Social Media
How Web Marketing Can Help
Aug 16th
A certified web marketing company, such as Web Marketing Experts, can formulate web marketing tactics to strengthen your presence in the Internet. Identify the strong points of your company and its objectives so that these elements can be combined with web marketing procedures to promote your company online.
It is necessary to acknowledge that there is a multitude of web promotion services that can assist in boosting your web presence. In line with this, your web marketing consultant must be able to suggest the most excellent mix of marketing solutions to for your website. Some of these web marketing campaigns may include:
A mobile version of your site is important
Jul 7th
A recent survey conducted by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) of 3710 respondents found 21 per cent browsed internet websites in the past 12 months at least once a day. It is predicted in over the next 2 years with better value mobile internet packages; over 52% of mobile phone users will browse the internet.
These figures suggest mobile websites has become a crucial part of websites to increase their traffic. Currently, nearly all major websites such as CNBC, CNN, The Age and more, have a mobile version.
Most might not be aware that Google has a crawler called the “Googlebot-Mobile”. A very relevant post can be found on the following link, which gives you a basic idea on how different mobile sites are. The Google blog also suggests tips on how enhance the chances of your mobile site getting indexed. Here’s the link Google Blog about mobile sites
The cost of developing a mobile version of differs depending on the complexity required. A mobile site costs around $2,000 for a very basic version to $40,000+ for a site which customizes all pages and tools. The market is still considerably young, thus there are less competition, so the prices are still quite high. I would recommend a mobile website programmer company called Appscore. We’ve had a few mobile websites developed by them and cannot be more pleased with their service. There pricing are also very reasonable.
Most websites do work on mobile phone browsers but for me, it sometimes is annoying to scroll sideways, zoom in or out. Sites which require constant zooming in and out causes hassles to browsers and in some cases, browsers leave. The aim of the game is to gain more viewers, but most importantly returning viewers. By providing them with a pleasant browsing experience, at home while browsing on their computer or while they are out on their mobile phone.
5 Essential Website Success Tactics for 2010
May 27th
Right now we’re going back … to the future! We spend a lot of time talking about the timeless SEO and internet marketing tactics. Here are the up-and-comers for the year that will continue to be important for the rest of 2010.
Google Local
It’s like ordinary SEO, only smaller and easier! Get onto that Google Local page and start prettying it up if you haven’t already done so.
Load time
This new SEO ranking factor might not carry a lot of weight, but it really is a no-brainer. Get a good host, and keep your pages lightweight.
Do your Facebook/Twitter/MySpace pages
Everybody else is on here … and if your business has dedicated fans, they are probably actually searching for your profile.
Create a mobile site
Even small, local sites need a mobile version to cater to users-on-the-go searching for goods and services through their smartphones.
Check your analytics
There’s no sense throwing money at SEO without knowing what results it is creating…
Is Your Business Being Squatted On?
Mar 31st
Some human predictions about the future have been amazingly accurate … just check out the Paleo Future blog. Some things we never saw coming … including the idea that there could be a full-time income made from domain squatting! With the prevalence of different sites that are available to create corporate profiles, your internet marketing campaigns could be in real danger of sabotage and blackmail, from social media profile squatters.
What is social media profile squatting?
Well, for starters, although it is recognized phenomenon, it doesn’t really have an agreed-upon name. Perhaps we’ll call it social squatting 
. Much like domain squatting, this would be the process of looking for companies, large and small, that have not yet registered an official profile on one of the major social media sites. The trolls would then set up a profile with your business name, in the hope of selling it to you at a later date.
Obviously there is a subtext to the offer of sale as well – whoever registers your official profile name on a site becomes (as far as the public knows) the spokesperson for your company. Choose to deal with them in a way they don’t like, and they may find an ingenious way to sabotage your internet marketing and drive away your customers.
What sites should I register on?
Here are some of the popular social media sites that it would be wise to register an official Page, profile or account on:
- Facebook (note that Facebook is taking steps to prevent people creating non-official brand name pages)
- MySpace
- Friendfeed
- Youtube – create a company channel
- Technorati
- Squidoo
- Yahoo Answers
But I don’t want to do social media marketing right now…
That’s okay. Most social media sites will let you register a profile, and then effectively make yourself invisible to the public at large. Leave it blank if you like – just make sure the account is registered to your business. This way all that careful brand building and internet marketing effort is carefully preserved.
Successful Tweets … From Bones to Embodied
Mar 25th
Every studied cell biology? For a tiny thing, they are pretty complicated! The same is true of Tweets. They may be only 140 characters long, but they can speak volumes both within and between their lines. Today we break down what makes a good business Tweet, in terms of promoting your web marketing goals.
What type of Tweet is it?
Much like the cells in your body, having a single ‘type’ of Tweet just won’t work for your business. Every cells in your body needs most of the other cells in order to function … and in the same way, you need a well-rounded repertoire of Tweets in order to create a viable ‘organism’ of a business Twitter profile. Here are some of the types of Tweets you can, and should, be using:
- Retweets – If you come across something your followers might find interesting, you can re-tweet it
- Opinions and observations – Keep them professional, though. Be positive – don’t derogate anybody, especially your competitors or bad customers, tempting as it might be.
- What you are reading or watching: Share a link to interesting content you’ve found
- Events and plans – If you have an upcoming event for the public to attend, tweet about it often
- Content promotion – many blogs can be set to auto-tweet new posts. You may prefer to select Tweet-worthy content yourself.
- Replies: If somebody asks you a question via Twitter … answer them! (Refer to 4 Principles of Customer Service in Internet marketing)
- Quotes: I love quotes. Some people don’t love quotes. A small percentage is great to have as part of your Twitter ‘organism’.
The Control Centre
The link that you use is like the brain of many of your Tweets – the tweet itself would be useless without it. Twitter automatically uses bit.ly, but you may prefer another service. Is.gd uses slightly fewer characters, for example.
Watch out for…
These pathogens can ruin you’re the Twitter-creature you’ve created! Look out for:
- Naughty words. They make you seem angry, out of control, unprofessional, and like you have a limited vocabulary and no other way to express yourself.
- Abbreviations. Most people understand LOL and OMG, but if you’re using them more than once per tweet, you are trying to squeeze too much in! Another point here … I find that ‘WTF’ (pardon me!) is just as unprofessional as the spelt-out version.
- An imbalance forming. Check over your profile page regularly and see if you have been favouring one type of Tweet heavily. Bring a bit of balance back into your profile.
Twitter is a great web marketing tool – but even within 140 characters there is a lot of room for wasted opportunities!
Five Checkpoints Before You Start Social Media Marketing
Mar 17th
Social media marketing is going to be a critical strategy for businesses to learn to take up. Many traditional style stores find it incredibly counter-intuitive to ‘become friends’ with their customers, to share thoughts and opinions, or to remain anything but completely corporate and professional. However, in a world where everything is available to everybody, it is personality that will draw your customers to you, and set you apart in your niche. But before you start using social media to boost your web marketing repertoire, there are some things you should do …
Create a strategy before you jump into the swarm
1. Should you start social media marketing?
Do your clients use social media? Will they think its repulsive that you’ve started? Ask some questions of your existing customers if you can to try to gauge response. Also, see if any companies competing with you use social media, and what sort of response they have from people – do they have many Facebook fans or much Twitter interaction?
2. Consider the costs
Setting up most social media profiles is free. However, the time taken to administer them, to create content to submit to Digg, to contact people that send you questions through these media, all costs money. Be prepared to have dedicated web-based customer service staff if you push social media hard.
3. Set a personality and tone for your social media experience
Try to make it as close to your company’s real culture as possible, and set some boundaries regarding what gets posted or talked about. Will innocent sexual innuendo be okay … in fact what sorts of content in general will be okay and what will not?
4. Create a skills-based team dedicated to the social media marketing
Choose someone that is personable but professional, and also understands the legal and media implications of their public statements.
5. Set up a tracking system
You’ll need to know how all this effort is translating into profits for your company – decide on a method for tracking this before you start.
Six Strategies for Holding Competitions to Get Backlinks
Mar 2nd
Running a competition or a giveaway is often touted as one of the most successful and failsafe strategies for sending visitors to your site, increasing branding visibility, and getting backlinks for SEO. However, since everybody has started saying how great it is, the ‘noise’ in the competition market is that much greater. You will actually have to compete to give things away, strange as that is! So today we are looking at six strategies to help you get the most value out of your competition for SEO.
'Running' a Competition
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1. Collect as much contact information as possible
… without scaring entrants away. It is a rich opportunity to get demographic information that you can use later in web marketing opportunities. Add a couple of demographics questions to a competition entry form, and you have instant extra value.
2. Use your own products or services as the prize where possible
Everybody wants a new iPad or a trip around the world, and these competitions will naturally create a huge following and number of entries. However, when you have to pay retail prices for the prize, the competition becomes decreasingly cost effective. Use your own products where possible.
3. Look for competition partners
You may be able to get some prizes donated if you email around your partners and offer to include their logo, tagline and contact details on the competition form. You’ll still have to donate the major prie if you want YOUR business to get the brand recognition, though!
4. List your competitions on comp sites
There is an entire community of people that play the statistical odds, entering every free competition they can, in the hope of winning prizes. There are also (naturally) websites that collect competitions for people that do this. Make sure your comp gets listed on these sites, such as::
- Loquax.co.uk (UK)
- ThePrizeFinder.com (UK)
- Compaholics (UK)
- CompetitionWinner.com.au (AU)
5. Video marketing to promote the comp
This can be ultra-effective … videos are easy to share on social sites, so lets people share with their friends.
6. Require a link back to your site
This ca be a great way to get backlinks … accept competition entries only from people who provide a link from their site to yours, in a fairly permanent place. The requirement could be reviewing one of your products and providing a link to it, for example.
5 More SEO Strategies You Can Do in Ten Minutes
Feb 22nd
In some ways, SEO and internet marketing are very big tasks. However, there are plenty of component tasks that you can undertake to help push up your rankings, that take less than ten minutes. Today we give you the fast lane version of the SEO handbook!
Life in the fast lane
1. Answer a question on Yahoo Answers
This is one of the biggest and most popular question and answer sites on the net now, and even new questions rank quite well in Google for search terms phrased in the form of a question. Answer a question that you have expertise in, provide a link to a relevant resource on your site, and you’ve just marketed yourself, sir!
2. Create a list
There’s no need for your articles all to be 1000 word rants. Keep your list short and simple, and try to make sure that the resources it offers aren’t available elsewhere on the web in the same context.
3. Link out to someone else, and let them know
I you like a company, a product or a service, link to them from your website (as long as the link is relevant and in context!). This is the equivalent of bringing a batch of muffins over to someone ‘s house … a great pretext for further conversation and friendships. Good karma online can never hurt your SEO rankings!
4. Comment on a blog post that you find thought-provoking
However, only if you can add something to the discussion. Telling the author that he’s created a great post will never encourage people reading the comments to click on your link … adding something useful or insightful to the conversation will.
5. Work on your LinkedIn profile
Especially if you are in B2B operations, your LinkedIn profile is a valuable web marketing tool. Expand your connections, update your resume, join in with Group discussions, etc.
Should I Use a Facebook Group or Page to Promote My Business?
Feb 19th
Recently we’ve been looking at Facebook for web marketing and SEO – specifically at the two main methods for businesses to connect with people on Facebook, through Groups and Pages. We mentioned that from a consumer point of view, the two are much the same; but from a business perspective each offers their own benefits and drawbacks. So today we’re going to toss the coin with you and help you decide … Group or Page? Group or Page?!
The old style of non-virtual group!
To recap:
Just to recap the difference between Groups and Pages (and save you sifting back through the old posts!), a Group:
- Can be created for free
- Are simple and have plenty of viral potential
- Members can ‘invite’ other members
- Have a limit on the number of your members you can blast message at once
And Pages:
- Can also be created for free
- Are more highly customizable than Groups, including applications, Flash and other rich content
- Have no limit on the number of members you can blast message at once
- Are a little more difficult to share
- Are often the ‘official’ version of a product – Facebook has been taking action against Pages that aren’t administered by the official company or group, in response to a joke Barack Obama Page.
Most popular business choice … Pages
Pages are the most popular method of social media marketing on Facebook for businesses. This is because they have several eency weency features that Groups don’t have. These include:
- A shortcut URL, so you can promote the page more easily outside of Facebook
- Allowance for extra applications, Flash etc, as mentioned above
- Visitor statistics can be monitored
- Pages can cerate Events through the Facebook Events function, and invite their fans
- Can be promoted with ads, whereas someone must be logged into Facebook to access a Group
But don’t close the book on Groups yet!
One striking difference which can impact the culture of your social media marektin greatly is simply the language Facebook uses for members of the public to connect with your business on Facebook. Consider that:
- With Groups, people can ‘become members’ and ‘invite friends’
- With Pages, people can only ‘Become fans’
This small linguistic matter can create an entirely different feel for the Page/Group, and your business culture and brand should determine which is best.
That said, the differences are quite minor … and both are great for social media marketing, general internet marketing and SEO!
4 Things You Should Know About Facebook PAGES for Web Marketing
Feb 18th
From the user perspective, there is little difference between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group. Both allow you to connect with like-minded people or ‘brand’ yourself … whether those like minded people are fans of breastfeeding in public, the 5th gen iPod classic, or saying “Bond … James Bond“. From a company perspective and for internet marketing purposes, though, there are a few differences which could make a big difference to the ease and effectiveness of your Facebook marketing.
What are the features of a Facebook Page?
Facebook pages can have inbuilt applications, HTML and Flash in them – they’re a lot purdier than Groups are. It’s not only form, though, Facebook pages have much better functions than Groups – the applications make the most difference.
Pages are displayed a lot more prominently on people’s profiles than Groups are. If you click on a Friend’s ‘Info’ tab for their profile, the Groups are listed in order of joining, as a mess of blue hyperlinked text. Pages are much more spaced out, and they have their own individual little icon … however, the viewer does have to click a link to see any more than the most recent five or six pages joined.
What is the cost of setting up a Page?
Zero, zip, zilch, nothing, nada – there is no cost to set up a Facebook page, at least in terms of putting it on Facebook. However, if you want your page to have the additional functionality of applications or rich content like Flash (and you aren’t a web developer yourself), there is a cost involved in having that set up and troubleshooting done when they inevitably break. Of course, there is also an internal cost in administering the Page – replying to questions in wall posts, posting blogs, notes and reviews, and generally creating enough content to make your Page worthwhile for fans. In this respect, the cost is much like setting up a website – you can get a template for free, but if you want to personalize or add value, you’ll need to factor in some dollars.
Page Title considerations
Can you think of a way to engage your readers at the level of friends, or people with a common interest, rather than as a business? For example, if you manufacture underwear that stays where it is put, your Page could be titled ‘I would rather walk around with a wedgie than fiddle with my underwear in public’, or something similar. If you have an effective unique selling point, you can have a page that engages your potential customers like this!