When you search for your favorite celebrity’s name, or the profile of the novelist behind the book you’d read and raved about, chances are that the results will include a Wikipedia entry. On Page One. You’d almost be shocked if you find it on Page Two. The web encyclopedia seems to have outraced everyone to the top, and everything seems to be pointing to any one of its many, many pages. But do you see “Adam Lambert”, or “Jonathan Franzen” on Wikipedia’s home page? Probably not. You wonder how you can optimize your own website that way, without having to barrage your preferred landing page with a hundred links. The example of Wikipedia demonstrates how SEO can be used to target not just keywords – but entire target markets. This strategy was recently discussed in SEO Design Solutions as a way to out-optimize your competitors, if you will, and have your website rank from the top 1000 to the top – Read the full article
Social media has garnered a great deal of attention for big business. Corporate budgets are able to integrate complete marketing campaigns and promote them on social media. If you are a small business looking to be the next social media influencer, you are probably finding out how tough it is to engage with users on social media. However, there is some good news for you and for other small- and medium-sized business owners. The 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report saw that SMBs who used social for local marketing saw boosts in exposure, traffic, and sales. Whether you are a late adopter or consider yourself a social media pioneer, chances are, if your business is doing some sort of social media marketing, you at least understand its significance. Over 90 percent of small business owners and Internet marketers believe that social media is important to their business. Depending on the industry you operate in and how “brand-heavy” you are influences – Read the full article
Paid search is a wonderful advertising platform because it gives you clear-cut analytics for ROI decisions. Twitter, on the other hand, is a wonderful advertising platform because it is still natural and fun. Both paid search and Twitter advertising differ in scope and functional use in the marketing mix; however, Twitter recently announced a tool called the “Follower Dashboard”, which, in conjunction with geo-targeted ads, makes Twitter a very attractive advertising medium. Twitter announced the ability for companies to pay for “Promoted Tweets” earlier in 2010, where Coca-Cola garnered 86 million impressions with a single promoted tweet. Holy! Okay, sure Coca-Cola probably paid out the “Wah-Zoo” for that tweet, but even if they paid half a million dollars (ex: cost-per-engagement, or CPE, at $.10 & $6.06 per 1,000 impressions) for that promoted tweet, it would still be competitive with a paid search of $10 CPA. Okay, Twitter is great, we know. But up until now it was only great for – Read the full article
As you’ll notice, we’ve been focusing recently on the “marriage” of search engine optimization and social media – and talking about things like how you can use social media sites for your SEO campaign, or how you can leverage Twitter for link building. We believe that social can have a tremendous impact on search. And by “social” we don’t mean just Twitter and Facebook. We take into account other websites, too, like Reddit. Reddit – a social bookmarking site – is one of the darlings that we’re keeping an eye on this 2011. It has been around, having been launched 5 years ago, but Reddit enjoyed its best year last 2010 when it experienced a 300 percent surge in traffic (thanks largely to the expense of faltering Digg) and record 829 million page views last December alone. The site markets itself as “the voice of the Internet – (with) news before it happens”. Being a social bookmarking site, Reddit delivers – Read the full article
Google is not the only search engine in the world. In some large countries like Russia, it isn’t even the most popular. It has been estimated that only one fourth of the Internet’s 2 billion users speak English as their native language. Only one fourth! That means that if you are only optimizing your site for people who speak English then you may be missing out on 1.5 billion potential customers! Obviously if you want to expand your market globally, you have to start thinking about targeting local areas around the globe that search on the Internet in different languages. This means translating your site, among other things that will help SEO-wise, and you should do so because it has been proven that people searching on the web trust their native speaking tongue when it comes to making a purchase on the Internet. Where to Start You must first decide if you want to target by location or by language. – Read the full article
I will be the first to admit that working in a social media department sometimes feels like a workout. You’re responsible for liking and tweeting and connecting and sharing and friending and +ing and stumbling and running and running and running. Did I say running? By the time the day is over, it feels like you were moving a mile a minute and you need a break. Whether you work in a social media department or are simply a company trying to keep up with the social media, enough is enough. What is Pinterest? However, even I will make an exception for the latest social network, Pinterest. Once you get over the groaning, you will find that this new social network is actually quite interesting. Basically, the site is a virtual board where you can “pin” visuals that interest you. Be it an infographic, video, picture, or just a color scheme you like, you can pin it onto your board for – Read the full article
Online Lead Generation It’s time to take the guesswork out of your marketing and sales cycles. Connect to your target audiences and your customers with Lakeshore Branding’s online lead generation solutions. Leveraging state-of-the-art lead generation tools – coupled with a rich, multi-industry customer acquiring network brought by our many years of experience in the business – we deliver the most qualified leads in order to help you grow. Our team works with you as we: Craft custom lead generation strategies Streamline your lead qualification process Build your customer acquisition network and database Introduce your products and services to people who have a genuine interest in them Improve your conversion rates (prospects are always prequalified before you receive the lead) Implement organic SEO and paid search results strategies Update your lead tracking forms Track your progress with our advanced reporting systems and easy-to-understand lead generation metrics Call us today at (312) 229-0038 and let us help you drive the right people – Read the full article
When you try and use Internet marketing and blogging to bring in more business, it is essential to think about each word that you publish. Each page of your website needs to have a goal and each blog post must be aimed at achieving the following: Providing readers with information regarding your business and industry Creating a call for action Encouraging sales Working on optimizing the website Providing customer service Building brand recognition Installing trust Fitting all that into a blog post of around 300 to 500 words may seem like a lot but with the help of SEO copywriters, each of your blog posts can achieve all of those goals for you. Working on Web Copy Your website will no doubt be split up into different sections; what they are will depend upon the services and products that you provide. Most websites will have the obligatory Welcome page, About Us page, and the Contact page. These need to be – Read the full article
