@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

SEO

Happy Holidays!!! Social Media Do and Don’t

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So as we hit Christmas Eve, I like to take a minute and share a few Social Media etiquettes for the general year, but ring even more true for the Holidays.

1) Don’t sell anything!

At this point if you haven’t capitalized on your call to action you lost that chance by now. After all social media is about trust, consistency and professionalism, not selling.

2) Engage in genuine content.

Find ways to thank people, share info for free that has value to it, even if you hold back a little at least your getting in the spirit of giving and those on the other side might do them in return come the new year…hint, hint…

3) Be at peace with the (social) world.

This is a time for peace and relaxation, there is enough stress without you adding to it, expect the site visit to be short. Put away the sword, find things positive about what you agree with, reinforce similarities even with competitors… being the fair and honest (you) will mean everything to people when it comes time to spend money.

4) Stay engaged.

While now is not the time for long drawn out affairs, stay true to what others expect, if you check in everyday, hour, whatever, stick to this, consistency is almost as important as content.

5) Have fun.

This is what makes you different, just like someone smiling over the phone, you can tell when the person engaging you in social media is doing it because they are having fun, or because they are forcing it.

Happy Holidays!!!

Please be safe & responsible!

How to advertise your business with Google?

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Google is no doubt the biggest search engine in existence today, with 1.2 billion searches happening every day.

Advertising through such a company can give your business more exposure than any other advertising method. But there are so many ways to advertise with them. Which one will suit your business? The main objective of advertising online is to create exposure when people search an item they need.

Here are three methods of advertising your business using the search engine Google.

AdWords

The oldest and most known system is called AdWords and it is the main source of income for Google. How does it work?

This application lets users create their own ads using tools and keywords. The ad will appear on the Google search result page, on the right side and on top of the search results under the tag “Ads” in small letters.

The good thing about AdWords is that you, the advertiser, choose the keywords that will trigger appearance on related searches. You pay only when the ad is being clicked on and the visitor goes to your website.

The advertiser can set a limit to how much money he is willing to spend for his ad to appear and this, among other factors, determines the actual placing of the ad on the list. It is called PPC (pay per click) advertising, and the bidding starts at $0.05 for a single click. The minimum required budget per day to advertise with AdWords is only one dollar. You can select the daily budget and select specific area or the time to display your ad.

This program is very popular because it allows its users to control every aspect of the campaign. Each aspect can be fine-tuned to increase efficiency and improve result in terms of getting the right people to your site.

What sounds very simple, is nothing but. Searching the terms AdWords on Google will yield a plethora of sites ready to teach you how to work with the system and improve your return. Google evolves and adjusts all the time, coming up with new logarithms to stave off hackers and people who are trying to game the system. Running a successful AdWords advertising campaign can be complex, even when dealing with the system on its most basic and principal level.

Advertisers have made their knowledge of working with AdWords their main source of income, abandoning their initial goals, the more they got immersed in this world of PPC advertising and understood how different factors influence their click-through rate.

Banner Ads

Another system for advertising online is Banner ads. Banner ads use Flash, eye-catching graphics or animation and appear on specific web pages. When clicked the banners connects you to the advertised site.

Banners can be created by a person without vast knowledge in coding and HTML (the language used by programmers). There are websites that offer an  already designed banners for sale, Google AdWords published Editorial Guidelines that serve as guideline for writing online ad copy. The guidelines include everything from spelling and style to recommendations on length, keywords and content.

The better the ad relates to the website it’s placed on, the more likely it is to be effective and create a click-through.

There are some ways you can place your banner on a desired website; in one system, Banner ads are triggered by keywords supplied by the advertiser. Another way is to exchange banners with a site you would like your banner to appear on. There are banner exchange programs, which a little search on the web will unveil, and you can contact the search engine companies like Google, Yahoo etc and have them place your banner ads of different sites. With this system keywords trigger the appearance of the banner, and you, the advertiser has no control on where they appear.

Banner Ads are usually charged by Cost per Impression (CPI, or CPM). Often a price will be set based upon a cost per thousand impressions, or views, and depend on other factors.

 Banner ads can be harder to control, however, because any changes requires a new banner to be uploaded. Placement on some pages may be pricey at times.

Experts recommend Banners be only part of your online advertising campaign. Combining them with other methods like e-newsletters, search engine advertising and search engine optimization will yield the maximum effect.

Google Places

Google Places is a location based service that allows you to list your business on Google maps. Google allows business owners to manage their physical business location information. This information appears on the search result page when the location and kind of business is typed into the search bar. It is a free service which business owners have to “unlock”.

There is of course a premium service that allows business owner to update their information, add a picture that will appear on the front page, add reviews and special offers.  A tag appears on Google maps that shows the location of the business.

Users of the service will get a decal for their place of business that will allow users to scan it with a smartphones and go straight to reviews about the place. Google advertises it as being useful by the computer and in the physical world. 

This is one of the great ways to get targeted traffic to you website from the place you are located.

Social Media Trends for 2011

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2010 was a banner year for social media. It was the year in which Facebook overtook Google in site traffic. It was a year in which some surveys claim that 95% of companies are using LinkedIn to look for prospective employees.

The use of social media through mobile devices tripled. The tablet became popular and threatens to revolutionize laptops and school books.

What can we expect in the coming year? Here is what a few experts agree on:

–          Big companies will take a serious look at the social media, integrating it not only locally but globally.  Companies like Dell computers and Jet Blue are already doing it.

–          The mobile and tablet war creates social computing – the competition is heating up with new tablets and smart phones coming into the market. It will create more discussions on the web. Social media will be on the go even more than it is today – out of the house, out of the office on the move; in trains, planes and automobiles. There will be more competition, variety and affordability in devices.

–          Facebook location based services will probably overtake all the others. With the huge amount of users –over 500 million – and with tons of data and the programs behind it, they will become the biggest.

–          There will be a social media overload. The average user experiences Facebook, Twitter, G mail, chat, Skype, Tumblr etc. Many experts in social media have adopted systems to access all of them at once but average users might get a case of schizophrenia, with so many profiles on so many social networks. Integration will have to become more wide spread.

–          Social media will be integrated into other tools, making websites important again and more modern.

–          More and more companies will turn their social media connections into customer service, answering questions and complaints.

–          Social recruiting will get bigger. Even small companies will go to social media to find new and better applicants.

Some Knowledge For Creating A Small Business Website

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There are a few things that you will need to know in order to successfully build and maintain a website for your small business. These things are mostly common sense issues, but a few of them are things that only the top flight business people really focus on and have now mastered. You have seen just how successful some of the big companies have gotten with their online advertising, so if you want a piece of that action, here are a few things to take note of.

For one, you will need to have a clear idea of what the purpose of the website is going to ultimately be going forward. As you business expands, you will need to kind of make adjustments on the fly. Your customers need to feel safe and secure that you and your partners know what they are doing and are able to keep up with the ever-changing marketplace. Be precise in your marketing plan and things should fall into place quite nicely.

Another thing to take note of is to know right off the bat exactly what you are going to need in order to run a successful website. Whether you think that some video advertising or maybe some audio clips will do the trick to attract more and more people to your site, you will have to have a plan set up no matter what direction you decide to go in.

Also, you will need to have a good idea as to what to expect in terms of profits and website clicks from the very start of the site to even as far down the line as five years. We all know that it is pretty much impossible to predict a fluctuating marketplace too far down the road, but with the right people at the helm and a solid business plan, the sky really can be the limit in terms of your eventual success.

No matter what you decide to do with your website, it is going to end up being one of the most powerful tools for your company’s present and future success. The internet can work wonders for you and these days it is pretty much imperative to have a strong website and at least a decent sized following. We have come a long way with the internet providing us with more and more extra abilities every day. Just make sure to keep an eye on the market and for what is hot and in on a monthly basis, and things will start looking up.

Using Social Bookmarking To Rise Your Small Business Through The Ranks

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We all know that there are quite a few different ways to promote your company using all of the amazing resources that we have available to us now with the internet. One of the best ways for you to get your company noticed is through social bookmarking which allows you to get your social blog or personal business website ranked. This ranking system lets you and your business partners get noticed quickly and build the popularity of your small business.

Digg & StumbleUpon

There are two very popular social bookmarking websites that have millions of users search for things that interest them each and every day. Digg is probably the most popular these days because it allows users to interact with each other and share tips on how to get their own blog or website looked at more often. StumbleUpon is another very popular website that does similar things to Digg, but also has some audio and video options to compliment the chat style that Digg has. These websites have really led some companies to turn the corner and head toward years of prosperity.

Be Aware of Spammers

Like is the case with many other social and open sourced websites, you will have to pay close attention to and watch out for spam web links. There are always going to be those people out there that want to infiltrate your website and even cause it to shut down. Whether it is competitive businesses or just a few hackers trying to get their kicks, you must to aware at all times as to what type of activity is going on on your website. It is not always the easiest thing to monitor, so you should also try looking into hiring yourself a WebMaster if at all possible.

Find Some Assistance

There are a few things that you should know in regards to getting your website and company noticed. These things are very simple and, in many cases, deal with common sense problem solutions. First, make sure to have some of your friends and family members help you out with raising the awareness amongst the community about your website. Maybe not everyone will be interested in what you have to sell, but at least they will know that your small business exists. Secondly, do a little bit of research as to how you can get your website affiliated with other more popular ones on the internet. This will drastically increase the chances of you getting yourself noticed.

Social bookmarking is making a huge difference in how people network their businesses around the world and will continue to assist in building these smaller companies into huge conglomerates. There will be more of these websites popping up all over the internet, so keep your eyes peeled for them to open up and jump on board.

Social Brand Visibility: Do You Digg It?

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“A place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.” This is how Digg calls itself.

A user driven social network site, everything on Digg has been submitted by members. Other users can vote on the submission and the most popular stories go up to the top and are displayed on the front page. In its initial version, in 2004, you could also bury a story by digging it down. In later versions this feature has been deleted. Of course viewers can leave comments about what they saw.

If you want to know the hottest news and what people are talking about at the moment, Digg will provide that. “The power of breaking stories before anyone else”, is how one of the founders, Kevin Ross, calls it.

The front page of Digg contains the title of a story others have found interesting, a short description and a link. One click will get you to read the whole story. You can customize your home page by deciding which major news media you would like to follow and your areas of interest. The categories include business, entertainment, gaming, lifestyle, offbeat, politics, science, sports, technology and world news. A story that has wide interest and posted on Digg has been known to crash a site or two.

As of November 2010, Digg is ranked 125th in website traffic, with unique monthly visitors standing on 15.1 million. It is estimates that 34% of the site users are from the United States, where it ranks # 74 and it is even more popular in Pakistan where it ranks #18.

Visitors to Digg.com view on average 4.4 unique pages per visit.

Google’s New Product Ads

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When looking to buy a product on the internet, what are you most interested in finding?

Most people are interested in two things; the look (image) of the product and the price. After completing the query customers have to go from site to site, look for that specific product and do some comparison shopping. Wouldn’t it be cool if those two elements will pop up with the search results?

Google thinks so. Just in time for the holidays, Google introduced a few days ago a new type of ad to their advertisers, called “Product Ads”.

No more few lines of text based on keywords appearing in the search result. Now you can see the picture of the product and the price in one glance on the search result page. Google is stepping into comparison shopping.

The system has been tested for the past year on some 800 advertisers and is now open to all.  As a user of Google search engine, you probably have noticed it under shopping results. A picture, a price and the website.

“Product ads” marks a shift in how Google runs its business model. No more different keywords and different biddings for each phrase using AdWords. . Advertisers can now pay only when a purchase is made, not per click that directs customers to their site. The other big change is that Google chooses when to show the product.

The advertiser give Google the feed to its products and Google automatically matches queries to what it thinks the customers is looking for.

Business owners who have tried Product Ads, say they liked the results. You might give up a little on the flexibility of different keywords but what you gain is big savings and eliminating the guessing game and the risk of AdWords. If before a hundred clicks with no conversion had to be paid for, now if there are a hundred clicks and no conversion, advertisers don’t pay for it.

Google product manager says that in the test period the click through rate increased by 50% compared to text ads. The new system is different from the “image ads” Google introduced a few months ago, which show up only if customers click the images search. These are still tied to keyword search and are still paid per click.

“We think it means we’re going to have a much broader range of products in Google,” said Dennis Woodside, vice president of ad sales for the Americas. “Product Ads” make a lot of sense for e-commerce sites and follows Google’s increasing venture into comparison shopping on the search engine result pages.

Online Resources For Your Upcoming Business

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There are quite a few places on the internet that you can use to your advantage when trying to promote your new small business. With such a vast quantity of websites available, you are bound to find a bunch of strong outlets to let people know just what you intend to sell in a detailed and specific manner. Some of these websites are very easy to latch onto and will give you the right amount of exposure that you desire.

Facebook

One of the better options to start promoting your company is the website FaceBook. With the millions upon millions of users each and every day on that site, you are bound to have quite a few hits and inquiries about your services. The fact that you are able to create a free profile on there and also use your account as a business profile is enough to inspire people to join.

Google Places

Another great place to advertise for your small business is Google Places. Google is already well known throughout the world as being a leader in website searches and free advertising. Google Places actually takes it a few steps forward for your business as it allows you to post details about your business as well as listing it in a way that it looks like the Yellowpages. This is a very familiar and attractive way for you to get things up and running for your company and not have to spend a lot of money doing so.

Audio & Video

You are now able to integrate such things as audio and video through the Google sites that will allow you to have a more personal connection to the people that are interested in your company. This is truly state of the art and will only help in assisting those who are the driving force behind the success of your small business. Having the ability to let someone have a face to face conversation with you or one of your associates while they are in another state or even country is an amazing new tool to have for any company out there.

My advice would be to definitely take full advantage of these new and improved resources that the internet has allowed us to partake in. These new and innovative ways to show people what they need to see regarding your new company will really pay off in the long run. Even if you have a small budget for marketing, the internet will definitely fit into that budget.

Instant Preview – A new Google Tool

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Google is moving ahead in full steam. Not only the search results are now displayed while you type your query, and change with each addition of a letter (Google Instant), Google Places displays businesses fist when you type in a place name.
This month Google has released Instant Preview, and you already have it in the result page.
Instant Preview provides a snap shot of the landing page on the result page without having to click on the link. If until now the search results offered a title, a snippet of the text and the URL, now it can give you a visual view of that page as well.
Next to the search result there’s a magnifying glass. Click on that and you will see how the website looks like. Once you clicked on it one time per page, when you hover the cursor over the result the page appears.
As Goggle puts it on their blog: “Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine.”
The technology behind it is amazing. No more 20-30 seconds to upload a picture. When you type a query, Google’s machines match it with an index of the entire web and present you with the results usually in under one tenth of a second. Once you click on the magnifying glass, images of the next results load up in the background without interrupting the speed.
The landing pages have become much more important now. Searchers have no longer a need to click on the site to see the content. E commerce and advertising will have to adjust.

Google Places – a New Kind of Search

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In an attempt to improve, evolve and keep its prominence as the leading search engine, Google has launched, last September, a new service called Goggle Places, an improvement on Goggle’s Business Center.

Millions of people search Google every day, and the wealth of information is staggering. To minimize frustration and provide a better service that can be monetized, Google Places will now help you find places in the real world and display them with a tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

With a listing of 50 million places around the world Google helps people find a localized place; from restaurants and hotels to car repair shops and dry cleaners. According to Google, local search amount to 20% of all searches being done.

If Google thinks the query is about a place, it automatically chooses the Place search, rather than a general web search.  It shows a new kind of search result that replaces a list of links with a list of mini-pages for the businesses in the area, with a map, an address and phone number. The mini-profile also contains a photo of the establishment and snippet from a typical review.

It already lists non-business places such as museums, parks and schools in 50 million locations.

As for the merchants, it opens up a new advertising venue. For $25 a month, local businesses can buy “tags” which will make their listing appear in Google Places more prominently.

Businesses are able to add pictures, and add real-time updates. They can define the area they operate in, schedule a photo shoot for a better picture and will be able, very soon, to add coupons and special promotions to be displayed on the search result.

Customers can print out custom QR codes which are readable by cell phones with cameras and QR readers that will pop up in a mobile version of their Google Place page.

It’s a win-win situation, Google says. Google is helping people make more informed decisions about where to go, in a shorter amount of time. Local businesses can receive bigger, better and quicker exposure with a relatively small price tag.