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39 Free/Low-Cost Tools for Marketing Your Small Business Online

By Stone Reuning in Featured

Thousands of free online marketing tools clamor for attention, with new ones popping up every week it seems. You know you should be doing more to reach out to your customers, but just researching which tools to use can be a vast time investment, even if they don’t require a big financial outlay.

Below is a compiled a list of the most popular (or most useful) low-cost or free small business marketing tools. You might be using some of them already, but you’re sure to find a couple that will round out your small business marketing toolkit nicely. And, if you’re just starting out marketing a new business online, this list may help point you in the right direction.

Search Engine Marketing: A Perfect Blend Of SEO, SEM, And Social Media

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Search engine marketing (SEM) has evolved to become the most reliable strategy for reaching your target audience and driving conversions on the internet. It compels your market to visit your website; it boosts your company’s exposure within your space; it positions your product as the solution to their problems. As a result, your sales increase. Your ROI rises. Your revenues and profits swell. Your business enjoys stronger customer loyalty and branding in the process.

Many of your competitors are already using SEM in an attempt to capture a larger portion of your market. There has never been a better time to protect and expand your territory. This article will explain why search engine marketing should be a critical piece of your online marketing strategy. You will discover the value of hiring an SEM expert versus going on your own. We’ll also describe how SEM PR and SEM social media tactics converge with SEO and PPC to produce a groundswell of momentum.

Reverse SEO Is A Core Element Of Online Reputation Management

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Reverse SEO has become critical for all types of organizations. Throughout history, it has never been easier for your customers, competitors, and employees to publish items online that can have a negative impact on your business. If those items gain exposure in Google, Yahoo!, and other major search engines, their effects can last for years. Regardless of whether you operate a small firm with less than ten employees or a multi-billion dollar company, bad publicity can decimate your business.

This article will introduce you to the fundamentals of reverse SEO. We’ll explain how it works and the advantages of using it. We’ll also describe a seldom talked about strategy of leveraging reverse SEO as a preventative approach to online reputation management (ORM). You will discover why many companies are rushing to SEO specialists to enlist their assistance for damage control. If you are not currently using reverse SEO to limit the effects of bad publicity, your company may be vulnerable.

How to Protect Your Search Engine Rankings

By B Hopkins in Featured

If you have a web site that you have been maintaining and updating on a consistent basis for several years, chances are, you have acquired some decent traffic from the search engines. The thing that most webmasters don’t consider is that once they have that search engine traffic, it doesn’t mean it will stay forever. There are things that can happen with your web site that can cause it to drop out of the search engine rankings. So what is a web master to do in order to keep their search engine rankings?

Some very legitimate high quality sites are being hurt by some of the actions taken by the search engines to ban the spammy sites created by less than above-board webmasters. There are some things a webmaster can do to reduce their chances of their legitimate site being mistaken for a spam site.

1) Take care in who you are linking to on your website.

While it is good to have links that are helpful to your web visitors, you need to be careful who you are linking to. If you link to sites that are considered “bad neighborhoods”, you will certainly see a drop in your search engine results. This is because the search engines will assume that you are linking just to increase your search engine ranking. Avoid linking to sites and pages that are mostly a list of links. Many of these sites are somewhat spammy and also link to many other “questionable” sites. If you want to put your link in a link directory, go for high quality link directories, especially if these directories require a reciprocal link back to their site. Sometimes paying the few bucks they ask for to get listed could be worth it as it will filter out all of the spammers. The penalty hit is from an action on your part of linking to the bad neighborhood so you can control it by not linking to one in the first place. If you aren’t sure if the sites are in bad neighborhoods or not, you can easily check it out by using online tools that tell you if your website is linking to a bad neighborhood. Tools like bad-neighborhood.com give you detailed information about the websites you are linking to.

2) Make sure your keyword density isn’t too high

Your keyword density is also a factor that affects your search engine rankings. Search engines determine the relevance of your website to a particular subject by the use of keywords in your web page text. The higher the density of the keyword, the more relevant the web page for that keyword subject. However too high a keyword density, and the search engines will consider you trying to spam the search engines and will penalize your website for keyword stuffing, or keyword spamming. Content with a conversational tone or a natural editorial flavor can produce a premium keyword density and leave you with good quality content. The old rule of thumb is that your keyword should never appear in more than half of the sentences on the page. A better approach is to have your keyword not appear in more than 1/3 of the sentences, yet use synonyms and other related keywords on the page as well to add relevance. In total, you don’t want your keyword density to be above 3%. Tools like keyworddensity.com can give you a quick reference to web page keyword density.

There are some simple things you can do to keep your legitimate web site above board and not have it mistaken for a spam site so it doesn’t lose rank in the search engines. These 2 are some of the easiest and quickest things you can do to keep your website above board and ranking well in the search engines

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B. Hopkins is an Internet Business Strategist who creates Internet strategies that will generate revenue for your website. To find out more about how to get your website to make money for you, use these Web Training Programs to get you going quickly.

What Are Meta Tags and Why Do I Need Them?

By admin in Featured

There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of approximately eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It really is no surprise to anyone then that more businesses are investing in expanded web presence and capability. Yet, not every organization has the same successes. Barnes and Noble was selling books online before Amazon was even an idea, and yet it isn’t Barnes and Noble that people think of when considering online bookstores, it’s Amazon. The key? Amazon took greater advantage of the opportunity to effectively market their product.

Search Engines, Spiders and Websites, Oh My

The most important and often least understood tool for online marketers is the search engine. The primary type of search engine is the web crawler – these are largely automated programs that crawl through available web pages, indexing data according to a variety of parameters. In short, the crawler, or spider, examines each page of a website. Once it has examined the page, it submits it to an index. Then, when a person uses the search engine software, the index provides links to these pages, ranked according to relevance. It is worth mentioning two other points. First, not all engines index the same way. Some use keyword density; others focus on the content of the first paragraph. Second, any changes to a webpage are likely to affect search rankings, so webmasters must carefully consider each change and its possible effects.

I Never Meta Tag I Didn’t Like

One important part of preparing a page for good search engine rankings is effective use of HTML meta-tags. These tags do not directly relate to the position a site will have in a search result, but they do offer webmasters some control over the way their sites are presented when they come up in a search. In brief, meta-tags are additional bits of code added to the head of your HTML document, right after “TITLE.” Because of the tendency for unscrupulous coders to find and abuse loopholes in search technologies, search engines do not rely heavily on these tags for rankings. Their benefits to web users are important, however.

First, there is the Meta Description tag. This is a brief report about the content of the webpage in question. When a search engine presents users with a hyperlink, there is frequently a small description accompanying that result. In many cases, that is the Meta Description tag the Webmaster put in the HTML document so that when a spider visits the site, it indexes this information. This is not always the case, however; Google in particular will generate its own description for a site.

The Meta Description is often the first piece of information someone using a search engine will see. The URL may not mean anything to them, but this description will. If it is poorly written, the user will likely skim right past the site for one that presents itself more effectively. Thus, the key is effective, concise writing that conveys exactly what the site is about.

The second tag is the Meta Keywords tag. This tag is a list of keywords the Webmaster considers most pertinent to each page. Proper use of the keywords tag is also vital. While search engines use a variety of keyword systems, and have in recent years de-emphasized the Meta Keywords tag, it still contributes to website rankings and should not be neglected. The best method is to examine each page carefully, and pick approximately ten keywords that best represent the data therein. Too many nonspecific keywords will lead to inconsistent search results, and too few means missing an opportunity to get a message in front of users. In addition, many sites are actively on the lookout for keyword abuse. Google in particular is known to ban certain pages from its index entirely if they consider the article to be an abusive, loophole-seeking piece.

There are other, less relevant tags that can provide some benefits, though they aren’t as important as the previous two. An example is the Robots tag, which is only useful in making sure certain sites do not index a particular page. This can help a Webmaster keep their content from being associated with undesirable elements, but it does not contribute directly to higher search placement.

No Meta Tag is an Island

Once again, it must be stressed that meta-tags are not a magical solution to the very complex problem of online marketing. They must be regarded as one tool in an inventory of other tools, and should be used responsibly. Properly implemented, they will help complete an effective marketing strategy.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

Keywords Are It! Seven Powerful / Useful Keyword Marketing Tools

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

After years of running websites and earning a full-time online income, I am constantly reminded that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, mainly Google.

And that statement has to be refined even further, it’s all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of SERPs since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing.

Unhappy With SEM? You’re Not Alone

By Steve Baldwin in Featured

A company called X+1 released a study last week   that highlighted the pain felt by many buying keywords from Google and the other engines. Satisfaction with the performance of their companies’ SEM campaigns was egregiously poor: on a scale of 1 to 7, only 12% of respondents gave SEM a top-ranked 7, with 57% ranking SEM a 1 or a 2. Performance satisfaction with fairly simple search campaigns (30 to 100 keywords pointing to customized landing pages) didn’t do any better: a full 42% reported being either “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied.”

The study didn’t really explore what these marketers were doing wrong, but contained a few clues worth mentioning. About 60% of survey respondents were doing SEM in-house. I’m not going to say that it’s impossible to conduct competitive SEM campaigns in-house, and I’d need to know a lot more about the level of automation and staff experience of such in-house teams before laying blame, but it’s still a warning sign. Another cause for concern: key SEM decisions were often made by fairly low-level people, including analysts (48%), strategy/results people (45%) and implementer/tacticians (36%). I’m not saying that these people aren’t qualified to accomplish operational search tasks, but I must question their suitability for high-level tasks such as procuring a suitable SEM agency.

Disappointment over SEM’s performance didn’t seem to dampen these marketers’ willingness to lay out more money in the months ahead. Most (65%) of survey respondents reported that they were planning either to spend the same amount of money in 2009 that they spent last year, with a handful (13%) planning to spend 20% more. I’d hate to think that this is a case of “throwing good money after bad” but one must hope that the survey respondents are taking active steps to reform their operations before handing the search engines even more money.

Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet for all the dissatisfaction. SEM agencies (and yes, I work for a SEM agency) will likely use this data to hammer companies that continue to do SEM tasks in-house, promising to ride to the rescue. Unfortunately, the reputation of many SEM agencies isn’t exactly stellar; otherwise “agency churn” wouldn’t be as high as it is. Sadly, there are situations in which agencies have done a far worse job with search tasks than a qualified in-house team. Spending more to better train in-house search teams and equip them with an appropriate level of automation will help some, but such investments are difficult to justify in a recession, and the fear that one’s best-trained people will up and leave when the economy improves is well-founded.

If there’s one sure cure for avoiding disappointment, it’s to manage your expectations correctly. Paid search is an exceptionally difficult marketing medium to master, despite the perception (promoted by the search engines) that it’s a self-serve, plug-and-play road to profits. Here, failure isn’t just an option: it’s practically guaranteed for the unwary and the unequipped. Buyers must always be wary, whether they’re buying keywords, staffing in-house teams, or shopping for SEM agencies. The good news is that if you approach this medium with fear, respect, caution, and a first-rate, executable plan, you just might wind up being happy with your results.

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Steve Baldwin is editor-in-chief at Didit, an agency for search engine marketing and auctioned media management based in New York. You can reach Steve at steve.baldwin@didit.com.

SEM Is A Service, Not A Product

By Steve Baldwin in Featured

Fellow search insider columnist Aaron Goldman and I have been batting at the RFP pinata for the past few weeks, because our view is that using RFPs to select SEM agencies clearly doesn’t work very well, either on the client or the agency side.

Unfortunately, I am doubtful that our modest reforms to the procurement process will be widely embraced, because of a particularly widespread misperception about what SEM agencies do. This misperception is that SEM agencies are suppliers of a product, not a service. This distinction isn’t just an academic one: let me explain why I believe why it’s so damaging.

Late last year, Didit, the SEM firm I work for, took on a new client’s PPC account from another, generally well-regarded SEM agency. Upon looking over the state of the client’s account, our client services team was appalled by what were a number of jarring pre-existing errors, including all keywords set to broad match, plus the complete absence of negative keywords. These errors of omission supported the prior complaints from the client that “our old agency didn’t do anything.”

The reason I mention this anecdote isn’t to bash a competitor. What I’m trying to get at is the question of why SEM agencies, for whatever reasons, in certain cases either “do nothing” or are perceived as “doing nothing.” And the answer, sadly enough, is that in many cases it’s not because they don’t want to do the work, or that they don’t know how, but because they simply can’t afford to do it at all. Tasks such as testing and implementing keyword match types or enumerating negative keywords aren’t rocket science-level tasks, but they’re labor-intensive, requiring the services of trained people, paid by the hour, who are compensated with money from the agency’s markup on media spend. SEM agencies, in other words, provide a service, not a product.

And yet SEM agencies providing such services are routinely pitted against each other by RFP-wielding clients in bidding wars in which the lowest-balling vendor gets the job. This would be OK if we all sold a similar commoditized product. But it’s a prescription for disaster if one is buying a service, because as we all know from life, there are wide variances in the quality of service you’re going to get from, say, a lawyer who’s just passed the bar and one who knows every judge on the bench.

Clients should realize that they’ll never get the level of work required by beating up any service provider on price. If you pay your lawyer half his fee, he’ll do half the work: this is simply the way the world works. When buying a service, you always get exactly what you pay for.

Agencies should realize that accepting a low-ball bid to win an RFP competition isn’t good for them either, because it ensures that such a relationship isn’t going to be happy in the long run. At worst, signing a client you can’t afford to support can unfortunately result in having one’s company reputation dragged through the mud by this same client at a later date.

We’re keen in this industry on being technologically focused, and that’s fine, because technology is in our DNA and clients need to know about how this technology works. But SEM is as much a people-centric discipline as it is one driven by machines. You might be able to buy a machine at a discount, but you’ll never be able to buy the discounted service of a true professional. Unless we are somehow able to move the conversation beyond price, we’re going to keep going round and round in the same unhappy dance. My fear is that we as an industry have been doing this dance for so long that it may be too late to change the music.

Steve Baldwin is editor-in-chief at Didit, an agency for search engine marketing and auctioned media management based in New York. You can reach Steve at steve.baldwin@didit.com.

SEM Industry Standards: Nonsense or Necessary?

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

A storm in a tea cup has been brewing in the search industry over the past few days. It was prompted by Jill Whalen’s recent blog post titled We Don’t Need SEO Standards where she came to the conclusion that she didn’t think the search industry needed standards or regulation, at least in relation to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Here are Jill’s top 4 reasons why she believes we don’t need SEO standards:

1. There are too many ways of skinning the SEO cat.

2. We can’t even agree on the definition of search engine optimization.

3. There are already laws to protect people from SEO scams.

4. There’s no such thing as “cheating” in SEO.

© Copyright 2009 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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