The One Advertising Tactic that Could Make or Break Your Business:

Recommendations from customers are the number one trusted source of advertising, making word of mouth a worthwhile investment for every business. It may be the most powerful advertising tactic you can use to grow your business, with no financial outlay.

Most companies already know that referrals are powerful. In fact, existing clients and partners can be the biggest source of new client introductions for many small businesses.

So consider the exponential exposure you can get when those same clients and partners recommend you publicly. Consider also that online reviews have the power to strengthen existing customer relationships, and you have a couple powerful reasons to put some energy into cultivating more online reviews.

In case you’re wondering where to start, here are some ideas to kick start a plan for getting more reviews from your customers.

Create an account or claim your listing on directories such as:

• Google Places and Yahoo! Local
• Yelp
• Kudzu
• LinkedIn (see this primer on setting up your business profile on LinkedIn)
• Facebook (Facebook business pages can have a tab for posting reviews – just type “review” in the search box and the app will show up)

Let customers know you’ve set up an account and would love for them to add a review of your business:

• Send an announcement to your customers via email about the ability to add reviews. Also include the announcement in your newsletter and blog. (Don’t forget to provide the link to your page, to make it super easy. The easier it is for people to add a review, the more likely they’ll do it!)
• Announce your review pages via your status updates on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Ask each customer to add a review next time you’re speaking to them on the phone. Then follow up with a personal email after the conversation. It might feel like a tedious manual job, but your reviews are like gold. Getting those few extra reviews added can pay off in new customers.
• Offer incentives for reviewers to act immediately. For example, give a deep discount or hold a giveaway drawing that includes the first 20 people to post a review by a certain deadline.

If you are interested to know more about online marketing try to join our 3rd e-marketing conference on the 13th of december in Luxor,Egypt.
http://ioeti.org/2010_ioeti_conference/index.php

Reference: www.site-reference.com
Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa
www.ioeti.org

7 mistakes you shouldn’t make in your online marketing:

The cyber-world has opened new doors to businesses, allowing them to reach audiences across the globe and increase sales monumentally. Those who decide to take advantage of doing business online know the importance of having a successful online marketing plan. They also realize that’s not an easy task. Countless businesses have tried and failed because of mistakes they made in their marketing strategies.

If you are planning to use the web to market your company, you should know these pitfalls and how to avoid them. Here are the top ten biggest mistakes made by online marketers:

Delivering old news:
One of the most important rules of online business is keeping your content up to date

Not keeping up with technology:
The internet changes almost daily, so if you want your online marketing campaign to be successful, you have to be able to adapt to those changes and keep up.

Making things too complicated:
Offering an option for visitors to provide their email address or sign up for your newsletter is a great tactic to gather their information for future marketing opportunities. But if they have to click through 12 different pages to do so, it’s more likely that they’ll give up and leave.

Giving in to the temptation of spam:
It can be tempting to take the easy way out and employ not so legitimate marketing techniques, like purchasing email addresses, but if it’s not ethical it will come back to bite you in the long run.

Letting non-converting visitors get away:
A good online marketing campaign should consist of two parts – first getting visitors to your site, and then going after the ones who leave before buying

Forgetting to measure:

You may have spent a lot of time and money developing a top-of-the-line marketing plan, but if you’re not regularly measuring its performance you’re probably not achieving the results you desire.

Being afraid to ask for help:

Not everyone has the expertise or the time to develop and maintain an effective online marketing plan. That’s why there are firms that specialize in this sort of thing, and can help you build a customized marketing plan that will get the results you desire.

If you are interested to know more about 0nline marketing try to join our 3rd e-marketing conference on the 13th of december in Luxor,Egypt.

http://ioeti.org/2010_ioeti_conference/index.php

Reference: www.site-reference.com

Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa

http://www.ioeti.org

Improve your google page rank by updating your site content:

You have put together a great site and achieved a high rank in Google. However, don’t ever think you can then relax and still can keep your high page rank in Google. The job of search engine optimization (SEO) never ends. Your page rank will drop if your site do not have fresh content or do not have regular updates. I do not know Google’s page rank algorithm. However, when I see a drop in my page rank, I can gain some page rank back by adding new content in my website.

Of course, the best thing is to create a new content page. If not, at least slight changes in the existing pages. You will see the positive effect on page rank a few days after new content is added. (at least from my experience)

Don’t think you can stop working as soon as you have built a good site, it is a long and continuous effort to keep your site in good ranking. If you do not have new content, your page rank will continue to drop. However, when you think about it, Google’s algorithm enables it to return the best and most update results for any particular search.

To know more about e-marketing try to join our 3rd e-marketing conference on the 13th of december in Luxor,Egypt.
http://ioeti.org/2010_ioeti_conference/index.php

Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa
www.ioeti.org

The rise of blogging:

Social networks and microblogs have in recent years nudged blogging off the social media pedestal. For some consumers, who have more communication tools at their fingertips than they did a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter have supplanted blogging as life-streaming outlets.

But blogs continue to be important. eMarketer estimates that this year more than half of internet users will read blogs at least monthly. By 2014, readership will rise to more than 150 million Americans, or 60% of the internet population in the US. One reason for the rise in readership is that blogs have become an accepted part of the online media landscape.

“Trends in blog reading are expected to maintain an upward course as blogs continue to gain influence in the mainstream media,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “The Blogosphere: Colliding with Social and Mainstream Media.” “But there is a caveat to this forecast: Over time, blogs will continue to become indistinguishable from other media channels.”

Blog writing, by contrast, is a more niche activity. Just under 12% of the online population will update a blog at least monthly this year, eMarketer estimates. By 2014 that proportion will inch upward to 13.3%.

There are several factors driving the growth of blogging, including the ease of use of personal blogging platforms and the growing comfort level with blogs as a form of media. At the same time, social media like Twitter and Facebook are giving consumers an alternative, less-intensive way to communicate their thoughts to the world. Blogging is no longer a primary way for people to express themselves online.

If you wish to know more about e-marketing try to join our 3rd annual e-marketing conference on the 13th of december in Luxor,Egypt.
http://ioeti.org/2010_ioeti_conference/index.php

Reference: www.emarketer.com
Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa
www.ioeti.org

How to be a real SEO?

Your friends and family think of you as James Bond of the Internet, doing something important and elusive. You can work from your cabin in the mountains or the beach in Mexico. You can set your own hours, hire contractors to do the work, and so on.

But sometimes the life of an SEO isn’t all that. There are ups and downs, just like any profession. Before jumping into the life of an SEO consultant, consider a few of the pitfalls that go beyond getting that blank look when you explain what you do to the guy or gal next to you at the bar.

You’re continually doing the mating dance:

If you’re working your own SEO operation, you need clients so you can get paid. Now, a sales-oriented person might not mind this. But in my experience, most people drawn to SEO like the solitary nature of the work itself—which means continually finding new clients can be a royal headache.

Then you’re always trying to keep those clients from leaving:

No matter how hard you try, clients never really seem to understand what you’re doing for them. You explain, educate and try to manage expectations. But they’re always wondering deep down if you’re blowing smoke…

At least until they start to see the results. Even then, you need to keep them feeling good. Lots of talking, trust-building—and worry that your biggest client may leave.

You become a secretary to yourself and everybody else:

If you’re just starting out, you’re probably doing your own billing each month. And that’s alright. Collecting money is fun—until you get a few who don’t pay on time and you have to keep sending reminders.

Then suppose you hire a person or two, you’re doing payroll. You’re doing keyword studies and competitive analyses. Then you’re also emailing everything to the client’s ad agency, PR consultant, web designer, copywriter, and cc’ing about 4 people at the company itself.

Another client just hired a new marketing manager and you’ve got to resend all your important documents from the past year and brief her on why the company’s investment in your services is justified. Another client hired a new developer and told him to ask YOU for the ftp and all their login info…. Just putting out fires every day can eat up your time and sap your energy!

To know more try to join our 3rd e-marketing conference on the 13th of december in Luxor,Egypt.
http://ioeti.org/2010_ioeti_conference/index.php

Reference: www.site-reference.com
Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa
www.ioeti.org

Google instant can impact your SEO & PPC campaigns

Google Instant does not change the ranking process of Google’s search results (says Google engineer, Ben Gomes). However, SEO techniques are continuously changing and although Google Instant Search will not kill SEO, there might be a few changes to your SEO strategy.

How will Google Instant affect your SEO/PPC strategy?
Google Instant will now change how many people see and click on your site because for all you know Google Instant could be persuading searchers to enter a completely different keyword than what they had actually set out to search for.

The first major change is in the drop down “suggestion box” that tries to predict queries even before they are completely typed. Depending on the query, the search result occupies one and sometime up to three of the advertisement positions on the first page. Google is bringing the paid and universal search listings as high as possible, but is simultaneously pushing the SEO results “below the fold.”

So you need to plan out your SEO strategy keeping in mind:

• Your page Titles are going to need to be even more compelling than before.

You need to not only attract the searcher to your listing, but you have to get them to commit to the search query. That’s going to take a lot of engagement on your part.

• Take a close look at what long tail keywords Google Instant suggests.

Make sure you have a page ranked for all the important variations. Show up, no matter what final keyword string the searcher commits to

• Top ranking is now more important than ever.

Good & bad news for PPC advertiers:

Google’s Johanna Wright says there will be no change to the ranking of ads under Google Instant, however ad impressions will change (for the better). Google will now record an ad impression if a searcher types a partial query and clicks within the search results page or if he stops typing for three seconds while an ad is displayed.
For PPC campaigns it will calculate as an impression (affecting CTR) only after a pause of three seconds.

Showing PPC ads on “predictive queries” that may or may not be relevant to what the user is ultimately searching for could push down the click-thru-rates of these ads.

At an average of 9 seconds per query, that’s 2 additional add impressions before a customer actually tells Google exactly what they are looking for. This should give your business even more exposure to searchers.

While Google Instant is great for searchers by giving them faster results, it will certainly pose a challenge for business owners and search marketers.

Reference: www.blog.ineedhits.com
Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa
www.ioeti.org

How to make visitors stay on your site through 4 steps only:

By now you all know that SEM is about getting people to visit your website. But how do you get visitors to take a second or third click on your website and explore it further.

I have outlined a few tips to help you in this area. This includes:

• Ensure your keywords match your website content

There is nothing worse than clicking on a website from the SERP’s and finding that the website has nothing to do with what you are looking for. Make sure your website content is relevant to what your searchers are looking for; otherwise you will see them disappear very quickly.

• Does your page load fast enough?

We’ve spoken of the importance of this previously and considering it is now also one of Google’s factors to determine ranking, it might be time to look at it closely. If your webpage takes longer than 10 seconds to load, then it’s highly likely your visitors will become impatient and leave. Remember: there are millions of sites on the internet that they could visit over yours. Rather than wait for your site; they will simply try the next listing in the SERP.

• Location, location, location

It’s no use getting visitors to your site, then expecting them to trawl through your site to find what they are looking for. Put the most popular links and call to action buttons on your site in the ‘best real estate’ of your pages (close to the top and towards the left of the screen).

• Turn off the music and video

I must admit this is my biggest turnoff when visiting a website (and it makes me leave ASAP). Music and videos (or the little customer service representative in the bottom corner of the screen) can be very annoying if set to auto play. If you have an auto play feature set on your website, then I would suggest checking how many visitors leave within the first three seconds of your music or video playing. I think you will be surprised by the results.

So, if your visitors don’t seem to be sticking around on your site, these four tips might just help you solve the problem.

Reference: www.blog.ineedhits.com
Posted by: Hadeer Bahaa