It is your company’s obligation to be clear, upfront, and transparent about how you collect and store visitor information. Your website presents an opportunity to make money, but it also entails a certain level of responsibility on the part of your company to safeguard this valuable information. In today’s environment where people are more suspicious about online companies, being straightforward is in your best interest. One of the key aspects in running a website is developing a privacy policy. Writing a privacy policy is a simple step that goes a long way towards retaining visitor trust for the long term. Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing a privacy policy: Do Not Copy a Privacy Policy Off Another Website It may be easy, but it is not the right thing to do. The privacy policy is a legal document; as such, it is important to know what you’re getting yourself into before publishing one. While a blog – Read the full article
A few days ago we talked about how important local search / SEO has become – and what you can do to enhance your local search performance and Internet marketing efforts. Well, as we conducted our research for that story, we stumbled upon a number of neat local search engine optimization tools. And, knowing how much readers love lists (our competitive intelligence tools post is one definitely worth checking out), we made another one – this time, to help you in your search for tools that are designed to give you an edge over local competitors. Enjoy! Local Search Toolkit This is one of our favorite local SEO tools right now. The invention of seOverflow’s Mike Belasco and Mary Bowling, the Local Search Toolkit features a Google Places Results Analyzer which generates competitive analysis and data from search results in Google Places. With the Local Search Toolkit, you can download, analyze, and review citation sources – and sort seamlessly through – Read the full article
It’s great to drive traffic – online and offline – from all corners of the world. But if you’re a smart marketer, you’ll realize you don’t have to be so international – at least not when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Thanks to local search, businesses don’t have to squander resources on attracting customers and visitors that are beyond their geographic reach anyway. One can instead focus on catering to the heart of the locals. Want to find out how? Here’s a list of 17 great local SEO and local search tips, tricks, and tools to help you get started. Claim. Claim your local listing on Google Places. While you’re at it, go to Bing Local and Yahoo Local and claim your listings there, too. Apply best practices. Read our guide on Google Places to put yourself closer to the center of the map. Submit your info to the online yellow pages. Sign up in online directories and – Read the full article
Since the most recent Google Panda update, a number of sites have found that their traffic has taken a big hit. Google’s aim was to stop “thin content” sites from ranking; unfortunately, as usual, the definition given by Google is frustratingly vague, and with the update, it may not be so obvious what the issues are. I’ve compiled a short list of some common reasons sites have suffered after the Panda update. Hopefully, this post gives you a better idea, especially if you are one of those having a difficult time trying to determine the source of your traffic dip. (Note: I’m assuming that you are running a legitimate site, not scraping and stealing content; otherwise you pretty much have your problem right there already!) 1. Duplicated Content This is perhaps the biggest issue for legitimate sites that have suffered. It’s obvious that duplicate content can trip the “thin content” flag, but the problem is often quite complicated. For example, – Read the full article
From both a marketing and consumer perspective, Facebook is king. Few can deny the power of Facebook to pull and aggregate social data on a massive scale. According to an eMarketer report, Facebook has overtaken Google in “social sign-ins.” In Q1 2011, Facebook was the top network ID used to sign in to a website to share content, at around 35% of the user social login market share. The social sign-in is a new feature that online publishers love. Website registration is often times a daunting task and is attributed to high exit rates. Social sign-ins use pre-existing identities to login to a website, bypassing annoying registration forms. The most important benefit of social logins is to increase engagement and access more profile data. From a marketing standpoint, social sign-in allows marketers to aggregate crucial demographic data that was previously unknown. Marketers are able to understand what gender and age groups are accessing their materials, in addition to potentially rare – Read the full article
While the concept of online marketing can seem strange and almost unnecessary for the food and drink industry, there are a whole range of benefits that can come from having a good online presence. In this post I want to cover some of the most useful options available and how these can be applied to your business to help increase your exposure and ultimately lead to more customers coming through your doors. You’ll need a website Before you attempt any sort of Internet marketing you are going to need a website. This shouldn’t be a problem as most businesses nowadays have realized the need to have a website and have already got this step covered. But after investing time and money into a website to represent your business, doesn’t it seem wasteful not to get it in front of your potential customers? That’s where the next step comes in. Try out search engine marketing Millions of people use search engines – Read the full article
Whether your business has 100 followers or 100,000 fans, you’ve probably already realized that your community needs to be cultivated – and monitored – on social media channels weekly, if not daily. Recent news about the Taco Bell class-action lawsuit, which was filed against Taco Bell for “misrepresenting the contents of its beef,” is nothing surprising. I’m sure most customers don’t expect they are eating wholesome, organic meals at Taco Bell. However, it’s not the lawsuit that is interesting here; it is the way that Taco Bell warded off a potential crisis by being proactive and effectual on social media. Taco Bell has already gotten some previous press for their impressive works on Facebook and Twitter; but this is more impressive, and the way they turned this particular misrepresented beef crisis into something positive is a great lesson for Internet marketers as well as for online reputation management professionals. First step: Address the issue A confident and clear message doesn’t – Read the full article
No matter what Facebook says, E-mail is not going to go away. And neither will E-mail marketing: in fact, according to a recent survey, more dollars are expected to be spent by businesses and marketers this 2011 on E-mail campaigns. We certainly hope that some money goes toward studying the anatomy of a great E-mail newsletter. Why? Because E-mail is one way – is still one of the best ways – to effectively capture attention in the age of information overload and short attention spans. Oh, and because 94 percent of all Internet users read E-mail. That’s higher than the percentage of Internet users who turn to search engines to find information. Let’s check out the body parts of a sexy, irresistible E-mail newsletter – the kind that doesn’t go straight to a recipient’s trash folder. Your company name. One of the most common mistakes that E-mail marketers make is the assumption that people will remember who they are. Well, – Read the full article
