Source: cashofthetitans.blogspot.com
1. Offer Solutions to Attract Visitors
Use the site description that appears in your search engine listing or the copy in your Google Adword ads to motivate people to visit your site. The most effective way to do this is to describe the problem your products or services solve.
2. Give Site Visitors A Reason to Contact You
Getting people to your site is the first step, but it doesn't count for much if you aren’t able to convert site visitors into qualified leads. Give your site visitors a reason to contact you (and give you their contact information). Giving something away works for almost every type of business and can work for you, too.
3. Convert Leads Into Paying Clients
Follow-up on a prospect's interest by giving them information that has use and value to their business. Give them reasons to trust you, more information about the problems you solve, and more examples of ways that you can help them as you've helped other clients.
Tune up your web site - or build a new one that gets you where you want to go - with these three steps you'll and attract more and more clients each month.
About the author:
The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Build Leads from Yellow Pages
Source: eGrabber.com
The Internet has many sources of free sales leads that you can use to market your product/ service. Online Directories (like yellowpages.com, superpages.com, whitepages.com), association websites, membership directories, MLS Listings, etc are resources that you can use to gather free business leads and email lists of likely prospects. With ListGrabber you can import business contacts from all of the above sources and enter them into an Excel spreadsheet. Find potential customers for your product or service by marketing to this list, and expand your business.
Use ListGrabber to
The Internet has many sources of free sales leads that you can use to market your product/ service. Online Directories (like yellowpages.com, superpages.com, whitepages.com), association websites, membership directories, MLS Listings, etc are resources that you can use to gather free business leads and email lists of likely prospects. With ListGrabber you can import business contacts from all of the above sources and enter them into an Excel spreadsheet. Find potential customers for your product or service by marketing to this list, and expand your business.
Use ListGrabber to
- Capture name, address, email, phone and fax number, etc of business contacts
- Automatically transfer the captured leads into an Excel spreadsheet database, and thereby
- Build quality mailing lists on your own
Download a 10-day free-trial copy of ListGrabber today
To buy the product, Click HereUse the coupon code "LG20BLG" to get 20% discount on ListGrabber Standard 2009.
Monday, December 22, 2008
7 Simple Ways To Build Traffic To A New Website
Source: SiteProNews.com
Here goes 7 simple tips that you can start implementing to build traffic to your brand new website.
Here goes 7 simple tips that you can start implementing to build traffic to your brand new website.
- Get some quick links from trusted directories
- Start blogging
- Consider Paid Search
- Use Article Marketing To Build Links
- Guest Post At Relevant Blogs
- Submit Your Site to Design Galleries
- Sponsor a Local Event or Charity
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
ListGrabber - Software to build your highly targeted Mailing Lists
ListGrabber Standard - List Building Software
ListGrabber is a list building automation solution. ListGrabber auto-extracts contact information -name, postal address, email, phone, fax, etc -from lists on the Internet such as yellowpages, superpages, white pages, association websites, MLS listings, etc. and enters them into columns in an Excel spreadsheet or to respective fields in a contact manager. Using this tool, you can capture any list from anywhere on the Internet with a single button click. ListGrabber can help you save both time and money by automating the process of building custom prospect lists.
ListGrabber incorporates patented contact capture technology, that has been perfected over many years, to strip out the advertisements and other extraneous information and zero in on the relevant contact details alone. ListGrabber is tuned to work with all popular web sites, directories and listings in USA, UK, Canada and Australia.
To download the fully functional free trial version, Click Here
To buy the product, Click Here
Manufacturer: eGrabber Inc.
Price: $249.95
Use the coupon code "LG20BLG" to get 20% discount on ListGrabber Standard 2009.
How to download email messages using eMail-Lead Grabber
eMail-Lead Grabber automatically downloads lead emails submitted through web forms and 3rd party websites and process them into your contact manager.
How to download email messages using Import Toolbar?
You can download email messages from other email clients using the Import Toolbar.
To launch the Import Toolbar,
Click the Import Toolbar Icon in the eMail-Lead Grabber Toolbar.
[OR]
Click File > Show Import Toolbar.
The Import Toolbar appears as shown below
.
You can select the source from the drop-down list that appears on the left panel.
The options available in this list are:
Selected Text
Text in Clipboard
Windows Explorer
Outlook Express
Outlook
GoldMine
Windows Messaging
Netscape Communicator
If you are using an email client other than the applications listed above, then you can use the Selected Text / Text in Clipboard / Windows Explorer options to download the email messages.
The right panel displays the option Inbox and the templates created.
Select the option Inbox to download the messages to eMail-Lead Grabber Inbox or the template to directly transfer the details from the selected message to selected destination application. You can also find the option to create a template in this drop-down list.
After selecting the source and destination applications, click the Go button in the toolbar.
The selected messages are transferred according to the selected settings.
In the next post lets review "How to customize Import Tool Bar"
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Automate Web Lead Processing to improve "Web Lead Response Time"
InsideSales.com and Omniture conducted a survey to keep track of lead response and nurturing strategies of 700 different companies. The survey found:
● Average email response time: 19 hours, 31 minutes
➔ Optimum response time should be within the first hour
● Average phone response time: 36 hours, 57 minutes
➔ Optimum phone response time should be within the first five minutes
● How many companies even responded?
➔ Only 47.3 percent responded via email, and just 7.5 percent responded via phone!
According to InsideSales.com Web-generated leads decrease effectiveness by over 6x in the first hour. Responding immediately to a web lead is of paramount importance for any marketing or sales professional because you never know which lead would be your prospective customer. As customers always expect a quicker response, prompt follow-up of leads is very vital for any business.
Typically, marketing and sales professionals receive multiple leads on a daily basis. They spend most of the time manually creating lead database, distributing leads and responding to each lead.
Manually keying in the lead information and distributing the leads to the sales person is a cozy mistake because the manual routing of leads results in delayed response to form submissions. And the leads lose its effectiveness in the first few minutes. This manual process should be automated so that the leads are distributed automatically to the appropriate sales person based on the customer profile. This is where eMail-Lead Grabber, a powerful web lead processing software, comes in as a handy tool.
eMail-Lead Grabber is a web lead processing automation solution. eMail-Lead Grabber automatically downloads the email leads from multiple email sources(Pop3,Outlook, Goldmine), captures the form details and transfers them to your lead database. eMail-Lead Grabber can process orders, web inquiries, web response forms or any sorts of forms. eMail-Lead Grabber automates the distribution of web leads to the appropriate sales person. eMail-Lead Grabber also sends personalized auto response emails and automatically schedules a follow-up whenever a prospect fills up an inquiry form on your website.
Use eMail-Lead Grabber to automate the manual web lead processing. Spend more time on closing sales and be more productive like never before. A must have tool for every lead manager to efficiently and effectively attend to lead email management.
To download click here
Also try eMail-Lead Grabber Excel - eMail-Lead Grabber Excel automatically downloads the email leads from multiple email sources(Pop3,Outlook, Goldmine), captures the form details and transfers them to Microsoft Excel.
To download eMail-Lead Grabber Excel follow the link http://www.egrabber.com/emailleadgrabberexcel/trial.html
Monday, December 15, 2008
eMail-Lead Grabber Excel
eMail-Lead Grabber Excel is a web lead processing automation solution. eMail-Lead Grabber Excel automatically extracts the data from lead emails and transfers them to Microsoft Excel.
Features:
Real Time Lead email Processing - Downloads lead emails from multiple email sources [Pop3, Outlook, GoldMine] and process them into Microsoft Excel
Send Auto-Responders - Quickly respond to your customer needs by sending automated emails.
Follow up Instantly - Automatically alerts users of new leads and schedules follow up activities
Distribute Leads - Real time distribution of lead emails among your sales team
To know more, Click here
To download the product, Click here
To buy the product online, Click here
Manufacturer: eGrabber Inc.
Price: $299.95 / year
How Search Engines find a website?
Search Engines send their spiders to visit website that is already in their index and the spiders will follow all the links from that site. This technique is called "crawling." This is how search engines add the new website in the index of their search results.
The next post will be on "How to get listed in Google in 48 hrs".
If you are more curious, then follow this link
The next post will be on "How to get listed in Google in 48 hrs".
If you are more curious, then follow this link
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Can a Blog Replace Cold-Calling?
Source: education58369.blogspot.com
I had a chance to read this blog post titled "Can a Blog replace Cold-Calling?". The post highlighted few points explaining how cold-calling can be replaced with a blog. I m listing down few points from the blog post. These points explain how to leverage the blog to not only Brand self and the company but also to serve as a passive lead generation tool for new prospects.
About the author:
I had a chance to read this blog post titled "Can a Blog replace Cold-Calling?". The post highlighted few points explaining how cold-calling can be replaced with a blog. I m listing down few points from the blog post. These points explain how to leverage the blog to not only Brand self and the company but also to serve as a passive lead generation tool for new prospects.
1. Provide reliable, helpful information. The more info the more trust and credibility you will receive.
2. Provide a sign-up form for newsletter tips. This will help you gather prospect email addresses and contact info that can be used for follow up.
3. Implement Google Analytics, a free Web site traffic reporting tool that will show exactly where your visitors are coming from, what they looked at when they came to your Blog and other helpful details.
4. Implement a Sponsorship program and advertise your best customers' services.
These are just a few of the many ways that Blogs can replace cold-calling to gather information and prospect contact information. When done right the process can be automated, allowing you to spend less time as a prospecting salesperson and more time as a closer.
To read more, Visit education58369.blogspot.comAbout the author:
Jason Murphy is Owner of YourEdgeOnline.com and has spent over 10 years studying and learning what it takes to become a successful Internet Business Executive. He has helped some of the most successful online retailers and most recognized household brand names learn more about eCommerce, mCommerce and technology to help them sell more each day. He has consulted for many of the Internet Retailer's Top 500
He can be reached for consulting advice and Online marketing services via his Web site: http://youredgeonline.com/
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Automate Web Lead Response using eMail-Lead Grabber - Tip #2
How to create Mail Merge Template?
To create a mail merge template, launch the TemplateMaker in any one of the following methods.
Click File > Show Template Maker
[OR]
Right-click the Form Processing Center and select Create Template Advanced Mode
[OR]
Select any email that contains all the form tags, right-click and select Create Template in Advanced Mode.
The TemplateMaker window is displayed.
Click File > New in TemplateMaker. In the Create New Template dialog box, select the Template Type as Email Merge and select your destination from the Contact Manager list.
According to the selected destination, the Link Options dialog box appears and you need to fill in the details. Link Options are used to set up the transfer of information.
For example, if your database requires a user name and password to login, you need to provide the same details in the Link Options to ensure accurate transfer of information.
After you complete the Link Options setup, a blank template appears and you need to enter the pre-defined message in this window.
Click Insert Field Icon to insert the fields from your database in appropriate places.
To insert details from the received message, click Insert > Email and select the appropriate options as follows:
Text: To insert the contents of the received message.
Subject: To include the subject line of the received message.
Date an
d Time: To include the date and time.
Click File > Save and enter a file name to save the template.
For every received message, the Merge Template sends an automatic customized reply.
You need to configure the Mail Merge Template to send email using the template.
How to configure Mail Merge Template to send emails?
In the TemplateMaker, click ‘Process > Email Header’ to make the settings.
Provide the From Address, To Address, CC Address, Subject line as constant value or from database field.
Select Constant Value to provide a static value. Select Field Value to insert values from the selected database field.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Automate Web Lead Response using eMail-Lead Grabber
Responding immediately to a web lead is of paramount importance for any sales professional because you never know which lead would be your prospective customer. As customers always expect a quicker response, prompt follow-up of leads is very vital for any business. Typically, sales professionals receive multiple leads on a daily basis and manually replying to each and every email lead is a tough ask. This is where eMail-Lead Grabber, a powerful email lead processing software, comes in as a handy tool.
With eMail-Lead Grabber, you can automate customer follow-up using the auto-responder feature. You can send auto-response in two methods:
Create Stationery and attach to a filter. Whenever a message passes through the filter, a pre-defined message is sent to the prospect using the Stationery.
Create Mail Merge Template and attach to Email Extract Template. Whenever a message is processed through the Email Extract Template, a pre-defined message is sent to the prospect. Using Mail Merge Template, you can send personalized messages to the recipients.
How to create Stationery?
Whenever you receive an email lead from a prospect, you need to send a response to the message for effective follow-up. Instead of sending these reply messages for every email, you can create stationery with a pre-defined message and link the stationery with the Reply With action in Filter Setup.
Whenever an email message is processed through the filter, the Reply With option sends an automatic response to the message by using the selected Stationery.
Click Tools> Stationery.
In the Stationery dialog box, click Add to create new Stationery.
A new message window is displayed.
The From column automatically displays the email ID you have provided in the Account Setup. If you have created more than one account, you need to select the account from the drop-down list. The response message is sent using the selected account.
In the TO: column, enter the email ID of the recipient. If you are attaching the Stationery to a filter, then the TO: address is automatically detected.
Enter a Subject line.
The checkbox Include Incoming email while responding is selected by default. This option includes the text of the original message while sending the auto response. You can clear this checkbox if you do not want to include the original message.
Use Incoming subject while responding: Select this checkbox to include the subject line of the incoming email in the auto response. The Subject line is disabled when you select this option.
Type your message text and save the Stationery. Click Save and enter a file name to save the Stationery. The Stationery files are saved with the extension .sta
Click Attach to browse and select a document that can be attached to the sent messages. For example, you send your company’s brochure as attachment along with all the responses.
If you want to send an email message
to an individual immediately, enter all the details and click File > Send.
Once you save the Stationery file, the filename appears in the Stationery dialog box.
To modify the details of Stationery, select the appropriate filename and click Edit. To delete a Stationery, select the filename and click Remove.
After creating the required Stationery files, you can attach them to the Reply With action in appropriate filters. Whenever a message is processed by the corresponding filter, an auto response is sent to the sender of the email message by using the selected Stationery.
How to attach Stationery to Filter?
Select the Reply With action in the Filter. Select the Stationery file from the drop-down list.
Whenever a message is processed by the filter, a response is sent to the sender of the message as per the settings you have made in the Stationery file.
Next tip will be on "How to Create a Mail Merge template and attach to email extract template"Thursday, December 4, 2008
What is Your Web Lead Response Time?
Source: ReachForce.com Blog
Insidesales.com conducted a ResponseAudit to test every exhibiting company at Dreamforce, salesforce.com’s user group conference, to see how quickly they would respond to a web lead.
For those that did respond, the average response time was still very slow. “Recent lead response management research from MIT shows the odds of making contact with a Web-based inquiry increases 100 times if attempted within five minutes.”
To read the full story, Visit ReachForce.com Blog
However the research fact shows the significance of Web lead Response Time and its affect on conversion.
Insidesales.com conducted a ResponseAudit to test every exhibiting company at Dreamforce, salesforce.com’s user group conference, to see how quickly they would respond to a web lead.
Here are some interesting stats from the ResponseAudit:
“39.5% of the Dreamforce Sponsors responded by phone with the average response time by phone of 44 hours, 31 minutes, and 8 seconds. Of companies that responded by phone the average phone attempts was 1.14 times. 53.2% of the Dreamforce Sponsors responded by email, with the average response time by email of 13 hours, 14 minutes, and 24 seconds. Of companies that responded email the average email attempts was 1.45.”
Over 37% of companies never responded at all.For those that did respond, the average response time was still very slow. “Recent lead response management research from MIT shows the odds of making contact with a Web-based inquiry increases 100 times if attempted within five minutes.”
To read the full story, Visit ReachForce.com Blog
However the research fact shows the significance of Web lead Response Time and its affect on conversion.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Why SEO is important for your web site?
Source: SEO Workers
What is SEO? It is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. What exactly does SEO do? It is the method of analyzing and constructing individual web pages, as well as entire sites, so that they can be discovered, analyzed, and then indexed by various search engines.
SEO can make the content of your web pages more relevant, more attractive, and more easily read by search engines and their crawling and indexing software.
Why would this be of great importance to you? Would it be important to you if customers were unable to find your telephone number or find the address of your business? I do not think that many businesses could survive for very long in this situation.
This situation could apply to a web site. Can potential customers locate your current web site easily? Traffic to your web site could be extremely low. Potential customers might not even know that your site exists.
"Wait a minute!" you say. "We have a beautiful web site, and we include the web site address in all advertising campaigns. Why would people be unable to find our site?"
Of course, your current customers and persons already acquainted with your business would be likely to find your web site without difficulty. Wouldn't they?
Are you absolutely sure that your advertising has reached enough potential customers? Did you consider that some people simply do not read the newspapers? How about people who didn't get the issue of the magazine where you placed an expensive ad?
Did these people hear the WABC radio broadcast when your commercial aired? Were they watching channel 44 during the news hour? Were they on the direct mail list for which you paid thousands of dollars?
So how about those search engines that everyone uses? Potential customers will type a word or two into the box, hit 'Enter', and immediately find a listing for your company's web site. One more click and you have another visitor. Search engines sure are great, aren't they?
Yes, they certainly are great, and the 'type-and-click' scenario above does happen. More often than not, however, it doesn't happen without a little work. Search Engine Optimization is that work.
To read the complete article, Visit SEO Workers
About this SEO article
This article was written by Dan Johnson, Web Architect & Collective Intellligence Programmer at SEO Workers.
What is SEO? It is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. What exactly does SEO do? It is the method of analyzing and constructing individual web pages, as well as entire sites, so that they can be discovered, analyzed, and then indexed by various search engines.
SEO can make the content of your web pages more relevant, more attractive, and more easily read by search engines and their crawling and indexing software.
Why would this be of great importance to you? Would it be important to you if customers were unable to find your telephone number or find the address of your business? I do not think that many businesses could survive for very long in this situation.
This situation could apply to a web site. Can potential customers locate your current web site easily? Traffic to your web site could be extremely low. Potential customers might not even know that your site exists.
"Wait a minute!" you say. "We have a beautiful web site, and we include the web site address in all advertising campaigns. Why would people be unable to find our site?"
Of course, your current customers and persons already acquainted with your business would be likely to find your web site without difficulty. Wouldn't they?
Are you absolutely sure that your advertising has reached enough potential customers? Did you consider that some people simply do not read the newspapers? How about people who didn't get the issue of the magazine where you placed an expensive ad?
Did these people hear the WABC radio broadcast when your commercial aired? Were they watching channel 44 during the news hour? Were they on the direct mail list for which you paid thousands of dollars?
So how about those search engines that everyone uses? Potential customers will type a word or two into the box, hit 'Enter', and immediately find a listing for your company's web site. One more click and you have another visitor. Search engines sure are great, aren't they?
Yes, they certainly are great, and the 'type-and-click' scenario above does happen. More often than not, however, it doesn't happen without a little work. Search Engine Optimization is that work.
To read the complete article, Visit SEO Workers
About this SEO article
This article was written by Dan Johnson, Web Architect & Collective Intellligence Programmer at SEO Workers.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Should Small Businesses Invest In SEO During A Recession? - SiteProNews.com
Source: SiteProNews.com Newsletters
I read an article titled "Should Small Businesses Invest In SEO During A Recession?" written by Mike Tekula. I have listed down few interesting points from the article...
1. Unparalelled ROI
A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email marketÃng to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
2. Targeted TraffÃc
Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement in a place where you're hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That's great, but the real question is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you're offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what kind of language they're using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them, you're addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you're offering. In short, SEO helps to drive high quality traffic to your website and gets your message in front of the right people at the right time.
3. Precise Tracking
Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it's free. Out of the box, Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities to optimize your marketing budget in real time.
To read the full article visit SiteProNews.com
About the author:
Mike Tekula is the President and Founder of Unstuck Digital, Inc., a Long Island SEO company that provides clients with effective and affordable search engine marketing strategies.
I read an article titled "Should Small Businesses Invest In SEO During A Recession?" written by Mike Tekula. I have listed down few interesting points from the article...
1. Unparalelled ROI
A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email marketÃng to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
2. Targeted TraffÃc
Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement in a place where you're hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That's great, but the real question is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you're offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what kind of language they're using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them, you're addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you're offering. In short, SEO helps to drive high quality traffic to your website and gets your message in front of the right people at the right time.
3. Precise Tracking
Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it's free. Out of the box, Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities to optimize your marketing budget in real time.
To read the full article visit SiteProNews.com
About the author:
Mike Tekula is the President and Founder of Unstuck Digital, Inc., a Long Island SEO company that provides clients with effective and affordable search engine marketing strategies.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Join the Social Media Revolution - SEO Tip #4
The last tip from John Metzler article
The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati provide users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.
However, if your goal is to generate sales, then you must provide something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.
The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Getting your entries and content to the popular pages on these sites requires some hard work. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers about the content you have on these sites. However, don't force your employees to vote your entries up - this is social media fraud. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success naturally.
The four tips are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you're in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.
About the author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati provide users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.
However, if your goal is to generate sales, then you must provide something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.
The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Getting your entries and content to the popular pages on these sites requires some hard work. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers about the content you have on these sites. However, don't force your employees to vote your entries up - this is social media fraud. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success naturally.
The four tips are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you're in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.
About the author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Get Others to Link to Your Site - SEO TIP #3
Here goes the 3rd tip:
In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of ranking well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.
If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of ranking well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.
If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:
- issuing company press releases with a link back to your site
- submittÃng to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
- be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas
- if you have clients with web sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a "partners" section
- participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature
- write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio
- get involved in social media and bookmarking
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Choose Your Keywords Wisely - SEO Beginners Tip #2
Here goes the second tip from John Metzler article
One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profÃts from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profÃts from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tips for SEO Beginners - #1
I recieved a newsletter from SitePro News in July 2008. The newsletter had an article on checklist for SEO Beginner's written by John Metzler. The article had good tips for SEO Beginners. Good Luck Beginners.!
Here goes the tip on creating Search Engine Friendly Content and tomorrow's tip will be on "Choosing Right Keywords"
1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content
Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.
Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Here goes the tip on creating Search Engine Friendly Content and tomorrow's tip will be on "Choosing Right Keywords"
1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content
Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.
Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.
About The Author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly
Monday, November 24, 2008
Why Realtors need a website?
I published a couple of posts explaining the significance of having a website for your online business.
Many realtors run their business offline. However the research and facts show that 85% - 90% of home buyers starts their search online.
Realtors need to have online presence to take advantage of these numbers during economic recession. The key is to create a website with valuable information and content. Optimize your website for search engines to increase your visibility.
Let's take a quick on the topics that will be blogged this week.
Many realtors run their business offline. However the research and facts show that 85% - 90% of home buyers starts their search online.
Realtors need to have online presence to take advantage of these numbers during economic recession. The key is to create a website with valuable information and content. Optimize your website for search engines to increase your visibility.
Let's take a quick on the topics that will be blogged this week.
- Why Search Engine Optimization is important?
- Should small businesses invest in SEO? - Article
- SEO tips and tricks
- SEO resources
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Email-Lead Grabber - A Perfect Tool To Increase Your Conversion Rate Of Online Leads
A recent survey concluded that 90% of all real estate agents don't respond to their online inquiries.
Prospective online clients generally collect information for a potential purchase. They are accustomed to collect information freely but reluctant to provide valid contact information. Because of this many real estate agents get frustrated and they consider online leads as a waste of time.
This is a huge mistake as a Forrester Research shows that “The Realtors who respond promptly to an online inquiry, have 10 times greater chance of signing the prospect as a client.” The startling truth is unless you are constantly following-up on prospects, you are literally throwing away your rolls of money!
Now the problem is how to follow continually-up with interested prospects?
It is not practically possible to call or email every single lead.
Imagine, a simple yet powerful, automated tool that would work for 24 x 7 turning your online prospects into lifelong, loyal customers. Fortunately eGrabber has developed email-Lead Grabber to make your dreams come true.
email-Lead Grabber process the email leads. It automatically downloads email leads submitted through online forms and various 3rd party websites, extracts specified information and transfers it instantly to your contact manager. It also schedules activities and sends auto response emails.
To know more about the product, Click here
For a free trial, Click here
To purchase it online, Click here
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Drive Sales With Effective Online Forms
I came across this article in ezinearticles.com "Drive Sales with Effective Online Forms By Using Just-In-Time Design" written by Jamila Vaughan. I'm just listing down the three tips from the article
Hope this article will be useful!!
Just-In-Time Website Design in Online Forms:To read the full article, Visit ezinearticles.com
1. Handling Form Errors. Many forms on the web are extremely long with many required fields and special formatting requested. When these demands are not met, users get errors and become frustrated. If a field is required, let the user know at that point in the form, on the same line as the form field (not at the beginning or the end of the form). Don't use color coding or asterisks. Who has time to read the fine print to figure it all out? It's better to permit the user to enter less information (only what is actually necessary to process their request) and to allow for spaces, no spaces, and parentheses in account or phone numbers. But if that's not possible, tell the person right where it's relevant. For example: Enter your social security number (Like this: XXX-XX-XXX). Ask your web designer to do dynamic error checking. That way, if the person makes a simple error, the user will be alerted to their immediately at the appropriate location in the form before they go through the trouble of submitting it.
2. Offer your privacy policy when they need it. Do you read privacy policies for pleasure? No. It's usually when you need to establish trust and figure out what on earth a company wants your home phone number and middle name for. When you ask a person for any personal information, you need to prominently link to your privacy policy right there. Let the user know up front that you won't be selling their email address or sending them spam. Even if no one reads it, the link lets them know you care about their privacy and helps ease their mind during the form submission process.
3. Offer registration after you get users' info. You've visited a beautiful website, found an amazing product, and want to quickly buy it before you have to run off to an appointment. Time is tight, and BAM! You are asked to register. You may not plan on revisiting this site, so you don't actually want to register. This is another place where the Just-in-Time design principle comes into play. When a person wants to purchase a product, they should be able to enter their payment information and make the purchase seamlessly. After that is finished, then ask if they would like to register on your website. At that point, you already have their information, and it can automatically be applied to their registration. This is a much simpler, more natural and polite way to solicit registered users and your customers will appreciate you for it. They may even come back to visit your website.
These were just three common places where your online forms can be improved. There are dozens of places where this principle could be applied in online forms in order to improve the user experience and to drive sales.
Hope this article will be useful!!
Do-It-YourSelf Website CheckList
1. Show the products/services you have to sell
A recent statistic has shown that around 20 million people worldwide use the internet for shopping of various items like airline tickets, vacation homes, groceries, etc. Create pages for the product/service you sell. If you sell multiple products clearly categorize the products. Visitors should easily find your online store.
2. Create a professional website
Create a professional website to make your visitors feel your business look reliable. Dont create a graphic heavy website. Graphics take much time to load causing visitors to leave your site.
3. Easy navigation
Navigation is very important. Visitors must be able to find what they search for quickly and easily.
4. Contact Page/Form
Customers should easily know your contact information before making any decision. Include "Contact Us" button in the footer of every page. Create a "Contact Us" page that clearly lists your contact details such as business name, email address, phone, fax etc.,
5. Inquiry/Feedback form
Create a inquiry/feedback form and link it from home page. This will allow customers to write and ask what they think about your products/services.
A recent statistic has shown that around 20 million people worldwide use the internet for shopping of various items like airline tickets, vacation homes, groceries, etc. Create pages for the product/service you sell. If you sell multiple products clearly categorize the products. Visitors should easily find your online store.
2. Create a professional website
Create a professional website to make your visitors feel your business look reliable. Dont create a graphic heavy website. Graphics take much time to load causing visitors to leave your site.
3. Easy navigation
Navigation is very important. Visitors must be able to find what they search for quickly and easily.
4. Contact Page/Form
Customers should easily know your contact information before making any decision. Include "Contact Us" button in the footer of every page. Create a "Contact Us" page that clearly lists your contact details such as business name, email address, phone, fax etc.,
5. Inquiry/Feedback form
Create a inquiry/feedback form and link it from home page. This will allow customers to write and ask what they think about your products/services.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Why businesses need Online Presence?
A recent statistic has shown that around 20 million people worldwide use the internet for shopping of various items like airline tickets, vacation homes, groceries, etc. Business marketers need to harness the Internet to create faster, cheaper and contact with their customers and prospects.
For savvy business marketers, internet marketing makes a lot of sense. By creating a website, you can show the products and services you offer. Having your own website helps you to reach your customers fast. You can set up your own affiliate programs with multiple businesses.
Marketers can sell products and services directly by creating a page about their product/service and setting up payment processors like Pay Pal and Google Checkout. Regardless of what type of product/service you market, if you want to expand your customer base, online presence is the way to go.
For savvy business marketers, internet marketing makes a lot of sense. By creating a website, you can show the products and services you offer. Having your own website helps you to reach your customers fast. You can set up your own affiliate programs with multiple businesses.
Marketers can sell products and services directly by creating a page about their product/service and setting up payment processors like Pay Pal and Google Checkout. Regardless of what type of product/service you market, if you want to expand your customer base, online presence is the way to go.
Key Features of the Best Website Building Programs
The article titled " Key Features of the Best Website Building Programs" written by James Schramko will help beginners to evaluate the free website building programs. The article explains how to choose the right program based on the key features.
Here goes the article Key Features of the Best Website Building Programs
Here goes the article Key Features of the Best Website Building Programs
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
WebClickGo - free website creation software
WebClickGo allows you to create personal or business websites in minutes. WebClickGo includes hosting service. However they have closed the free membership. Paid Subscription membership - only £2.00 / €3.00 per month paid yearly (only £24 / €36 PA)
To know more about WebClickGo, click here
To know more about WebClickGo, click here
Monday, November 17, 2008
e(Internet) Marketing - Definition & Strategies
Wikipedia definition: Internet marketing, also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.
Internet marketing helps you to reach your target market quickly and it save cost and increases productivity. Internet marketing generates traffic to the website and increases your visibility which is important for any business to improve the sales.
Internet marketing strategy involves
Internet marketing helps you to reach your target market quickly and it save cost and increases productivity. Internet marketing generates traffic to the website and increases your visibility which is important for any business to improve the sales.
Internet marketing strategy involves
- Creating a web site to market your product/service
- Optimizing the website to get ranked in major search engines
- Publishing articles about your product/service
- Publishing online press releases
- Blogging about your product/service
- Starting affiliate, reseller and associate programs
Top 50 Article Directories By Page Rank
| S.No | URL | PR |
| 1 | ezinearticles.com | 6 |
| 2 | ArticlesBase.com | 5 |
| 3 | buzzle.com | 6 |
| 4 | pubs.acs.org/hotartcl | 7 |
| 5 | searchwarp.com | 4 |
| 6 | articlealley.com | 5 |
| 7 | articleset.com | 3 |
| 8 | goarticles.com | 6 |
| 9 | articlesnatch.com | 2 |
| 10 | web-source.net | 5 |
| 11 | articledashboard.com | 6 |
| 12 | articlegarden.com | 4 |
| 13 | articlesfactory.com | 5 |
| 14 | amazines.com | 3 |
| 15 | upublish.info | 4 |
| 16 | webpronews.com | 6 |
| 17 | articlecodex.com | 3 |
| 18 | isnare.com | 4 |
| 19 | ideamarketers.com | 3 |
| 20 | article-buzz.com | 3 |
| 21 | articleblotter.com | 0 |
| 22 | article99.com | 4 |
| 23 | 365articles.com | 0 |
| 24 | free-articles-zone.com | 4 |
| 25 | a1articles.com | 4 |
| 26 | acmearticles.com | 0 |
| 27 | excellentguide.com/article/ | 0 |
| 28 | articlecity.com | 6 |
| 29 | affsphere.com | 3 |
| 30 | articleworld.net | 3 |
| 31 | ezine-writer.com.au | 3 |
| 32 | submityourarticle.com | 2 |
| 33 | articlemaniac.com | 4 |
| 34 | articlebliss.com | 0 |
| 35 | thecontentcorner.com | 2 |
| 36 | site-reference.com | 5 |
| 37 | ultimatearticledirectory.com | 3 |
| 38 | rightarticle.com | 3 |
| 39 | articlehub.com | 0 |
| 40 | dime-co.com | 4 |
| 41 | articlepool.com | 6 |
| 42 | articlecube.com | 5 |
| 43 | linksnoop.com | 3 |
| 44 | internethomebusinessarticles.com | 3 |
| 45 | therealarticles.com | 0 |
| 46 | magportal.com | 7 |
| 47 | valuablecontent.com | 4 |
| 48 | articlewisdom.com | 3 |
| 49 | freesticky.com | 5 |
| 50 | articletogo.com | 2 |
Source: vretoolbar.com
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Use Article Marketing to advertise your business
Article Marketing is a form of advertising. You have to write articles on niche topics closely related to your business and then submit those articles to article submission sites.
Article Submission sites has a "bio box" at the end of the article. In this secion you can write about yourself, your business and you can also include link back to your website.
When you write articles your web site benefits gains relevant traffic. Website's page rank will improve due to the increasing number of back links(links from article submission websites).
Article Submission sites has a "bio box" at the end of the article. In this secion you can write about yourself, your business and you can also include link back to your website.
When you write articles your web site benefits gains relevant traffic. Website's page rank will improve due to the increasing number of back links(links from article submission websites).
Monday, May 19, 2008
Software to import sales leads from the Internet into Excel
This software is useful for sales and marketing professionals who generate leads from the Internet to build their lead list.
ListGrabber automatically capture the contacts, physical addresses, email addresses, phone numbers from YellowPages, SuperPages, Online directories, etc. and imports it directly into Excel. The software is fast, automated and user-friendly.
Product Details:
Manufacturer: eGrabber Inc
Version: 2008
Price Details:
Version License - $249.95
To download the free trial version of ListGrabber Standard, Click Here.
About eGrabber Inc:
eGrabber is headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA. Found in 1997, eGrabber is a developer of software products providing solutions for Lead Management and e-Business. eGrabber tools enable sales and recruiting professionals to quickly capture and process Internet sales leads & resumes.
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