up on the search engine results pages can be critical to its success. In order for the site to get a high ranking on the search engine results pages it’s imperative that a professional and experienced SEO consultant creates search engine optimized content that is ready to be part of a broad search engine marketing campaign. It just makes more sense to get all your ducks in a row before you launch the site doesn’t it? Bring in an SEO consultant when you’re ready to start putting content on the site so that when the site launches your site will be instantly indexed by the search engine spiders and can start drawing traffic from search engines immediately.

If you have an existing site that is due for an overhaul or a design revamping then you should also consult a professional SEO consultant before the site is redone so that you will have a good idea of what SEO services that you need. Cosmetic work on the site is important so that your site doesn’t look outdated but changing up the content on the site will be very important. Most of the traffic that websites get comes from searches done by people who use Google or another search engine to look for website dealing with a particular topic.

You want your site to be at the top of or at least near the top every search that is done by a search engine for the topic that your site is about. In order to achieve that you need an SEO professional to write great search engine optimized content before the site launches. If your existing site has had the same content on it for more than six months you should get an SEO professional to write new content. Changing the content is a great search engine marketing strategy to draw new web site traffic and improve your search engine ranking.

Getting your webpage ranked as high as possible on a search engine results page is one of the goals of search engine marketing and using search engine optimization on your website. But do you know how the search engine actually ranks and indexes web pages? Most search engines use a complicated process to index and rank the web pages that the search engine spiders find when they are scanning the web. Using search engine optimization and putting articles written with search engine marketing in mind will get the search engine spiders to your site but once the search engine spiders find your site they have to index your site and then assign your site a ranking within the thousands of other sites that contain information on the same topic that your site has.

Different search engines use different methods to assign a weight or rank to each web page that the search engine’s spiders find so using different methods of search engine marketing and using different percentages of search engine optimization is a good idea. If you do several different types of search engine marketing and utilize more than one kind of search engine optimization tool then it’s more likely that a search engine spider will find your web page and assign it a higher weight or rank.

One of the ways that search engine spiders determine the weight or rank of a particular web page is to index the number of times that a particular word or key phrase appears on a site. The search engine spider will assign a weight or rank to the web page based on how many times that word or key phrase appears within the web page. This is a very common method of assigning rank to web pages that is used by a lot of the most popular search engines so it’s important to use search engine marketing and search engine optimization to make sure that those search engine spiders give your site a high ranking or weight.

Another way that search engine spiders assign a weight or rank to a web page is to take note of where in the web page a particular keyword or key phrase is located. For search engines that use this kind of ranking system just using standard search engine marketing or traditional search engine optimization techniques might not be enough to get your website noticed by the search engine spiders. In order to draw the spiders of search engines that rank web pages based on the location of the keyword or key phrase on the page it’s necessary to use those words to tag your page. Tagging a page is putting that particular keyword or key phrase in the meta tags of your site, using them in the heading or home page of your site and using those words or phrases systematically through the rest of the site. If you think of your website as a tree in order to get the attention of spiders from the search engines that use this type of ranking system you have to have a particular key word or key phrase on every branch of the tree in order to get a higher ranking.

If you’ve tried to increase web site traffic with search engine marketing and search engine optimization but you still aren’t seeing the kind of web site traffic that you want to have it might be time to consider investing in some web advertising. There are different options when it comes to web advertising but the styles of web advertising used the most by businesses is and paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is a good option if you’ve already tried search engine marketing and search engine optimization because your site is already well set up for paid search advertising. Paid search advertising is paying to make sure that a link to your site and a description of site is placed at the very top of a search engine results page.

This is a smart move because studies have shown that people who are searching for a site will usually click on any one of the first five links at the top of the search engine results page and then they will stop. Consumers almost never click through to the second page of search engine results after doing a search. So paying to make sure that your site is at the top of the search engine results page can be a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Figuring out how to manage your paid search advertising can be a little difficult if you’re not used to how web advertising works so you’re better off hiring a paid search management company to oversee your paid search advertising. When you’re setting up a paid search to increase web site traffic the keywords and key phrases that you choose need to be chosen carefully. A qualified paid search management company can help you set up your paid search to maximize the time and effort you’ve already put into using search engine marketing and search engine optimization on your website to increase website traffic.

Using paid search to increase web site traffic can be a very cost effective way to get the most of your search engine marketing. Essentially paid search web advertising is just giving your search engine marketing a boost and making sure that people see a link to your site before all your competitors. If your website deals with a popular topic then using paid search web advertising is really like insurance that your site make it onto the first page of the search engine results page.

Here is a little used technique you can implement to build your mailing list for no additional cost. I call it “using subscribers to make subscribers” like much in the context of “using money to make money”.

This simple list building formula can be summed up in two words: ad swap.

Generally, you trade advertisements with other eZine publishers, preferably of the same mailing list size or bigger. You broadcast the eZine publisher’s advertisement to your mailing list while the eZine publisher endorses your ad to his list. Yes, you are actually cross endorsing or cross promoting each others offer to each of your mailing list.

Your advertisement’s goal should be to get as many subscribers possible from the other eZine publisher’s mailing list to sign up for yours.

The result: you grow your mailing list. This method does not require money, which means it can be done for free. And the return of subscribers? Infinite!

You only have to do this with one eZine publisher at least once, because his subscribers who are also your subscribers can now be followed up within the boundaries of your mailing list.

Perform ad swaps with as many eZine publishers as possible and soon, you will have a huge mailing list of your own - built free.

eZine publishers today use any one or more of the 3 most commonly used eZine formats which I am about to describe to you in this article.

Ultimately, you can decide which format is the best choice for you, though each winning format has its pros and cons.

The text eZine is the most commonly published. The advantage of this format is that other than writing, you do not require any special skill to use a Word or Notepad program.

While the HTML eZine format requires a certain degree of HTML skills on your part, you can add more sophisticated features to your eZine issues, making them more appealing to your subscriber thus increases your readership value, something that text eZines do not have.

You can decorate your eZine format, change your fonts, include pictures, and more. However, the drawback often faced by HTML eZines is that they often get trapped into spam filters before they reach their subscribers’ inboxes.

The third and least used among the 3 formats is the PDF eZine. Publishing your eZine in PDF format can consume a lot of time and effort on your part but often make up in quality readership

Due to the commitment, PDF eZines are usually published on a monthly basis. The great part, though, is that you can put in your affiliate links in your PDF eZine issue and allow your subscribers to pass the eZine issue around.

Given the choices, however, you do not have to necessarily choose strictly one eZine format, as some eZine publishers today do publish in more than one format.

You can build your list simply by writing articles, whether you have thought of it or not.

Quite simply, you write and submit your articles on your topic of expertise or business nature to popular article directories where eZine publishers and readers are looking for the information you provide.

Leveraging your viral marketing efforts on article writing can be rewarding, if done right. In the real sense, you are actually proving your worth and demonstrating your expertise about your business through the articles you write.

So, how can this method in effect build your mailing list? The answer: the resource box you attach to your articles. In your resource box (also known as bio box), you include a brief detail about yourself and your business site together with its URL.

It is strongly suggested that your resource box URL links to your mailing list’s landing page where you can get your visitor’s name and email address, which will in turn help you build your mailing list at no cost.

If your articles are found worth sharing, eZine publishers will republish your articles together with your resource box for their readers and subscribers. The wonderful result: viral marketing without effort on your part!

You can start by writing and submitting your articles to trusted article submitter sites such as http://www.articlemarketer.com/ and begin your article marketing journey today.

Paid search is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to our site from the major search engines. It can also suck our marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be us or the search engines? The goal of the search engines is more clicks. The more people click on our ads the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get as many clicks as possible within our budget are willing to do that all day long. The real goal should be “fewer clicks, lower cost with more conversions”. Let’s take a few minutes to look at some strategies that should make a difference in our campaigns.

1. Turn off “Content Network” when you first set up a your campaign. The default setting “on”. The “Content Network” represents most of the loss in paid search. Content Network presents your ads on websites that are using AdSense. If you go to a website and see “Ads by Google”, those ads are coming from Google paid search accounts. The content of the website determine the ads that show up on these sites. Consider the following before turning on the content match. One, the website that is hosting our ad gets paid every time someone clicks on the ad. Secondly, most people who click on these ads are doing research. The great thing about search engine marketing is that you come in contact with individuals who are actively searching for what you have to offer, pay for clicks that come from people in that category.

2. Use the most specific terms possible. In most cases the more general the term, less qualified the lead and the more the cost. Try to figure out which terms work best to get the ideal customer to the site.

3. Keyword “types” There are three types of keywords “Broad”, “Phrase” and “Exact”. The rule of thumb that I use is: for single word phrases, use exact match and for search phrases that are two to three words, used “phrase matching”. I am also experimenting with using “exact” matching for these terms as well. The more specific the search term is to what you are offering and who your ideal client is, the more qualified to lead will be. Better a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Just a couple thoughts on writing copy for ads. When you write your ads put the following in your “headline” box: {keyword: “your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase into the headline. Your ad should be specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad should contain at least one of your “unique selling propositions”. This can be very challenging because of the space limitations. Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do something different. For example, if everyone is offering free shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Give careful consideration to your landing pages. These pages should do one thing; answer the questions that the searcher had in mind when he started his search. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. You must show him that you possess the answers to his needs. Don’t just send them to your home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action. You must be very specific and clear about the next steps. Have your “phone number” or “contact us button” on every page.

6. Track everything. Paid search is not an exact science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to get the results that you are looking for. Monitor your campaigns weekly to catch market changes, account issues or even site issues. Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

Paid search, if done properly, can yield big profits. If you are new to this or do not have several hours a week to devote to learning the ins and outs of PPC Management, it might be a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what they are doing. It may be wiser to pay a little up front rather than lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out yourself.

In essence, RSS is a ‘mini database’ that contains headlines and descriptions (a summary or a line or two of the full article) of your web content, including hyperlinks that enable users to link back to the full article of their choice.

RSS websites - that is, websites that contain RSS ‘feeds’ (articles or postings) - typically have colorful graphics to indicate to users that the specific web content is available through RSS feeds. These graphics are usually depicted by orange rectangles that are usually marked with ‘RSS’ or ‘XML’.

With its increased popularity, RSS is now being adopted and used by more website owners or publishers. Today, numerous resources are now available that aid Internet surfers (and even beginners as well) on how to set up and use RSS.

Setting up RSS feeds and adding them to your website can be a simple process that does not involve a lot of time or any money. Listed below are some simple and basic steps that you might want to follow:

1. Have your web content and/or news in an RSS feed format, such as XML (appropriate and ‘ready-made’ feeds are also available from other sources).

2. Click the orange graphic - this is the RSS feed icon. Take note of the URL of the RSS feed; this will be displayed in the address bar (for Internet Explorer).

3. Input the feed URL on your RSS feed creation program.

4. Click on the “Generate Feed” button. This will generate the RSS code for your web content.

5. Enter the RSS code in the appropriate place on your own website.

Having created an RSS feed for your website, next comes the task of publishing your web content and news and having them displayed on other sites and headline viewers. This is made possible with the use of RSS readers or aggregators.

RSS readers or news aggregators are used to view particular web contents. RSS readers contain the collection of ‘feeds’ or RSS files from content providers, and they are generally classified into 3 types:

Desktop RSS readers - also known as standalone desktop application, they generally ‘run’ in the background and are similar to an e-mail client, collecting the feeds and refreshing items automatically as they are updated.

Web-based aggregators - these are online services that enable users to personalize web pages, refreshing them each time the page is accessed or each time a person logs in to the service.

Plug-in aggregators/readers - these make use of either web browsers or e-mail clients, which allow users to view RSS feeds while inside an existing program.

Having an RSS-enabled website provides Internet users (especially those who are website owners) with the following benefits:

Allows users to generate up-to-date news and postings, as information and content in the RSS readers or aggregators are automatically updated each time the RSS feed is ‘refreshed’.

Allows users to have control over the information that they wish to view or receive, as they can remove a feed of their choosing any time they want to.

Aside from these benefits, RSS websites are also useful for people who conduct their business in the Internet, particularly in Internet or Online Marketing. RSS can be an effective marketing tool for your website, especially in the following fields:

E-mail marketing and publishing Search engine marketing and optimization Business blogging Internet advertising Digital public relations Branding and e-commerce

In addition, RSS can ‘power’ your website, providing you with the following:

Valuable, updated, and relevant resources for site visitors and potential clients - RSS is ideal for websites that contain (and syndicate) a lot of information that has to be changed or updated regularly.

Search engine optimization for the website.

Increased traffic for the website - your website can ‘harvest’ and display information from other sites, driving more traffic to your own website.

A wide selection of ‘channels’ for content distribution, such as PDA’s, cellular phones, voice mails, and email ticklers.

A reliable way to have your web content delivered to Internet users and potential clients - RSS ensures that your site is viewed by the people who are interested in them, without having them blocked and ‘cleaned’ by ISPs or Spam filters.

These are just some of the advantages that RSS can give your website (and your business). The possibilities are endless, as more and more comes up almost everyday. Do not be left behind - take the advantage of the marketing and publishing power of RSS.