When it comes to building your social media tribe, you can’t just put yourself and your product out there and expect people to come running. For those of us who don’t have celebrity status, creating a large, thriving community on social networks takes a lot of time and quite a bit of work.

 

You may have a brilliant profile with a stunning image and customized homepage, but if no one’s dropping by to see it, what’s the point? To paraphrase the old saying: if you write the perfect status update and nobody reads it, does it exist? In this case, we’d have to say no. Because the unseen status update is just as inconsequential as if you had never written one at all. And because you’re not as well known as Oprah Winfrey or Justin Bieber (not yet), you aren’t going to get any friend requests pouring in just because you’ve shown up on the scene.

 

So, until your big break hits, here are a few tips for increasing your friends, followers and connections:

 

1. You’ve got to give to get. When Tweeting or updating your Facebook status, remember to provide good content for your friends and followers. Rather than using every Tweet to plug a product or a service you provide, try offering handy tips that are relevant to your market. People love a freebie and sharing bits of your knowledge shows that you care.
2. Do some back scratching. If you want tons of people to follow you, you need to start following tons of people. If you want other experts in your area to make comments on your blogs, you need to make comments on their blogs. See where we’re going with this?
3. Reach out and touch someone. Look around online and find places where you can insert yourself into the conversations going on in your market. Join forums, LinkedIn groups, and the like and be an active participant. Make yourself known in the webosphere amongst your peers and your potential customers.
4. Get out once in a while. Stop spending the majority of your work time sitting behind a desk, glued to a computer; find out what the real people are doing these days. Attend live events and networking functions to talk with other people in your niche face-to-face. Make real live connections and get to know a different aspect of your market. Invite your new friends to follow you or visit your Facebook page.
5. Scratch your own back. If your Facebook page is busier than your Twitter, make a few status updates promoting your Twitter page. If you’ve got 500 followers on Twitter and only 16 connections on LinkedIn, update your LinkedIn profile then Tweet about it. Don’t be afraid of cross-promotion.

 

The most important tip we can give you for growing your social media network is to stay active. You have valuable products to offer and services to promote and things you want to say about your industry, and there are people out there who want to hear about all of it. But they can’t listen if you’re not talking. It’s just a matter of getting out there and doing it.

Knowing how to determine whether the time and energy you’re putting into your business is earning you the payoff you’re looking for is especially vital when it comes to paid search marketing campaigns. Sure, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns can help increase your visibility online, but by how much and is the margin of increase worth the money you’re spending? More importantly, are you seeing results in your bottom line?

 

By analyzing your return on investment (ROI), you can more effectively determine which ads and keywords to keep using and which ones to let go of as you continue to develop and hone your SEO efforts. Understanding if the money and time you put into projects, equipment or materials is worth the payoff at the end of the day is fundamental to making decisions on whether to continue your current efforts or determining that it’s time to refocus your funds and energies.

 

Particular areas to examine are ad cost, the number of clicks you receive from paid listings, the number of orders resulting from those clicks and the revenue generated on the product you’re paying to list. To get your ROI, you can simply crunch a few numbers to see whether you’re getting the payoff you’re looking for. For example, the difference between the amount you paid for your ad and the revenue generated is your ad profit. Take that number, divide it by the initial cost and multiply by 100 to get your ROI for that ad.

 

Not a math person? Luckily most bid management programs offer click-through reports so you can see how your ad is doing. You can get data on how many times your site was listed in a search, how often a user clicked on your link and how much you’re paying for each keyword. These reports don’t offer the most in-depth information, but they are valuable in that you get an idea of where your marketing efforts stand.

 

More thorough reports from ROI tracking systems like AdWatcher, Trak4U and others make it easier to effectively and efficiently decide which campaigns to continue and which to drop, thereby making you a smarter business owner and ensuring that you spend your money and time in the best ways possible.

 

Whether you’re explaining a service that your company provides or offering an instructional reference for a product you sell, video is a fantastic way to reach out to your customers and connect with them on a level that is hard to achieve with mere copy on a webpage. Because your customers can get a glimpse of you and your products in action, you can further personalize your services and create a relationship with them that you may not otherwise achieve.

 

No longer restricted to holiday gatherings and family vacations, personal videos these days span a wide range of subjects from pranks trying to capture the big prize on America’s Funniest Videos to DIY marketing and promotional materials. Thanks to the Internet and easily accessible video cameras, you can create and upload your very own product commercials in less time than it will take us to finish writing this article.

 

With your marketing videos, you have fresh, inexpensive content that you can add to your website, electronic marketing materials, Facebook page and link to via Twitter. Then, of course, there’s Youtube, the online video distribution platform that has skyrocketed the success and notoriety of businesses of every kind imaginable.

 

As they write on their site, “YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe,” and, it’s free! Similar to other social networking sites, YouTube allows you to create a personal page and solicit followers so that you have one more avenue for reaching out and communicating with your community.

 

Grab your best products, pull out that Flip camera you got last Christmas and get ready to reap the benefits of video marketing. Lights, camera, action!

 

You may recall our September 14th post on the launch of Google Instant, Google’s advanced search engine that returns search results with each letter you type, and our follow up post a month after its launch on how it had improved the likelihood of businesses connecting with their ideal clients. Well, it’s been another month and courtesy of the Google geniuses, we’ve got another update: Instant Previews.


Instant Previews is shaking up the SEO world once again as the concept of web design comes back into focus. Because Instant Previews allows Google users to get a sneak peek at the websites in their search results, now not only can they opt to skip or visit your site based on the value of your title and description, they can check out your design before they ever click your link.


Now, some may argue that content is key and that when it comes to a website’s value, design is secondary, and that’s ultimately true. (Clichés like “lipstick on a pig” come to mind.) However, people like pretty. Whether we want to admit it or not, we’ve all got a little magpie in us and we’re drawn to shiny, attractive things – and so are your clients and potential customers.


Think about it; corporations devote entire departments to creating, updating and maintaining their websites with a team specifically focused on making sure they’re attractive and user-friendly. Why? Because: design is important.


The thing is, when your ideal client does a search for your products or services, your competition comes up in the list of results with you. Thanks to Google Instant Previews, the deciding factor in which link they choose may very well be the design, especially if your site’s content is comparable in value to the others. It’s definitely something to think about. By the way, since the previews shown are not necessarily of the homepage, every page on your site needs to be taken into consideration. <br>

Our weekly blog posts usually focus on generating ideas for maximizing your SEO efforts and increasing your presence and visibility around the Internet with tools and strategies like social media, newsletters and researching and implementing targeted keywords on your websites. Such tactics are great for helping you drive traffic to your site and generate revenue but they also take a good deal of time and effort that might be better spent working on your products or with your clients.

 

A great way an Internet marketer can take advantage of all the strategies and tactics available to him while maintaining a tight hold on the actual focus of his business is through delegation. Employing and utilizing staff to handle day-to-day administrative and marketing tasks can keep the business end of your business running while you concentrate your efforts on handling clients and creating merchandise. Of course, hiring full-time employees is a cost that many new businesses can’t easily take on. Luckily, it’s not necessary.

 

These days there are tons of Internet businesses centered on assisting companies virtually that work on an hourly or even minute-by-minute basis. That way you’re only paying for actual work, not for someone to warm a chair in your office until you have something for him to do. From scheduling appointments to organizing your databases to researching keywords and phrases for your website, assistants – virtual or otherwise – can take care of a lot of the menial but necessary tasks that are integral to running a business.

 

Whether it’s designing and launching your website, writing and posting articles, or simply checking your email and deleting spam for you, office support employees can help you wisely leverage your time so that they essentially pay for themselves. Sure, you might be willing to sacrifice all of your time and energy to handle every aspect of your business … but why would you want to?

Having a website full of duplicate content is one of the quickest ways to be dropped to the bottom of search engine rankings. To maintain a successful online business and ensure that your website’s pages are filled with informative and unique content, it’s important to evaluate and identify any redundancies on your site. When search engine robots scan the web for sites to use in results, those with pages bearing over 70% resemblance to each other are quickly dropped to the bottom of the rankings.

 

Easy, right? Just scan your website to identify whether you have duplicate content and rectify the situation. Well, no. Duplicate content isn’t only determined by onsite copy, but by meta descriptions, title elements and other items you may not think to check. Plus, what if you have hundreds of different pages on your site or templates that have redundant information? What do you do then?

 

Luckily, there are several diagnostic tools you can use to identify and then alter your website’s duplicate content. Here are a couple of free ones for you to check out:

 

• Google Webmaster Tools: Get detailed reports on your pages’ visibility, understand how Google crawls and indexes your site, find out which Google search queries drive traffic to your site and share information about your website with Google to be more involved in the search and result process.
• Webconfs.com Similar Page Checker: Determine the percentage of similarity between web pages. Simply input the two URLs and Similar Page Checker will give you a quick, precise evaluation.

 

Once you pinpoint duplicate content on your site, you can then begin to take steps to correct the situation. After you have evaluated and re-worked your site, be sure to continue to monitor your content to keep your pages at the top of search engine rankings.

 

 

A month ago Google launched its new search engine, Google Instant and the SEO blogosphere went bananas. People across the web were making huge proclamations like, “SEO is Dead!” and wringing their hands in anticipation of what was coming next. SEO authorities declared that Google Instant was going to revolutionize the way Internet marketers thought and worked.

 

And it did … kind of.

 

We’re a few weeks into this new era of web searches and from most reports, not a whole lot has changed. So far keyword search rankings haven’t been significantly impacted and neither have the numbers on search term length.

 

There has been one notable positive result: organic traffic to websites is up, which is great news for Internet marketers. As Google Instant refines search terms while a user types, they also personalize the results so that a user has a much better chance of finding exactly what they are looking for.

 

How is that great news for Internet marketers?

 

Well, for businesses who have pinpointed their ideal client and have targeted their marketing toward them specifically, Google Instant is a new best friend. The combined forces of a company’s well planned SEO efforts and Google Instant’s ability to produce individualized search results create the optimal atmosphere for joining marketers with their target audience faster and more accurately than ever!

 

 

 

For most Internet start-up businesses, there isn’t a lot of extra cash lying around to spend on marketing. Luckily, there are many ways entrepreneurs themselves can promote their products and companies online without dropping lots of dollars.

 

 

Facebook:            Create a Facebook profile for your company then develop a Fan Page for each of your products.

 

Twitter:            Update followers on the latest news at your company or provide helpful tips and hints, 140 characters at a time.

 

You Tube:            Like having your very own TV station, You Tube lets you post your own informational or instructional videos online.

 

Linked In:            Stay connected to business contacts and clients and make new ones in your industry.

 

Newsletters:             Keep your client base updated on your business and product offerings while keeping your name and company on their radar.

 

Blogs:            With regular blog postings you can develop an online community centered on your company’s industry while updating readers on your offerings and products.

 

Articles:             Establish your expertise in your area by writing and submitting articles to online websites that promote your industry.

 

Take advantage of all that the Internet has to offer. From social media communities to a customized blog for your company, there are tons of ways you can freely promote and market your products to old and new clients alike!

Although sending out a regular newsletter may seem like a daunting task, it’s really easier than you think. You can include things like helpful tips and tricks, lists of useful information or links to articles. Marketing is a tricky game because the moment you’re ready to promote your services does not necessarily coincide with the time your customer is ready to buy. Newsletters remind your clients and potential prospects of what products and services you offer and guarantee that when they’re finally ready to make a move, you’re within easy reach.

 

A regular newsletter is a great way to stay in touch and remind your client base what your company offers and what products you have available for them. By sending periodic newsletters on your company and services, you can keep in contact with your list and ensure that your name is the first on clients’ minds when they’re ready to buy what you’re selling,

 

Offering a well thought out, professional newsletter is a great way to keep your company and product in front of your clients without pressuring them to purchase. At the same time, it ensures that they always have quick access to your contact information. As time passes, a potential client you met at a networking breakfast who is finally in the market for your product might not remember that you sell it. Or maybe in that conversation you mentioned your teleseminar, but you didn’t get the chance to talk about your retreats or eBooks. A newsletter gets that chance back for you.

 

Make sure that your newsletter short, interesting and valuable. Because it’s a representation of you and your company, you should also be sure it’s well written and looks professional. Most important, be consistent and get your message out there because, if you’re not telling them, who will?

 

Creating a website isn’t so hard. You purchase a domain, hire a designer, add your subject matter, and boom done. Right? Well … yes. However, if you’re in the business of building websites to market a product or company, you’re missing a huge component of the process that is integral for your site’s eventual success: information architecture.

 

Information architecture is an industry term that basically means website blueprint. Just as you wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, you shouldn’t build a website without first organizing and planning your information architecture. Few ventures without a solid game plan are successful; a website is no different.

 

Here are five things to keep in mind when planning and organizing your information architecture to maximize the potential of your website’s success.

 

1.     What is the goal of your website? Whether you are looking to sell products, secure a fan base for your new novel or create an online community for harmonica enthusiasts, you need to know where you’re trying to go with your site so you can make a plan to get there.

2.     Who will be using your website? In order to create a clear, easy-to-navigate site for your users, you need to understand who they are and what they’re looking for.

3.    What content will you be putting on your site? Identify what you need to include as well as what you don’t need to include so that you can organize and layout your site to be of optimal use for your visitors.

4.    How should your information be organized? Look at what your site is offering and work with your designer to plan the most logical, direct path for getting the information or products to your client. For example, if you’re selling pink bunny slippers, you want it to be super easy for your client to find their size, place the order and check out in your shopping cart without having to guess where to enter their payment information or shipping address.

5.     Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Once you get to the build phase, take comfort in the knowledge that you have developed a well thought out, organized blueprint for creating the exact site you have in mind.