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7 Social Media Marketing Tasks You Can Outsource

By Donna Gunter in Featured

Social networking can take up more time than you realize. You’re online checking your Facebook status updates, and suddenly an hour has passed before you know it. Is there any way to authentically outsource your social networking so that this marketing activity doesn’t become another drain on your already too-full schedule?

The answer is both yes and no. The nature of social networking is to connect and create bonds with others. So, it would stand to reason that it would be difficult to outsource your personality. And, of course, anyone that you hire to help you with this doesn’t know the people that you know nor does she have your depth and breadth of knowledge.

Given that, what are the kinds of tasks that you CANNOT delegate in social media marketing? These would include:

a. Replying to personal messages on Facebook or Linkedin or responding to direct messages (DMs) on Twitter .

b. Responding to @ replies on Twitter.

c. Giving recommendations on Linkedin.

d. Making daily conversational connections with your followers/friends/contacts and responding to their status updates.

However, there are a number of tasks that you can easily delegate to an assistant, provided that you give her guidelines to follow. Here are the 7 most effective social media marketing tasks you can outsource:

1. Prescheduled Marketing Tips or Quotes

If you use a social networking management tool like Hootsuite, you can write a series of useful tips for your target market or a series of quotes and have your assistant schedule those to be posted on your behalf over a period of several weeks. Depending on your assistant’s knowledge of your business and writing skill, she may be able to draft these tips for you, and then you can edit them and return those to her for scheduling.

2. Inviting Friends and Followers to Events

If you’re planning a meeting or a teleseminar or product launch, your assistant can enter that information into both Linkedin and Facebook and invite your friends and followers to that event. You may need to write the copy for the event, however, unless your assistant does copywriting for you. And, you can ask your assistant to draft a series of 10-20 140-character promotional Tweets that you edit and approve.
Your assistant can then schedule those to go out over a specified period to promote your event.

3. Responding to Event Requests, Fan Pages, Gifts and Spam

I am inundated with invites to events. Ask your assistant to screen those and delete all but those in which you might be interested, and then you can respond to those appropriately. Provide your assistant with instructions on which fan pages you want to “like”, as well as what Facebook “gifts” you want to receive. All the Facebook gifting annoys me, and I know that many times accepting these gifts opens your account up to be hacked, so I routinely delete all drinks, flowers, etc. sent my way. Ask your assistant to delete spammy direct messages in Twitter and Facebook, as well.

4. Approving Friend and Connection Requests

Outline your friend acceptance policy for Facebook and LinkedIn. In Facebook, you may have your friends segmented into groups, so you’ll need to describe who goes into those groups. If you have a followup strategy that you employ upon accepting a friend/connection, you’ll need to document that process, as well. Once you have shared these processes with your assistant, she should be able to accept friend
and connection requests on your behalf and follow up accordingly.

5. Sending Birthday Greetings

Facebook notifies you of your friends’ upcoming birthdays. Create a birthday greeting message to send to those folks, and add a video to the greeting as well. My assistant checks for birthday notifications daily and sends out the Beatles birthday song video with my birthday greeting.

6. Adding Members of Your Target Market

You need to outline clear guidelines and criteria about the characteristics of your target market and where they can be found. Your assistant can then go out and search for these folks and send out friend/contact requests accordingly.

7. Setup of Automated Social Networking

There are a number of social networking tasks that can be easily automated. For example, your WordPress or Typepad blog can be set up to automatically post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn each time you submit a blog post. If you use aWeber for email marketing, each of your ezines can be set to be sent automatically to all of your social networking contacts. If you submit articles to EzineArticles.com, your account can be linked to your Twitter profile so that each accepted article is also posted to Twitter. If you submit slidecasts to Slideshare or documents to Scribd, you can set up your account to share those on your social networks, as well.

Bonus tip for LinkedIn users: Screening of questions at LinkedIn Answers. Talk to your assistant about the kinds of questions you are able to answer from LinkedIn Answers. Have her review questions in your area of expertise and flag those you should answer.

Social networking doesn’t have to be a big time drain. Set up criteria and guidelines so that your assistant can take many of the tasks off of your hands, which will let you concentrate on making valuable connections and getting to better know your followers and friends.

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Internet Marketing Coach Donna Gunter helps professional service businesses stop the client chase and create online businesses that drive clients to them. Want to learn specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your online visibility in this
free ebook, Turbocharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid – A SPN Exclusive Article

By David Dungan in Featured

When you’re starting off in SEO there’s a lot of conflicting information about what to do and what not to do. There’s a constant battle between White Hat and Black Hat and which is more effective.

It’s pretty easy to get frustrated at how long it actually takes to achieve a decent ranking. This can lead to taking the wrong advice. I learned by trial and error the SEO mistakes listed below.

Here are some rules to follow if you DO NOT want your site to rank in search engines.

1. Build a Flash Only Website

The days of Flash only websites are probably behind us (thank God). Having said this, as a web developer it’s amazing how often I’m asked, ‘Does that include Flash?’

Search engines cannot read content embedded in Flash files so you shouldn’t use Flash to build websites. It’s perfectly all right to have a flash feature box or slideshow or something like that so long as the rest of your site is built with HTML.

The Seven Deadly SEO Sins – A SEO-News Exclusive Article

By Nick Stamoulis in Featured

When compared to its offline marketing counterparts (things like PR, promotions and advertising), SEO has a pretty negative reputation. Many consumers hear “SEO” and think to themselves “Oh yes, that’s when companies flood my inbox with junk mail and pepper my screen in pop-up ads.” Others see SEO as an attempt to game the system and spin the search results.

Even though SEO has been around for long time (pretty much as long as there have been search engines), the industry as a whole still has a bad reputation. This is mainly because of the actions of a few SEO spammers and black hat practitioners. They are the ones who are actively trying to manipulate the search engines and they are the ones that send you e-mails in the middle of the night with subject lines like “A weight loss program that lets you eat cheeseburgers and pizza? It’s true!”

As a site owner, you never want to have your brand lumped in with these SEO con men, even if you didn’t mean to engage in black hat SEO. That is why it is important to avoid the following SEO sins:

1. Low-Quality Content

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the last few months, you know that the Google Panda update cracked down hard on numerous “content farms” that churned out thousands of low-quality, spammy articles. The update also took on regular sites with a lot of duplicate, low-quality content. Content marketing is one of the most important elements of online marketing success. Poor content won’t get you anything other than a search engine penalty.

Online Defamation and The Communications Decency Act – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Richard B Newman in Featured

Online defamation and reclaiming personal and professional reputation are hot-button issues these days. Numerous potential claims are available for use against the poster of an unlawful publication, such as defamation, unlawful publication of photographs, harassment, and trade libel. However, from the perspective of the individual who feels as though they have been victimized, it is the website itself that facilitated and caused the harm. In fact, it is the website itself that, more often than not, permits the unbridled dissemination of harmful content and then actually profits from the spiteful conduct.

What liability does the owner or operator of the website itself face? Much to the dismay of those who wish to pursue the website operator the answer is, more often than not, none.

Pursuant to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (the “CDA”), website owners are shielded from claims that seek to treat them as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another information content provider. Specifically, the CDA, at 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(1), states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The immunity is limited to providers or users of interactive computer services, and the claims must treat the services as having acted as the publisher or speaker of information provided by someone else.

However there are narrow exceptions to the broad immunity granted to website owners. For example, a website owner may lose CDA immunity if it ceases acting as a mere passive conduit and takes an active role in creating, screening, and/or editing the unlawful content. Despite the broad CDA immunity bestowed upon website operators, such protection also does not apply to intellectual property related claims, such as copyright, trademark, or patent infringement.

These narrow exceptions aside, website operators are not liable for the content posted by its users. In fact, numerous “consumer gripe sites” routinely refuse to comply with court orders that mandate the poster to remove unlawful content. These websites take the position that posters are intimidated into removing content and that the proper response is to merely post a reply. Ultimately, these website operators use the CDA and other legal precedents as a shield, arguing that they are not “information content providers,” have not aided or abetted a defendant, and that no rule requires them to remove content – and so they will not. Refusals such as these have resulted in a number of lawsuits. In short, even when a plaintiff that properly files a suit against a poster of unlawful speech and secures an injunction requiring the third-party poster to remove the defamatory statements, a website operator can refuse to remove the unlawful content. While most websites value their credibility and often remove defamatory or otherwise unlawful content, others do not.

Recently, courts analyzing progressive issues surrounding Internet defamation and online commerce have started to show some signs of splitting on key procedural issues under the CDA. Some Internet defamation lawyers take the position that Section 230, 47 U.S.C. §230, is one of the most important tools interactive services have at their disposal to shield against lawsuits involving content posted on their websites. They believe that the CDA was designed to facilitate the free flow of information online, by alleviating service providers’ liability concerns about large volumes of user-generated content, which they may lack the means or interest to screen and edit. Could disagreement among federal appellate courts about how closely they should be examining interactive services’ business practices and website design features signal a step backward in terms of legal protections for online intermediaries? Could it create disincentive for companies to make their websites more useful, and ultimately hamper innovation?

Courts are clearly beginning to pay attention to how a website is structured. So, while there are splits among the courts regarding how claims against intermediaries are treated, website operators are well advised to develop products to the lowest threshold.

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Richard B. Newman is an Internet Defamation Attorney at Hinch Newman LLP. He can be contacted at rnewman@hinchnewman.com

10 Ways to Enhance Your LinkedIn Profile

By Terri Seymour in Featured

Social media sites are more popular than ever and with over 100 million users LinkedIn is in the top five most popular. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and is an extremely resourceful tool for job hunters, recruiters, business owners, etc. Once you sign up for a LinkedIn account, you must create your professional profile. The more effective your profile, the more professionals can find you and connect with you.

Below are ten things you can do to enhance your profile so it is the most effective it can be in building your network of connections.

1. Complete the Profile – This is very important in that you do not want a half-done, unprofessional profile. This will not accomplish much in the way of building your network of connections. Complete each section, completely and professionally to make the most of your online professional identity. According to LinkedIn, you are 40% more likely to be found in a LinkedIn search with a 100% completed profile as opposed to one that is not completely finished.

2. Always Use a Photo – There are many people who do not want to use photos for various reasons, but you need to post a photo on your LinkedIn profile to get more results. You do not have to have a professionally taken photo, but you do want it to look professional. People will be more likely to remember your profile, if you present a photo of yourself. Photos can also increase the chances of people trusting you.

3. Use a Persuasive Headline – Don’t just plaster your name and title as your profile headline. Add a short slogan or benefit you provide. Compare the two headlines below and decide which one would capture your interest more.

Jane Doe
Virtual Assistant

Jane Doe
Virtual Assistant – I will free up your time and grow your business.

You don’t even have to add your title, you can just stress the benefits you provide or the skills you possess. Use something that makes you the one to choose.

4. List Your Websites – Be sure to add your URL and/or blog to your profile. You can add up to three urls. Customize the tiles of your links as opposed to My Site, My Blog, etc. You can do this by choosing the “Other” category in the Edit Profile section.

5. Get Recommendations – Having people give you recommendations will increase your chances of being found as well as give people more reason to choose you and/or your business or connect with you. You can ask people who have worked with you or past customers for recommendations. If they like your work/service, they will be glad to give a testimonial. You can also trade with people you would recommend but always remember, your reputation is on the line every time you recommend someone, so don’t ask random people to trade recommendations.

6. Video Presentation – Add a video presentation to your profile highlighting your skills, services, products, etc. You can do this by going to Google Presentations under “More” in the toolbar at the top of your profile page. Click on More Applications… then scroll down to Google Presentations. Add the Application and follow the directions on creating your presentation. Be sure to check out the other apps as well for a more productive profile.

7. Experience and Skills – Be sure to list all your experience and skills using relevant keywords. Be thorough, precise and complete when describing your skills and your experience. Be sure to be grammatically correct and proofread every sentence.

8. Professional Summary and Specialties – When writing your summary, let people know what you are about and what you can do for them. Use short precise paragraphs. Get to the point and be convincing. List your Specialties so they are much easier to read and capture attention quicker.

9. Keep Active – Do NOT fill out your profile and never come back. You need to keep updating regularly and be active on your profile. Get involved with LinkedIn and become a participant. Nobody wants to connect with a dead page!

10. Join Relevant Groups – Joining groups is one way to stay active and become involved with other LinkedIn users and professionals. Participate in the discussions and offer help, advice, support whenever you can.

When joining networking sites such as LinkedIn, you have to take the time to create productive profiles and pages. Put the time and effort into all the above enhancements and your LinkedIn profile will be much more effective.

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Terri Seymour has over twelve years of online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site for resources, $1 and $2 resell ebooks & software, informative articles authored by Terri Seymour, and affiliate programs. Sign up for the RSS Feed for a free business ebook with MRR. http://www.SeymourProducts.com

How To Rank #1 on the Major Search Engines – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Anthony Godley in Featured

Having a Web site that gets found in Google isn’t hard to do, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are ten tips to get you started.

1. Start out slowly. If possible, begin with a new site that has never been submitted to the search engines or directories.
Choose an appropriate domain name, and start out by optimizing just the home page.

2. Learn basic HTML. Many search engine optimization techniques involve editing the behind the scenes HTML code. Your high rankings can depend on knowing which codes are necessary, and which aren’t.

3. Choose keywords wisely. The keywords you think might be perfect for your site may not be what people are actually searching for. To find the optimal keywords for your site, use tools such as WordTracker. Choose two or three highly targeted phrases for each page of your site. Never shoot for general keywords such as “travel” or “vacation.”

4. Write at least 200 – 250 words of visible text copy based on your chosen keywords. This is a crucial component to high rankings and a successful Web site. The search engines need to “read” keyword rich copy on your pages so they can successfully classify your site. Use each keyword phrase numerous times within your copy for best results.

5. Create a killer Title tag. HTML title tags are critical because they’re given a lot of weight with all of the search engines. You must put your keywords into this tag and not waste space with extra words. Do not use the Title tag to display your company name or to say “Home Page.” Think of it more as a “Title Keyword Tag” and create it accordingly. Add your company name to the end of this tag, if you must use it.

6. Create Meaty Meta tags. Meta tags can be valuable, but they are not a magic bullet. Create a Meta Description tag that uses your keywords and also describes your site. The information in this tag often appears under your Title in the search engine results pages.

The Meta Keyword tag isn’t quite as important as the Meta Description tag. Contrary to popular belief, what you place in the keyword tag will have very little bearing on what keywords your site is actually found under, and it’s not given any consideration whatsoever by Google. Use this tag, but do not obsess over it.

7. Use extra “goodies” to boost rankings. Things like headlines, image alt tags, header tags (H1, H2), etc., links from other pages, keywords in file names, and keywords in hyperlinks can cumulatively boost search engine rankings. Use any or all of these where they make sense for your site.

8. Be careful when submitting to directories such as Yahoo and the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). Having directory listings are a key component to getting your site spidered and listed by Google. Making mistakes in the submission process could cost you dearly as directory listings are difficult to change later in the game. Therefore, it’s important to read Yahoo’s How to Suggest Your Site and How to add a site to the Open Directory before submitting.

9. Don’t expect quick results. Getting high rankings takes time; there’s no getting around that fact. Once your site is added to a search engine or directory, its ranking may start out low and then slowly work its way up the ladder. Some search engines measure “click-through popularity,” i.e., the more people that click on a particular site, the higher its ranking will go. Be patient and give your site time to mature.

10. Don’t constantly “tweak” your site for better results. It’s best not to make changes to your optimization for at least three-to-six months after submission. It often takes the engines at least that long to add your optimized pages to their databases. Submit it, and then forget about it for a while!

If you’ve followed these tips and still can’t find your site in the engines, the first place to “tweak” would be your page copy. If you added less than 250 words of visible text on your pages, this is probably your culprit. Also, double check your keyword density, and make sure that you only targeted two or three phrases per page. Eventually, you’ll see the fruits of your labor with many top ten rankings in Google and the rest of the search engines!

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Anthony is the CEO of well respected Reputation Management and Public Relations Agency, KPRS Media. At KPRS Media we understand the importance of Social Media and Web2.0 but more importantly we have the experience to integrate highly visible and successful Social Media Networks into your business or personal marketing strategy. Contact us today for a chat on what we can do to help your business: info@kprsmedia.com.

YouTube Spits in the Face of Its Users By Refusing to Address Their False Flagging Problem

By Devon Brown in Featured

Go to Google. Do a search for “YouTube False Flagging” or “YouTube False Flagging Problem”. It won’t take you long to find scores of individuals who have been affected by this issue.

You see, YouTube is a community of users who post and share videos. As with any community (especially communities of the Social Media/Web 2.0 variety), there are inherent rules put in place to serve the best interest of the community. YouTube refers to these rules as “Community Guidelines”. Examples of community guidelines may include things like: no pornography, no hate speech, no commenting excessively on the videos of others for the sheer purpose of advertising your webpage, no spamming, no videos making threats, no predatory behavior/bullying, etc.

When one community member sees another community member who is breaking these rules (or, if a YouTube admin feels like the rules have been broken) then the video that has committed the “crime” is flagged. Once your video has been flagged you receive a warning. If it happens again, (within a 6 month period of time) you’re banned from putting up videos for a period of time (usually 2 weeks). If it happens a third time, your account gets shut down.

At face value, this is a sound idea designed to help contribute to the overall well being of the community. But what happens when a video is flagged that has NOT broken the rules of the community? This is what is known as False Flagging and it happens all the time.

Let me say that again. FALSE FLAGGING is when a video has NOT broken any rules, but still gets flagged; and the owner of the video gets a strike against their account, even though they’ve done nothing wrong. This might happen because some moron doesn’t like your video so they decided to flag it (this happens a lot with religious/political videos that people just don’t agree with). Or, maybe it’s your competition and they’re going around flagging all of the videos that compete with their video. Or maybe someone falsely accuses you of copyright infringement under what’s known as the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), or maybe you just caught someone on a bad day and your video was flagged just for the sake of being flagged. Whatever the reason, the FACT is that you did nothing wrong, but your video got flagged and now your account has a strike against it.

And guess what – there’s pretty much NOTHING you can do about it!

Now, you may not think this is such a big deal, but for people like me who have spent YEARS building a channel that has literally hundreds of videos, hundreds of subscribers, thousands of friends, and tens of thousands of views – it represents YEARS of effort being wiped away with the push of a button.

My problem with the whole false flagging thing is not only with the idiots who go around false flagging people’s videos – although they DO deserve blame, the fact of the matter is that jerks will be jerks and there are WAY too many of them to catch – but also also with YouTube for not providing a way to allow legitimate rebuttals/appeals of false flagging AND with not penalizing individuals who are caught false flagging so as to dissuade them from doing it anymore.

(Q.) But Devon, can’t you just contact YouTube and ask them why the video was flagged?

(A.) Nope – I mean, you can try – but they will NOT talk to you. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, give them a ring and see if you get through. Here’s YouTube’s phone number: 1-650-253-0000 (remember, they’re owned by Google so that’s how they’ll answer the phone)

(Q.) So you’re telling me that I can’t appeal the flagging?

(A.) Go ahead, give it a shot. Submit an appeal after they’ve flagged you and see if you get a response

(Q.) What about emailing customer support and explaining to them that your video is clearly NOT in conflict with their community guidelines?

(A.) Go ahead e-mail them and see what kind of response you get support@youtube.com – copyright@youtube.com – web@youtube.com

And while you’re at it you can go here and ask them about it on their forum http://bit.ly/iroGd2

And then you can go here and try to submit a support ticket – http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=tou

After you’ve exhausted yourself trying to figure out why YouTube refuses to help the very people who make their site what it is; you may then ask yourself – “but what about the really elite people who have been on YouTube for years and have a bazillion views, friends, and subscribers?”

Well, there’s no course of action for them either. How do I know? Simple, because I’m one of them. And while I don’t have a “bazillion” video views, my 200+ videos, 700+ subscribers, 1,400+ friends, and 100,000+ video views are good enough to put my channel in the top 20% of YouTube channels and good enough for YouTube to give me “partner” status (which allows me to upload videos longer than 15 minutes and place advertisements on my videos if I want to). And over the past 2 months my channel (http://YouTube.com/renegadesuccess ) has received 2 different flags. One more, and all of the work I’ve put into my channel since 2009 gets wiped out!

Why have my videos been flagged? I don’t know – no one will tell me. Here’s the answer I got when I called YouTube to discuss the matter

YT Chick: Sir, there’s no one here that you can talk to, but I can direct you to the website that shows our community guidelines

(Q.) But Devon, I checked out your YouTube channel and you’re clearly in the “Home Business” industry. Isn’t that industry bad and full of scammers?

(A.) LOL, did you just paint an entire industry with one broad brush stroke and lump everyone together? That’s like saying “Aren’t all videos put up by liberals simply designed to help the government takeover and destroy capitalism?” Or, “Aren’t all videos by conservatives just designed to crap on Non-Christians and poor people?” Besides, the question is not “Do you like my industry and/or agree with my point of view?” The question is “Does the video meet the community guidelines?” If the answer to the 2nd question is YES, then there is no need for the video to be flagged.

My suggestion is simply this: If for some reason a video is flagged (and a strike placed against the video owner’s account) then YouTube should provide its users a legitimate way to dispute the malicious false flagging, AND/OR explain to the video owner WHY they were flagged so that they know not to do it again. The funny thing is that if YouTube were to simply say “here’s how to fix it” the VAST majority of us would willingly comply!

But they don’t.

YouTube would rather ignore the problem and hide from their users. As of the time of this writing, I’ve had to make back ups of ALL of my videos and start using Viddler.com to host videos for people to watch when they visit my blog. And while I realize that in the eyes of YouTube/Google; that I’m just a little ant, and that they could care less whether I use their service or not. The fact of the matter is that “little ants” like me are the ones who make up their community; and they owe it to their community of users to at least address an issue when it arises.

What YouTube needs to understand is that when false flagging occurs (and accounts get shut down), it’s not only hurting the owner of the particular video/account that got in trouble; it’s also hurting the thousands of individuals who enjoy watching videos from the person who created that account/channel.

A former YouTube insider told me that while he was working for YouTube, he was trained to NOT help any users who had a problem. So, needless to say, the only way YouTube will pay attention is if enough of us start to make some noise about it.

Hopefully my little article sheds some light on the situation. The sad part is that Google/YouTube have MORE than enough money to hire the small group of people it would take to oversee this problem.

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Devon Brown – Internet Marketing Consultant, Speaker and Mentor. Business Entrepreneur, World Traveler and all around Fun Guy.
http://RenegadeSuccess.com/youtube-false-flagging

Dissection of a Twitter Account: 10 Ways I’ve Used Twitter This Month

By Jill Whalen in Featured

Twitter

A few weeks ago I learned that I was chosen as one of the “Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter” by David Vogelpohl over at Marketing Pilgrim. (I’d like to thank my family, my 2nd grade teacher…)

While it was cool to be chosen, more interesting to me was how David characterized my Twitter account: “…an engaging Twitter feed where she makes the most of interacting with other Twitter users…With enough quips to make her feed personal and interesting, she maintains a mostly serious and professional Twitter persona.”

That does seem to sum up my Twitter existence, although I had to laugh at the serious and professional description, since I sometimes tweet some crazy stuff! On the other hand, I agree that the mix of personal and professional is a large part of the appeal of my Twitter account. In fact I think it’s key to nearly any good Twitter account. For more on that, Lisa Barone (also on the top 25 list) just wrote a great article: “The Myth of ‘Professional’ Twitter Accounts,” with which I agree 100% (see my comments over there).

Is Facebook Over for Business?

By Jerry Bader in Featured

Has Facebook shot its business bolt? Facebook was always just an IPO play that exploded on the scene with such force that business felt it just had to get on board, but maybe business leaders with their myopic perspective have just been conned by the biggest marketing boondoggle of all time. Sure the marketing carpetbaggers have helped promote the FB scene to unsuspecting business neophytes in the naïve hope of them catching the marketing brass ring, but the FB party as far as business is concerned may just be winding down.

Online Media Daily’s “Around the Net’ tells us that ‘Inside Facebook’ is reporting lower monthly growth rates. It also reports that FB lost 6 million users in May. Perhaps it’s a blip but ‘Business Insider’ comments, “…big drops in the countries where Facebook first became popular can’t be good news… It suggests that there is a saturation point where people begin to burn out on the service.”

Perhaps it’s time to take a sober second look and get back to basics before FB completely takes over your marketing efforts to the detriment of your brand and the dilution of your Web marketing presence.

Jerry Bader
MRPwebmedia
Tel: (905) 764-1246
info@mrpwebmedia.com

http://www.mrpwebmedia.com

http://www.136words.com

http://www.sonicpersonality.com

http://www.cacheclosed.com

How To Use Google Adwords To Get Laser Targeted Traffic

By Toby Russell in Featured

We all know that Traffic is what it’s all about if you want to make money on line. Naturally every site is trying to get as much traffic as possible, but its not just size but also the quality and targeted nature of traffic that’s also vitally important. This is where the ability to ‘market’ your site through the medium of the ‘internet’ comes in, hence the term Internet marketing. Websites must be seen and read, that’s a given. You can spend tons of money and all of your time making the most beautiful, useful and informative site on the web, and without traffic it will get you nowhere.

Each person that visits your site is a potential customer for the products or services that you’re offering, but for many of we internet marketers the primary function is to entice visitors to join our ‘list’ this offers the ability to market to them many times into the future. Some sites fail because they don’t get traffic or don’t get the right kind of traffic; but many sites have risen to the top by focusing on the specific needs of their niches or sub-niches.

The point is not just to get random traffic, but also to get the people who will actually buy from you. Sites work hard to target certain groups for this reason. It’s important to do precision marketing through keyword research to get the right kind of traffic to your site.

It Takes Money To Make Money?

To a degree this is true but as with all things it’s a case of size and in many instances initially spending a little but in a very focused and targeted manner can produce very worthwhile results

One of the greatest areas you can invest in is advertising. The right kind of advertising can get you a massive flow of traffic that you can use. Even if you only get a small percentage of sales from your traffic, more traffic will mean more cash, but also create increased awareness to your site. Bear in mind statistics show most visitors do not buy on first visit; indications are it takes at least 3 or 4 visits to establish the confidence to buy.

For on line advertising you need to be trying Google Adwords. It’s simple, straightforward and undoubtedly works as you can target specific keywords that you believe people within your niche are searching for.

The way it works is that you pay Google according to how many clicks (hence its called pay per click or PPC advertising) you ad receives. So in simple terms, a visitor to Google types in ‘how to stop smoking?’ if they then see your ad for ‘stop smoking course’ and click on it Google charge you for that click Your ads could be right there on the first page, it just depends how competitive your niche and the keywords you have chosen

Pay Per Click Better Known as PPC Advertising

This is a great method for getting your message in front of the right people. It also makes sure that you’re have a good opportunity of getting on the first page of their search. It takes a little money, but it ensures that your potential customers will see you. You target them, and they head to your site to see what you have to offer. Bear in mind by setting a daily budget, once you have received clicks to the value of that budget Google don’t run your ads anymore that day – the advantage is you can’t go over your budget – you know what your costs are and the following day Google reinstate your ads and so it goes on.

You can also cancel or pause a campaign at any time – you’re always in control.

Other search engines have their own similar systems. Sites like Ask Jeeves, AOL Search, Yahoo and Bing also have their own ad systems. They have ads that respond to searches in just the same way.

There are also other sites that will display Google Adwords for you. This all depends on which niche you’ve chosen. The ads will only appear on relevant sites. The amount you pay also determines how often your ad will appear.

How To Laser Target Your Traffic

To make sure that your traffic is laser targeted, you’ll need to monitor your stats. Google Adwords will also do this, giving you feedback on how your strategy is working. By laser targeting, you’ll see the ratio of visitors to buying customers increase dramatically.

The key to laser targeting traffic is to choose the right keywords. You need keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to your site and that also draw a good number of visitors. You can find free tools that will help you choose keywords. They’ll show you how many searches a certain keyword is getting per month, and this will help you decide.

Google Adwords laser targets your traffic so that it stands to reason more of your visitors are likely to become customers over time. It will make sure that the people who are looking for your specific product or service will find it. The key to getting it all started is to make sure that your Google Adwords use the right keywords that will pull them in. Test, test and test again on small daily budgets.

Although it costs some up front investment, Google Adwords is a great way to profit on line.

A Word of Caution here ………. The long-term profits will pay off in the end, but do tread carefully initially, make sure you set your daily budget pretty low to begin with, test it out, check your stats, do not increase the daily budget until you feel totally comfortable that you understand the way it works – there’s been many before you who have lost a fortune on adwords – so beware and cautious to start.

My top tip – dip your toe in the water with Google Adwords first, then when you’re comfortable with the system, getting the desired results consider spreading your net a bit wider with some of the other search engines.

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Toby Russell, Internet Marketer, Publisher & Property Investor offers tried and tested methods to help you succeed on line. Find out how to drive huge amounts of targeted traffic to your own website using Google AdWords with my popular Free step-by-step Special Report.
Available at => http://www.startinternetmarketingonline.com

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