1. SEO
2. PPC
3. Facebook

So, lets just jump right in and review the last four.

4.  Twitter

In simple terms Twitter is a social networking and micro blogging service which allows its users to send cryptic messages known at tweets. When one Twitter user subscribes to another Twitter user, this is known as followers.

Twitter is a very young company which got underway in March of 2006. It was the brainchild of young Jack Dorsey, an entrepreneur and software designer. At the 2007 Austin music festival known as South by Southwest (SXBW), the Twitter people placed plasma screens in the hallways that streamed Twitter messages. It was an instant success and was touted by bloggers, and the panelists and speakers in attendance. Instantly Twitter messages tripled from 20,000 per day to 60,000 per day.

What does this mean for a business?  This small messaging service (SMS) gives every business the opportunity to send newsy updates along with a link to their main website. Or to their FaceBook fan page. A following on Twitter can be considered an extension of other strategies listed here. This is not a venue to be taken lightly since new users are signing up at the rate of 300,000 per day. And over 30% are Tweeting on mobile devices.

How can you make the best use of Twitter?

1. Get Good Followers. You will gain Twitter followers in the same way you build like fans for your FB fan page. Build relationships, offer value, and maintain integrity. Do that and you will gain respect and people will follow you on Twitter.
2. Get Re-Tweeted. A re-tweet is when you find a tweet that you feel has good information and you send it to your followers. This is great for the original Twitterer, but also sets you up as one who offers value-laden Tweets and not just the ordinary drivel. Likewise, when your original Tweets are content-rich and offer value, your followers may send your tweets to their followers.  How do you get re-tweets?  Ask for them. Just as you ask your FB fans to refer you to others, encourage your Twitter followers to do the same.

5.  Link Building

Yet another way to dominate your market in the coming year is to utilize a system of link building. Search engines recognize a link from other sites to your site as a vote of confidence in who you are and what you offer. The trick is to make sure those links are reputable sites from reputable companies and that it matches the theme of your own business. Hopefully, the linking site will be one that is ranked highly in Google.

Before the 2000’s, link exchanges were a way of life on the Internet. When the importance of search engine optimization came into play, link building took a new turn. Because high rankings directly related to links, link building became a business and also a technique for Spam. Links were connected with sites that had no relationship with one another – all for the prize of a high SE ranking.

The process has gone through a number of stages of refinement until it has come back to the original process when related businesses, organizations and individuals exchange links for the betterment of all concerned.

Links are still very important in the scheme of SEO. Here are a couple of pointers on how to do it well.

1. Get relevant links. Links to your website that are in no way related to your theme or business can be counter-productive. Some link-building strategies can be harmful to your SEO campaign. This is an area in which it’s important to tread softly.
2. Use article and press release marketing to gain links. A great way to attain viral growth, gain exposure, and bring outside links to your website is to write and publish articles and press releases. Both of these venues allow for contact information to be added.

Readers who are seeking further information will then link to your website. The more links the higher your SE ranking. With the recent “Panda” update the usefulness of this strategy could be short lived in the future.We are not talking about the article marketing that uses software to change a few words and then shoot it out to hundreds of sites. This is spam. What we are talking about is writing quality content for legitimate sites. Using only one article on one website.

6.  Social Book Marking

You may have noticed icons on web pages – some are easily recognizable such as Twitter and FaceBook. The others, the ones not so familiar are social bookmarking widgets. If you like the site, or an article or blog, you click on the icon. This publishes a backlink to your site which designates it as a popular social media site. That, in turn, increases search engine rankings.

Social Bookmarking first started in 1996 with a site known as itLists.com. This was the first site to offer the idea of shared bookmarks.  Several others followed; however none were able to make headway before the dot com crash of 2001. It was not until 2003 that del.icio.us launched a social bookmarking site which expanded quickly. Soon other companies followed such as Digg and Stumbleupon.

The major benefit of social bookmarking is that it allows your visitors to promote your site for you. Your job is to provide your site visitors with value-laden content. Let them do the rest.

1. Bookmark sites you like. Don’t just wait for others to find you. Interact with other sites and bookmark those you “connect with.”  Leave comments and make your presence known.
2. Share with clients and friend using bookmarking services. There are many bookmarking services available on the Net. It’s easy enough to search terms such as “Social Bookmarking” or “Social Networks” in order to find the one that best suits you and your needs. Some sites have these services rated so you can choose the ones that are the most effective.

7.  Email Marketing

Direct marketing has been around since the 1960s. Email direct marketing is a much younger marketing strategy. Marketing on the internet, especially via email first got underway in the mid-nineties. Marketers quickly saw this as an easy way to assess a growing audience without the massive expense of postage.

Fast forward a few years when “spam filters” greatly slowed the process. The high amount of bounces and mail not even opened has discouraged many marketers causing them to avoid this marketing strategy altogether. This is sad, because email is still one of the more effective ways of communicating with customers and potential customers. After all, it is free.

The key is to understand the changes that are coming about in technology and use these to your advantage and still make email marketing work for you. Below are a couple of tips:

1. Integrate Email with Social Media. Yes, everyone is Tweeting. Yes, everyone is dialoging on FaceBook. And through these mediums a business might be able to offer a coupon or a quick glance at their benefits. However, a business can use these as a bridge or connection, to bring those potential customers to an email. In the full scope of things, an email is the only online method of delivering more detailed information and offers. A newsletter, for example. Or educational information about your products or services. Email messages can also lead readers to your social sites thus further integrating the two.
2. Be Personable. One of the greatest advantages of social media is it allows you to become a real person or entity online. Transfer this over to email marketing. Let your personality, or the personality (brand) of your business, come through loud and clear. People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. That can happen through consistent sending of content-rich, value-laden, personable emails.

There you have it – seven strategies for powerful online marketing.  Use them and you can dominate your niche.  Ignore them, and you’ll be no different than the company who continued to manufacture buggy whips while cars were chugging down the street. The choice is yours.

What do you think – agree or disagree – would you add more to the list? Let me know.

It’s a similar scenario today. There are businesses that have everything going for them – or so it seems – but they’ve failed to get a grasp… on the changes that technology is bringing to the world of marketing. Will your business be left in the dust as venues such Social Media and Search Engine Optimization go zooming past?

There are a number of areas of online marketing that demand your attention in order for you to dominate your market. You may not use all of these at the outset, but the following list may trigger ideas of where you can begin.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Anyone out there remember Alta Vista?  How about Excite?  Or HotBot?  Those are search engines that were once at the forefront of the known search engines in the mid-to-late nineties. Just as with any emerging industry, some fell by the wayside and new more successful ones emerged. Now Google and Yahoo! are the two most accepted search engines.

The practice of optimizing a search engine came into play even in those early days. The term “search engine optimization” was used as early as 1997. Marketers quickly learned that high rankings on search engines meant they were at the top of the page where they would be found quickly! Those who failed to grasp this concept might find their listings buried on page 50!

The importance of high rankings has not diminished. This in spite of the newer technology strategies such as FaceBook and Twitter. People are still searching the web (now in record numbers), and the strategy to be listed high on a Google search page is still vital for a business to gain needed exposure.

Two basic strategies for increasing the SEO of your site:

• Select the right keywords. Keyword selection cannot be chosen haphazardly and still be effective. It requires a knowledge of what terms and phrases are most commonly searched for. Past that, it requires a knowledge of how to place the key words in the copy. Stuffing copy full of keywords, to the point that it makes no sense, is a sure way to lose customer confidence.
• Use correct title tags. The title tag is an HTML tag that describes a specific web page – but is not visible on the actual page. Why is this little bit of text important?  Because it usually becomes the text link to the page found in search engine listings. Additionally, the title text is recognized by the search engine when indexing pages. This is a great place to use keywords and phrases.

2.  PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

We here at RevBuilders find that one of the online strategies least understood by the businesses we serve is the use of Pay Per Click, or PPC advertising. PPC is used on websites where the advertiser pays the host only when their ad is clicked. It is also used on search engines where keywords and phrases are used in an ad that is relevant to their selected market.

The idea of paying for keywords and phrases first came about in 1998. Yahoo offered such services when they purchased Overture Services, Inc. (formerly GoTo.com). GoTo.com was actually the original company that proved such a concept would truly work. Later the name Overture was dropped and it became Yahoo Search Marketing. Google quickly entered the arena with their version called AdWords.

While there is a cost involved, when used correctly PPC can precisely aim at target markets and create a great draw to a website. The uninitiated, however, can run through a pile of money very quickly with little or no profitable results. The following tips may help guide you in the right direction.

• Write Grabber Ads. Writing effective ads for PPC is a learned art. You won’t start off writing the best ad. It takes time and patience. The good thing is, you can change the wording of your ads on an ongoing basis. PPC advertisers have discovered that sometimes the change of one word can make a vast difference in number of clicks. Mention benefits in your ad as opposed to simply telling what your product or service is. People want to know what’s in it for them.
• Have Relevant Landing Pages. Do your landing pages serve up what your ad promised?  If not, say good-bye to your visitors. You did well with the ad. The searcher clicked. Now they are at your landing page. You have only a few seconds to grab their attention and hold them there. It’s a good idea to create the pages titles and the web copy to include the key phrase used in the ad. This allows your searcher to make a connection between why they clicked your ad, and what you offer on the landing page. When the landing page is heavy with copy that doesn’t seem to match the PPC ad, you’ve just wasted your advertising dollars.

3.  FaceBook

The social media site of FaceBook was first started by a group of Harvard dorm roommates in 2004. From there it expanded to other colleges as a means for young people to communicate with one another. Within a few years it has grown to the most-visited sites on the Internet, crowding out Google.

In the beginning it was merely a way to socialize, meet new people, and contact old friends. However, it is quickly becoming an important aspect of online marketing for all types of businesses.

FaceBook offers the ability to advertise with precise niche target marketing. This is because people offer much of their personal information on their profiles, thus allowing the demographics to be easily de-coded and used by advertisers.
Any business not considering how to best use FaceBook as part of their online marketing strategy is definitely still in the buggy whip mindset. Rather than a profile page, a business creates a FaceBook fan page. Nike has a fan page, as does Ford and General Motors. This is the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening in this venue. Here are tips to get started:

• Get Likes. The official FaceBook Nike fan page has over three million likes. While your business may never reach that number, still you can build a close following by using this strategy. It’s possible to incentivize the likes on your fan page by offering a free report or coupons. Be creative here. This is all about building relationships.
• Have Power Fans. Your FB fan page may draw many visitors, but the most valuable ones will be those who actually interact with you. These are your power fans. They may leave a comment, or add your link to their page, or refer your page to all of their friends and business acquaintances. There are many ways to develop your power fans. The most obvious will be your satisfied clients who have used your products or services. Next might be complementary business entities that are not in direct competition with you.

There you have it 3 of the 7 strategies to help you dominate your market. Next post will reveal the final 4 strategies. Any thoughts? Do you have any input on where businesses should be investing their time and money? Can you guess what the next four will be?

The RevMan

Ultimately, there are cases where the former will be the best option, and other cases where it will be the latter option: it all comes down to the particular circumstances of the company at hand.

For example, a company that has a solid and long-standing in-house marketing staff—with more than sufficient resources to make convincing press releases, handle customers’ queries, and so forth—will probably choose to hire an exclusively SEO company.  That’s because they probably don’t have the in-house expertise to launch and manage an effective search engine optimization campaign, but have got pretty much every other aspect of marketing down to a T.

Surely a company that neither has a good marketing staff (in the traditional sense) nor any qualified SEO staff will be inclined to go the route of the full-service marketing firm.  Such a company has nothing to lose and everything to gain from following this path.

Some companies simply have no need for many traditional marketing techniques, and prefer to practically exclusively focus on online marketing initiatives.  This is the case for specific companies with even more specific target audiences: for example, a company specializing in hi-tech gadgetry aimed at computer experts is likely to get their message across more than effectively enough with e-advertising, as the intended customers are highly connected by default.  To reiterate, only companies in a very few niches can afford to make this call, and only if they are ready to pour lots of effort into the SEO side of things.

For most run of the mill companies, there really is no substitute for a comprehensive marketing firm that can tackle all their needs and produce one consolidated bill.  The more impressive such specimens can house an incredibly diverse set of skills under one roof, and that is a major asset for any company in need of marketing assistance.  Such firms will not only be able to tackle your SEO work, but they will tackle the copywriting work that complements and fills out said work.  Furthermore, as most companies cannot afford to abandon traditional avenues of marketing, such firms can help in the drafting of press releases and reaching strategic decisions on message content.

Furthermore, these kinds of broad, inclusive marketing firms can help you land new online revenue opportunities such as pay per click advertisements.  The money garnered from these channels, though on a minor scale at least to begin with, can end up subsidizing a good portion of online marketing initiatives in the future, and is one thing that you won’t find any exclusively-SEO company offering to do for you.

In this context, it is incredibly common to find companies committing gross and detrimental mistakes in their search engine marketing campaigns, especially when they have chosen to hire the services of people that are only minimally trained in the field (but perhaps knew more about the subject than the person hiring; a necessary though not sufficient condition).

Here we’ll tackle the ten biggest follies witnessed in many such online marketing campaigns, trying to point out the reasons and consequences for such predicaments:

1. Publishing duplicate content: what could make you look more amateurish?  Nothing, that’s what!  You will take a hard hit in terms of search engine placement (as the engines penalize sites with duplicate content) and will be written off by many consumers as either copy-cats or too lazy to come up with something new…neither of which does you any good.
2. Overloading keywords: another amateur’s trick, this time with less liability of being labeled a fraud but equal liability of being penalized by the search engines.  Not only is it important that a company choose their keywords wisely (not trying to dominate a keyword that is simply too broad or contested), but furthermore that they be conservative with its employment: 4% to 6% usually does the trick; anything over 10% is total overkill.
3. Focusing off-site rather than on-site: this is the folly of those who are too timid and indecisive to actually get down to the work of improving the site itself.  Though it is incredibly important to build up a strong army of (quality!) backlinks, etc., it is incredibly important to guarantee that your site has outstanding original content, balanced use of wisely-chosen keywords, clever page titles and names, and convincing meta-tags.
4. Failing to develop in-bound links: this is basically the counterpoint of the previous mistake, and proves the fact that a good balance needs to be struck between on-site and off-site work.  If you have been generous enough to host links to other sites, make sure you are protecting your own and demanding corresponding links or generating them one way or another back to your site.
5. Abandoning SEO before you see results: the flaw of the impatient!  Search Engine Marketing isn’t akin to getting the genie to come out of the lamp: it’s a process that may be slow to gather steam, but will be enormously important and effective once it does.
6. Expecting too much too soon: again, this drives at the same point as the last mistake.  You will most likely not shoot up to the first spot on Google when conducting a search with your coveted keyword after the first month of implementing search engine marketing at your company.
7. Going for keywords that are too competitive: this gets back to an idea brought up in point 2 above, and essentially boils down to excessive and misguided ambition.  On the one hand you may be vying for a keyword that another company with a much larger SEO budget is claiming, or you may be literally spitting in the wind—trying to claim a keyword that is too general for any one site to have it on lockdown.
8. Complicated navigation structure on-site: this is one of the worst and most elementary mistakes to be made: think of your business as a city, and your website as its roadmap.  Try to create sensible, thematic divisions for your site, and to prevent any particular page from being considerably “buried” within the site (aka many clicks away from the home page).
9. Poor landing pages: just as you want to make getting around your page easy, you want to make the content interesting!  This is especially true for landing pages, those to which people are brought from search engines or through links on other sites.  Landing pages should be the most carefully groomed and tidily packaged of all the pages on your site.
10. Links from poor quality sites: in keeping with the old-fashioned notion that you can judge somebody by the company they keep, links from poor quality sites will reflect poorly on you and lower your market credibility.  Be proactive about getting other sites to link to you, but don’t lower your standards so low that you start to get yourself muddy!

RevBuilders Marketing has a different belief. All marketing/advertising works at different times for different reasons. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is certainly the hottest item today and is an extremely important part of any well rounded marketing strategy. However, you must make sure that it works effectively with your current strategies as well.

So before you launch out and select a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company be sure to ask these questions:

1. Do they have any sales experience?
   Having great technical skills is important, but communicating vital. The goal of online marketing is to drive leads or sales. If you do not have someone on the team who understands this process, the results will not meet your expectations.  Hiring a company that understands the entire decision making process of your prospects and client is critical for long term success.
2. Do they have any marketing experience?
   Many Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms have been established to take advantage of the growing market – nothing wrong with that.  However, many of them view online marketing from a strictly technical point of view. This approach could be harmful to your long-term goals.  Marketing is more then just Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is the whole package. Having a company that can manage all aspect of your marketing gives you a distinct advantage over those who use several companies – you will be much more efficient and you will see more dramatic results.
3. Will they or can they work with other marketing disciplines?
   Coordinating different companies to work on an integrated marketing campaign is challenging at best. Working with a company that can act as the “marketing manager” and bring a team together to work for your success has a much better chance at succeeding. It could be several different companies, as long as you, the client, is working through one single contact point for all your marketing needs.

Large numbers of websites are added to the World Wide Web every day. According to domiantools.com over 66,000 new domains have been registered in the last 24 hours, and as time goes by it will only become more difficult for sites to rank for competitive terms. To survive, it is imperative for web site owners to employ effective SEO tactics to ensure top rankings and as much relevant traffic as possible.

SEO companies provide a number of services that includes analyzing the competition of the website, identification of the right keywords and key phrases, optimization of the web content, link building, article and directory submission, social media optimization, blog and forum posting and pay per click management.

How a website fares in search engine listing and what traffic they achieve over time depends upon a large number of constantly changing factors. A good SEO company not only keeps tabs on all these changing factors, but also analyzes the sites performance – its conversion rate. After all, what would be the purpose of driving traffic to the site that did not convert?

An effective SEO company enables the website to be competitive by driving only traffic that has a high probability to convert.

Conversions are the name of the game – not rankings.

The RevSEO Team

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of PageRank sculpting, here’s a brief explanation.
PageRank Sculpting involves the use of nofollow tags on links to control where the PageRank value flows within a website. So by using nofollow tag, PR can be channelized to the more important pages i.e. Home page & Service page.

Well Google’s SEO voice, Matt Cutts, has revealed that Google’s management of nofollow has changed – potentially rendering the practice of basic PageRank sculpting less effective.

According to Cutts, Google will no longer allow webmasters to build up link juice and funnel it to certain pages. If nofollow is used on links, the other pages wont get a PR boost – instead they’ll just receive the same PR value they would have, if all the links were followed.

So alas – PR sculpting, as we know it, will be less effective in the future and it was in the past. Given the announcement that was made during a Q&A session at SMX Advanced in Seattle last month; webmasters will be waiting patiently for an official statement on the policy from Google.

For more details on PageRank sculpting read Matt Cutts Blog

The RevSEO Team