Digital Marketing Consultant

Digital Marketing also called Internet Marketing has the purpose to promote your products and services to influence your online customers.  Involving Digital Marketing strategies in your business strategies is not enough; to be successful, having smart marketing is even more important.  Smart marketing is not just about ranking; it’s about phone calls, mailings, socializing, interacting, and connecting etc.  In short, you must have traffic. 

To be even more specific, it is about the right type of traffic.  Of course, Digital Marketing can provide all such advantages through its digital tools - SEO, Google AdWords, Social Media, email marketing to name a few.  Hence, it is true that Digital Marketing can be smart marketing.

Digital Marketing has emerged from the Internet and has had a very profound impact on all businesses.  As you have millions of users who are dependent on the Internet, Digital Marketing is the way to get to such a vast crowd without spending an arm and a leg.  Digital Marketing focuses on customer relationships, shopping benefits, products, and service information, and almost anything that you can relate to your business.  Digital Marketing if made a serious part of your business will lead your business to new levels by generating awareness of your products. 

Digital Marketing is a never ending chain.  This means that if you are able to positively influence a single customer, he will promote your business to another and the chain goes on.  So, are you ready to make Digital Marketing part of your business plan?  Then it’s time you should know what Internet Marketing is offering:

• Encouraging thousands of people to take interest in your website
• Making people aware of your business (products and services that you offer)
• Establishing your brand image and your business reputation
• Keeping friends updated on the forums of their choice
• Capturing free traffic

Hence, to reach a wider demographic and to benefit from all the above-mentioned advantages, you must let the Internet Marketing power work for your business.  Why?

Reason 1

Digital Marketing is already successful for many businesses.  This means it is a proven strategy which goes beyond personal promotion.  More importantly, it is not just for corporate or well-structured businesses, but any size business to take advantage of its unlimited opportunities.

Reason 2

You can have Digital Marketing strategies that your customers are looking for.  This means you are providing your current and potential customers with information they need on the forums they want.  For example you can know if your website analysis shows that most of your web traffic is diverted from a Social Media network like Facebook, you can market on such forums in the future. 

Reason 3

None of your customers need to remain unattended.  This is the best thing about Digital Marketing as there are various ways to maintain your target audience and communicate with customers. 

Generic Solution

By taking full advantage of Search Engine and Social Media Optimization you are able to reinforce your website or brand presence on popular search engines without paying extra for it. Here are some steps you can take to optimize your website organically:

• Content Marketing. A resource website should have articles related to the product or service that you are offering. Websites that contain 100 pages of content or more are likely to achieve higher rankings in search engines and increase your website’s ability to be found for long-tail keyword searches.
• Create Incoming Links. Link building and link popularity is important for all websites. Link popularity refers to the amount of text links that lead to your website from other sites and is the single most important factor that a search engine algorithm considers when ranking a web page.

Effective link building is achieved by blogging on a regular basis, submitting your websites to online classifieds/directories and by taking advantage of the many social media platforms that are available – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

Combine SEO with SMO. Brand your name with social media marketing. Websites like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Twitter can be leveraged effectively to grow your business. By spreading your content over social media channels your website will gain many more search engine positions.

Work with WSI to make Sure You Appear on Google

Developing a search engine optimization game plan is the key to the success of your website. It takes careful keyword research which is an activity that can take many hours followed by carefully sorting them into specific product or service silos to ensure creating relevant content that will attract targeted “long tail” searches.

Let WSI help you by creating the optimal website content blueprint to ensure a successful “lead generating” website. With our proprietary WSI Power Search software, we can quickly identify and obtain creative content ideas that will develop your website into a resource website that will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry. Let WSI become your Internet marketing lead generation partner.

Compete Effectively Against the Bigger Brands with SEO

One of the greatest advantages the Internet has over the Yellow Pages is that the Yellow Pages puts your business right next to your competitors, whereas the Internet gives you infinite scope to differentiate yourself from competitors. In addition to this, the various analytical tools available to website owners allows for you to identify areas where you can make an improvement to your website.

I Have Good Content, But I still Don't Rank on Google's First Page.  Why?

This is a question that is asked many times. The way Google prioritizes its search rankings is done in two
ways:

1. On-page optimization – at the very basic level, it is where the good content comes in with the related keywords being used in headings, sub headings, bullets and internal link text.
2. Off-page optimization – These are external links that point to your website from other websites. These links are seen as recommendations and build credibility for your website.  Google ranks your web page based on the number of valuable related links. You could view this as a voting system; the one with the most related votes will do well.

Comment from John Danenbarger: I cannot remember which publication had this article, but forgive me for not crediting you.

How To Use Video SEO To Jump To The Top Of Google Search Results

Editor’s note: In the following guest post, Fliqz  CEO Benjamin Wayne  reveals some of the secrets of using video to help boost the search results rankings of your website. Fliqz is an online video platform.

As most search engine optimization (SEO) experts are aware, getting a first-page Google result is harder than ever. Not only do Google’s search and indexing algorithms continue to evolve in complexity, but Google has given over more and more of its search results real estate to “blended” search results, displaying videos and images towards the top of the first page, and pushing down—and sometimes off the page—traditional web results that would have otherwise competed for top rankings.

But where problems arise, so do opportunities. Although Google’s newfound enthusiasm for video has created more competition for fewer traditional search results, it has enabled sites with video assets—even sites that would otherwise score poorly in the Google index—to successfully achieve first-page rankings. In fact, Forrester Research found  that videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive an organic first-page ranking.

Here’s what a blended search result looks like for the search query “777 built in 4 minutes “:
 
Those images at the top of the search results are video thumbnails, and today, there’s only two ways to get there:

1. Upload your video to YouTube.

The advantage of this is that you are 100% certain to be indexed into Google’s search engine. This does not guarantee you’ll get a first-page result, but at least it ensures that Google knows your content exists.

The drawback, of course, is that anyone who clicks on a YouTube result will be taken to YouTube, which may be fine if your goal is branding (i.e., you only care that people watch your video). If your goal is driving traffic, as is typically the case with SEO, this won’t be a successful strategy.

Your other alternative is:

2. Video SEO

Video SEO is a set of techniques designed to make sure that:
•    Google finds your video content
•    Google successfully indexes your video content
•    Google will display your video content when specific keywords are entered as search terms

Here’s how to make it work:

You Need Video Content

Google is fairly flexible in what it considers to be video content. You can use actual video footage, but screen captures, slide shows, animated PowerPoint slides, and other content will work just as well. Google can’t actually “see” what’s inside the video content, so it relies on title and other meta-data to determine what content your video actually contains.

Submission, Not Discovery

With traditional web pages, Google utilizes crawlers to discover and index web content. Unfortunately, Google can’t read Flash very well (although it is trying), and as a result, most video content is invisible to Google’s search crawlers. Therefore, the best way to appear in Google’s blended search results is to submit your video to Google using a Video Sitemap . This is similar to an XML sitemap, but is formatted specifically for video, and only contains information about your video content. It is submitted using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

The most common error in Video SEO is to assume that because you have submitted the web page on which a video resides, that the video content itself is being indexed.

You’ll also need to make sure that you have a robots.txt  file on all video pages, to ensure that Google can easily verify that the locations on the Web you’ve submitted do in fact exist, and that they contain embed codes which indicate the presence of a video.

Title and Title Tags

When ranking videos, Google primarily considers the match between search keywords and the video title. Although Google allows you to submit other meta-data such as description and keywords, these currently don’t have much influence on your search ranking. Google likes it when the title tag of the page matches the title of the video, and will give a higher weighting for results where this is the case.

Video SEO is Long Tail

Like traditional SEO, you’re much more likely to see results with Video SEO if you target more specific, or longer tail, search terms. A video titled “Dog” is unlikely to produce a first-page ranking, while a video titled “German Shepherd Police Dog” will be more likely to score well in Google’s algorithm. Since Google can’t determine the actual content of the video, you might consider submitting the same video multiple times with different titles that match potential search terms.

New and Small Don’t Matter

With traditional SEO, the age of a website is an important consideration for Google in deciding its ranking. Google also considers things like the number of pages on the site, and the number of links to the site, along with the importance of the places those links originate.

In Video SEO, none of this matters. This means that even new sites and small sites can compete on equal footing with larger and more established players. Publishers who are too small or too new to even consider traditional SEO can still be taking advantage of Video SEO opportunities.

For the Foreseeable Future, Video SEO is a Winning Strategy

As time goes by, Google’s discovery and indexing of video content will no doubt become more sophisticated, and as competition for video results increases, it will become harder for sites to achieve these first-page rankings. However, the number of web pages still massively outnumbers indexed video assets, and for as long as that continues, publishers will have an opportunity to jump to the top of Google’s search results through Video SEO.

Have you given your competition on the web any thought recently?  Perhaps you should identify ways you can position your website above the growing competition. 

SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) are two ways to get ahead in the competition game.  Both are very good ways to obtain the growth you want online.  Every day new tech methods are developed to assist website owners move the business to the next level.

Social media continues to show growth for the Internet marketer.  There is real value in making the social media platforms a marketing target for the coming year.

SEO search refinement will continue to offer additional competitive edge for website marketing campaigns.  Individual search engines will continue to gain market share throughout the coming year opening new opportunities other than Google for the Internet marketer.

More competition will require a much more aggressive marketing strategy over the next year.  Budgeting additional dollars for advertising can prove to be beneficial is expanding your business.

Customer expectations are also increasing at a high rate.   One of the areas that is getting some extra attention by the customer is the time between order and delivery.  They purchase a product today and want to receive it as soon as possible.

Increased competition over the coming year will lead to lively Internet marketing advertisements.  Competition emphasizes the need to maintain compliance while taking advantage of the various types of Internet marketing available today.  Today there is a need to incorporate various methods of marketing to stay above the competition.

Unless you can afford to have your own full-time staff working to stay ahead of the competition, it would be wise to out-source it to a competent company.

by Karen Scharf

The task of search engine optimization for your website can seem overwhelming at times. You have enough work to do just running your small business, so it’s easy to put SEO at the bottom of your priority list.

However, without proper search engine optimization, your website is very unlikely to be much of a success. This can mean the money and time that you spent getting your website designed and developed becomes wasted.

There are several ways that you can improve your SEO without spending tons of time or tons of money. Here are 10 of the quickest and most affordable SEO tips out there.

You want to make sure that your website has been submitted to search engines. SEO is all about optimizing your position in various search engines, but this is only relevant if you are actually listed in the search engines. When your website is brand new and it has no incoming links yet, it can be difficult for the spiders to find it, so it’s a good idea to hand submit your site to the search engine.

2. Clean up Your Site

Make sure your website is organized and clear. It is especially important to clean up any dead links. Fix any errors that may appear on your site and double check to make sure your entire site’s html is up to par. There are online services that can help you do this. Since search engines primarily work and rank websites through the use of robots it is important to make sure all of the technical aspects of your website are in good working order. This helps ensure that the robots can quickly and freely crawl through your site and they won’t encounter any errors or roadblocks that force them to abandon your site too soon.

3. Use Good Keyphrases

If you’re trying to optimize your brand new website for a single keyword, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Try longtail keyword phrases instead (a phrase that is four words or longer) because they are less competitive and easier to get started with. Be sure to research the phrases that your target market is actually searching for, and then do the competitive research to ensure that you actually have a chance of ranking for those phrases.

4. Create Good URLs

Creating readable URLs is especially important if you’re using a content management system or otherwise generating dynamic URLs. While evidence suggests that Google’s new algorithm does not apply much weight to keyword rich URLs, other search engines do. And since it’s such an easy step to create relevant URLs, it’s worth the few seconds of extra time it might take, if only to make it easier on your human site visitors. Make sure that your URLs are indicative of the kind of information that your visitors will encounter on that page.

5. Improve your Title Tags

Title tags are still an important aspect of search engine placement, and since they are so extremely easy to update this is a step that definitely needs to be included in your affordable SEO plan. Make sure that your title tags are keyword rich and appropriate to the subject matter of the particular web page. And make sure you use a unique title tag on each and every page in your site.

6. Check your ALT Tags

Make sure that your alt tags are clear and keyword rich. While Google does not take into account alt tag text for ranking purposes, some other search engines still do. But the key issue to keep in mind with alt tags is that they are meant for usability. They are designed to aid website visitors with visual impairments navigate through your site and understand all of your content. While Google may not take the content of the tag into account, it couldn’t hurt to show Google that you are running a professional website that caters to all users.

7. Get Backlinks

Getting relevant links coming into your website can be tedious and time consuming. So this isn’t exactly considered a “quick tip”. But there are a few things you can do to help speed up your link building program. First, take advantage of industry groups or trade associations that you belong to. They usually have online directories where you can include a link to your website in your membership profile. Join a forum that is related to your niche and include your website address in your profile and signature.

Submit a press release announcing the publication of your new site and include a link to your URL. Keep in mind that none of these are considered “high value” incoming links, but they are all quick and easy ways to get your linking program off the ground.

8. Create and Update Regularly

Keep your website or blog fresh and relevant.  You don’t have to go overboard, but be sure to make small updates regularly.  This ensures that the search engine spiders will return often. Use unique content, avoid private label right articles, and keep information as current as possible.

9. Generate a Site Map

Creating an XML sitemap makes it easier for the search engine bots to crawl through and navigate your website.  This is especially true if your site is rich in script and flash. The structure of your sitemap does matter, so if you’re not sure how to create one, check with your webmaster. Chances are, he or she will have software that will simplify the process.

10. Use Social Media

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are quickly becoming the new search engines.  Make sure you are adequately represented on sites like these. Set up a page for your company and post regularly.  Have friends, family, customers and fans sign up for your page and encourage them to advertise to their friends, family, clients, and fans.  This is a great way to build up your reputation and yet another way to quickly multiply reputable backlinks to your page.

Search engine optimization can be intimidating for many small business owners, and it’s true that a full-fledged optimization program will take time. But by following these quick and easy steps, you’ll be able to create an affordable SEO program that gets your new website off the ground in no time.

In today’s economy everyone is looking for ways to increase their income.  Internet or Digital Marketing is a great income stream potential.  Whether it be your main source of income or a secondary income source, Internet marketing income offers a lot of advantage.

Shoppers via the internet are not limited to traditional stores hours.  Internet marketing allows for shoppers to visit your online business at any hour of the day.  

There are literally no geographic barriers to where you area market could be located.   The Internet has opened wide the information highway for potential customers to access your site from almost any location of the world.  This alone provides for an endless supply of customers.

Regardless of the size of your online business, you can obtain the advantages of increased traffic flow to your website on the Internet.   There are a lot of tools available to assist you in monitoring your business, understanding your customer base, increasing traffic to your business, and focusing on your target market.  

Obtaining a substantial income stream on the internet has not been easier at any time than it is today.  Build a website that is user and search engine friendly, place quality content on your website, start a blog, incorporate article marketing strategies with effective keyword strategy and watch your income steadily increase.

Gain an income advantage by offering products and services to the multitudes of online shoppers.  Make sure your website is visible with high ranking by seeking the assistance of an SEO expert.   Using an expert can provide quality results and save you a lot of time.

Explore our wisdom book for ideas.

Traffic is of utmost importance in a successful internet marketing business.  It is not so different than it is for a tradition business offline.   A store built on  the corner of a major intersection will usually do better than a business located down a vacant alley.  Let’s take a look at the top methods to drive website traffic.

SEO

It is no secret that SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the best methods to get traffic to your online business.  In fact SEO should be instituted even before your website is designed. 

SEO should be woven into all fibers of your online business.  

SEO is the most effective way to get the attention of the search engines which is used for internet searches by your potential customers.   Understanding keywords and how to effectively use these keywords in content, blog posts, is a vital part of SEO.  

Keyword density is critical to find favor with the search engines and is part of setting up a "perfect page." 

An SEO consultant or expert can provide website optimization for your website.

Once you get traffic to your site you will want to turn the visitors to customers.  This process is referred to as converting or conversion.  Not all visitors will be from your target market but if the SEO is done properly the majority of your visitors will have been searching for your particular niche.

One of the best ways to convert a visitor to a customer is to make sure the services and products you offer are easy to locate and are easy to purchase.  Your site needs a conversion architecture.  A lot of conversions never occur simply because there are too many steps or clicks involved in completing the process.  

Providing incentives to encourage a visitor to make a purchase is another successful tactic that can be utilized. 

Provide content that gives the visitor valuable information (to build credibility) can also improve the conversion rate for your website.

So many factors are involved in SEO.  A serious overview of what is necessary can be found in our Wisdom Book.

I get this question all the time. Unfortunately, SEO costs is not an easy question to answer.

To back up a bit, there has been a major shift in the marketing rules in just the last few years. Interrupt marketing (commercials, pop-ups, banners) and passive marketing (magazine ads, flyers and mailers, phonebook ads) have become less effective as more people are engaged with the Internet. I give talks to groups of business owners, and at the start of each talk, always ask two questions:

   1. How many of you have used the yellow pages in the last month? (a few hands go up)
   2. How many of you used Google yesterday? (every single hand in the room goes up)

This is a poignant illustration that we all use Google and the other search engines to search for products and services, and do research before making a purchase or finding a company to do business with. Unfortunately, many businesses still cling to the “old ways”./>

As business owners start to realize that their advertising dollars bring fewer new clients in the front door, they start to wonder, “What would it take to get onto Google and the other search engines?

That’s where the question, “How much does SEO cost?” comes in.

There are so many factors that determine who gets to be “king of the Google hill” and who is relegated to the bottom of the heap. We don’t have a magic wand to wave over a client’s website to make it to the top. It’s been documented that Google actually changes the rules every single day! Furthermore, the client’s website itself usually has significant enough problems that prevent it from performing the way it could on the search engines.

We always recommend that a business that wants to get ahead of their competition on the search engines, must have us perform a thorough analysis. It’s kind of like going to the doctor. You may have a pain that’s bothering you, but the doctor isn’t going to just recommend surgery or a prescription. They have to run tests – blood work, diagnostics, x-rays, and so on, before deciding upon a course of action.

    * The client’s website coding structure (think of it as their vital signs)
    * A 25-point SEO readiness checklist (health history)
    * A WebScan™ that looks at on-site and off-site factors (an x-ray)
    * Keyword research – what are people really searching for? (We hate shooting in the dark!)
    * Competitor research – what do the client’s search engine competitors look like (environmental factors)

Once our diagnostic analysis has been completed, then we can effectively answer the question, “How much does SEO cost?” It may be just fixing a few things on the site, or it may be “major surgery”, depending upon how aggressive and competitive the landscape is.

If you as a business owner want to get to the top, insist that your digital marketing expert run these tests to diagnose the problem. It’s better to know up front what you’re facing, rather than shooting in the dark and completely missing the mark!

Learn more about how we leverage SEO techniques that will help your business gain competitive rankings for your site

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I am going to repeat something that I have said just a few days ago: The majority of website businesses do not succeed.   In fact, most end up in miserable failure.  A lot of websites have a pleasing appearance, even great features, and lots of traffic, but the real purpose for a website business is to produce income. 

 

The purpose of the website is obtained by several different methods including:

• Direct product sales
• Affiliate promotions
• Generation of leads

Regardless of the method used, the bottom line goal is to convert the traffic into paying customers, i.e. Conversion Architecture.  A lot of websites fail to obtain the necessary conversions.

I repeat a few of the most common reasons conversions do not occur with one additional  reason:

1.   No compelling sales copy on your website.  Your content should provide information about what you do.  The content should urge and suggest to your customer the reason why purchasing now is best.  

2.  Failure to establish the call-to-action.   Think about what you want your visitors to do once they arrive on your site.   This may be to purchase something, subscribe to something, or to contact you directly.   The key here is do not leave it to the imagination spell it out for them on your.  You job as the owner of your website is to help others.  You should provide the directions your market will need to follow to take the action you desire them to take. 

3.  Make navigating your website easy for the newbie visitor on your site.   People tend to leave websites quickly if they are difficult to navigate.  If you are not sure if people find your website easy to navigate, listen to what they have to saw.  Just by listening, you can discover the challenges people are having on your website.

4.  Have not understood how SEO and SEM all works together.  If you are not spending your life working to make your business website work, you are probably only getting some of the information you need to make your on-line business succeed.

These are just a few of the main reasons some websites fail.   By taking care to know all the reasons, you will probably understand that you need full-time, qualified help and, finally then you can attain the success for your online business you have dreamed of having.