Google Plus May Become An Online Marketer’s Heaven

Google Plus Growing Based On Real Identity

Google Plus recently required that user profiles be based on real names, which frustrated some online marketers. Though the new social media platform has only been open to field testing for a month, it has shown that it can generate healthy traffic to business websites. The new social media platform has over 20 million users, many of them entrepreneurs. Twitter and Facebook both took more than three years to hit the same number of users. Google Plus is starting to be a significant source of referral traffic to marketing user websites, and at the core of Google Plus’s mission is Google’s desire to connect real identity to real people – and their businesses, if they choose to bring them onboard to the new social media player.
All Google Plus Profiles Required To Be Public

In terms of using Google Plus as a marketer or business owner, there is new information that entrepreneurs should heed. According to Theregister.co.uk, Google Plus users who do not have public profiles by July 31st, 2011 will find their profiles deleted. They can choose to delete the profiles themselves. Additionally, all public profiles are required to be associated with a real name. For businesses, Google Plus is releasing its business offering before the end of 2011. A spokesperson who works for Google told Venturebeat.com that the business product is one in which, “…You can expect to see a level of analytics and measurement that you’d typically find in Google products as well as a nuanced approach to how things are shared.

Read More

A Marketing Partner That Goes Beyond the Expected

Having grown up in Hollywood, I struggled with the pressures — such as weight, self-esteem, and identity — that many women are under to feel and look a certain way. This experience drives the philosophy behind my company, i am BEYOND, a clothing line that celebrates curves and all shapes and sizes. The line is as multipurpose as the lives of the modern woman it dresses: from her yoga mat to a business lunch, to the playground or an evening out.

When we started out in 2006, my partner Michelle and I worked out of my house. Today, we have 12 people at the office, plus a team of external consultants who cover everything from sales to warehousing. We’ve been growing since day one, but a few months ago, we decided to try online advertising to expand even further. And that’s where we found our unexpected partner.

We looked at our options and the resources available to us and decided to give Google AdWords a shot. Here are a few of my tips for partnering with your online marketing agency:

Read More

SEO Company India- A Doorway to Success in Online Marketing !

SEO Company India experts develop the ranking and traffic content of websites and if possible can work on the content management of the website. In other words, these SEO services do all those things that are required to bring a website in it's target customer's visibility and make it more acceptable, approachable and approachable to the surfers and get a good ranking in the course of getting introduced in popular search engines directories like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

Ever since the evolution of the internet in the late 80s, the web has been playing a significant role in promoting different types of business in different corners of the world. Researches and studies have revealed the fact that the businesses that have a proper online marketing infrastructure enjoy a much better business prospect compared to its competitors. It has been further found that the selling capabilities of companies that lay more focus on online marketing procedures are as much as 30-40 % higher compared to the rest. These numbers are a clear representation of what magic a SEO Sercive can do.

How is an SEO Company India Beneficial ?

The sales through SEO companies go up by about 30 percent if done well. What they have to monitor is the websites to which it gives it popular hits, say Google, Yahoo and MSN. An efficient SEO company India has a capability to bring in 42 to 86 percent of the web traffic in to your company’s web page. The customer has to search the important words on a search engine and your web page has to be tagged by these words by the SEO.

Difference between SEO companies and Ad Campaigns:

These companies may seem the same to some users. But fact is that they have huge differences. They are not a paid ad campaign and provide subtle ads. This makes them more cost effective and you can cut down upon the operational costs of your company. In case of pay per click ad campaigning websites, the ads are provided in a separate box or widget. This means that many people may as well ignore the ads. What SEO company India campaign does is link up ads to bought key words in an article, which they are sure that people would click, thus improving tour market chances.

Read More

5 tips for driving a successful online marketing campaign

Online marketing has become a necessary part of every businesses marketing plan. Given its importance, it is critical that planning and research goes into your online marketing campaign, and your business is represented in a way that is consistent with its offline identity. Here are five tips to help drive a successful campaign

1. Quality website

The importance of a good website is often not taken as seriously as it should. Think about it, when ever people search for information on anything these days, they first turn to the web. Therefore, a company website may be the potential customers’ first impression of your business – and we all understand how first impressions last! It is shocking how many websites you see that display out of date information. It seems in many cases a business will create a website, leave it alone and expect it to generate more sales without putting any work into it. A website needs to be updated regularly, with changes made to try and keep it as engaging and interesting to its viewers as possible. It needs to be easy to navigate, the last thing you want is for potential customers to be turned away from your business due to an impossible to navigate website.

Read More

How E-Web Marketing Brings Happiness, Success and Fun to Business

E-Web Marketing was recognised this year in two categories at the Australian Business Awards, with accolades for Service Excellence and Recommended Employer.

"It's deeply reflective of E-Web's culture that the two award categories we won were about outstanding customer service and being an ideal place to work," confides E-Web's founder and CEO, Gary Ng. "They're so aligned with our Company Vision: We exist to bring Happiness, Success and Fun to everyone we encounter."

We often receive comments that our Company Vision about spreading Happiness, Success and Fun - or HSF, as we refer to it for short - is an unusual one for an online marketing business. But when considering the reasoning behind it, HSF doesn't seem so strange at all. Gary explains, "Ultimately, our Vision comes back to the basic human desire to have a positive influence on the world."

Read More

Google+ and the Next Evolution of Internet Marketing

Since the days of the early search engines, the science of Internet Marketing has always been a rapidly evolving field of specialization. Initially focusing on keyword selection and on-site search engine optimization (SEO) around those search terms, SEO has evolved to also now include a wide facet of off-site techniques for generating high quality back-links.

As the search engines matured and online competition increased, we saw the introduction of paid inclusion advertising programs such as Google Adwords and Yahoo SEM which gave paying customers the opportunity to achieve a front page positions through bidding on key terms in a complicated online auctioning system, however again, as competition increased for this service, many terms became quite costly and as such marketers began to search for more cost effective alternatives for traffic generation.

With Facebook and the advent of social media, Internet marketers entered a new era for targeting their prospective customers. Moving away from conventional keywords alone, social media enabled marketers to form their advertising strategies around the individuals' rich demographic information, likes and interests. Through the Facebook platform, marketers could even harvest much of this information through applications and games development (such as the infamous vampire bite).

Businesses could create platform specific pages which set aside the need for conventional email lists in place of a one-click user opt-in "Like" system that allowed the business to directly market to a prospective client via their Facebook news feed.

Read More

Online SEO Course Launched to Help People Gain Foothold Online Marketing

Ontario While everyone tries their luck with online marketing not everyone manages to succeed. Online Traffic Destination, a Toronto based company has designed an SEO course to help website owners understand the different concepts of viral marketing.

The course is ideal for people looking to understand online marketing strategies like Article Marketing, Press Release Marketing, and Video Marketing. The 10 part training program can be completed in less than 24 hours. Each of these videos is around 1 to 1.4 hours in length.

Website traffic generating tips, strategies for effective video marketing, podcast marketing, directory link building, and effective ways that dominate SEO tactics are also discussed through the course.

The course has been designed by Ms. Ana. M. Cruz. She has years of experience in the SEO industry and has guided hundreds of people with the right tactics to increase site traffic. Users looking to book the course will be provided with a free ebook ‘The A-Z Beginners’. The book is a complete guide to internet marketing and teaches newbies about internet marketing business. They also get a set of tools including Article Brain Storming, the Mega Affiliate System, PowerPoint source tools, an e-cover book 3D creator, motion backgrounds, tools that help to create and submit press release and a collection of royalty free music.

“Achieving success in internet marketing is all about implementing success strategies. I’ve divided the course into 10 logical modules. Each module elucidates different elements involved in website promotion. The first module for example discusses about the plan to get instant and continuous traffic. The second video discusses about search engine modification,” says Ana.

Read More

Marketing to iPhone moms, the new online power shopper

Companies looking to make money on the Web are trying to understand a fast-growing and big-spending demographic: moms.

From Procter & Gamble to AT&T and Pandora, firms are taking notice that mothers, newly armed with smartphones, are becoming a new kind of shopping force online. A decade ago, these women were single and childless 18- to 34-year-olds who captured the hearts of Madison Avenue marketing executives with their voracious consumer appetites. Now, they are older and often in charge of the household wallet.

Moms are the fastest-growing buyers of iPhones, and they are tuning in more frequently and for longer periods than any other group on media Web sites such as Pandora, a streaming music service. Nielsen Research says mothers are far more likely to share photos and news stories on Facebook via smartphones and computers than anyone else.

“We’ve known about the opportunity of online moms for a while now, but then mobile technology came along and blew everything up,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at research firm NPD Group.

Read More

Many small businesses unaware of the power of online marketing

In a recent survey by Hennerberg Group, an internet marketing consultant, 28 percent of small businesses are unsure of the reach of their web site.

While more small businesses are beginning to use online marketing, more than 40 percent admit they need help improving SEO, and 37 percent need helping using social media platforms. Utilizing these newer forms of marketing gives small businesses cost efficient ways to increase visibility.

“The study reveals that small business owners realize they need small business marketing professional help to get better at marketing their business,” said Gary Hennerberg, president of Hennerberg Group.

However, sometimes professional marketing help isn’t in the budget for small business owners. SmallBizTrends.com provides small business owners some ways to learn about SEO without spending a dime.

SmallBizTrends.com suggests looking at SEO blogs such as the Google Webmaster Blog or Search Engine Land. Additional online resources include Google’s SEO Starter Guide, or forums such as WebMasterWorld or SEOBook.

Read More

Social media still not central to B2B online marketing

Despite the fact that many companies leverage social media to listen to customer feedback, many still do not consider the medium central to their B2B online marketing campaigns.

According to a new report from Dell, as many as three-quarters of companies leverage social media to listen to online conversations and respond to them when necessary. Additionally, 64 percent of them incorporate this feedback into product and service revisions, while 76 percent discuss it internally.

However, social media is still not a focus of many of these businesses' marketing efforts. Only 20 percent place the channel at the core of their online promotional efforts, while 50 percent say their social campaigns are serious but not a core function.

"Listening and responding to customers is so basic and fundamental. The emergence of social media elevates how companies can act on the feedback they get from customers," Karen Quintos, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Dell, explains.

If B2B marketers want to succeed, they need to do a better job of incorporating social media into their broader campaigns. The medium is unique in that it offers brands a way to garner feedback from customers, but they need to ensure they have a strong presence in the social sphere if they want to maximize its potential.

Read More

Social Media Is Morphing Into Social Business

These days, if you're doing business, you've got to go social. As 'social media' morphs into 'social business,' the conversation is broadening within the enterprise. In addition to Marketing and Communications, we're now seeing Legal, HR, Customer Services, Sales, and other departments adopt social technologies both internally and externally. The adoption curve is maturing.

The world's leading companies are realizing that a solid grasp of social technologies and social platforms, along with the concepts of authenticity, transparency, and trust will become critical to building global brands, transforming product development, enabling real-time customer service, and fostering social collaboration with customers and key stakeholders.

From the beginning, way back in 2007, the term 'social media' rubbed some the wrong way. Just what is social media, anyway? Doesn't it mean Facebook, blogs, Twitter? Or is it more about the new communication platforms? Or about real-time? Or maybe it's just another term for 'digital media'?

When I was developing the curriculum for the Social Media Marketing class I teach with Karl Kasca for the UCLA Extension, we grappled with this as well. Back in 2007, we spent a lot of time in the first session defining 'social media,' and quite a lively discussion ensued. And today the market is still defining it.

Read More

How To Plan A Business

Navigating today’s business marketplace is challenging, especially for new businesses. Traditional marketing strategies are no longer effective, and many new businesses are left struggling to figure out what works – and doesn’t work – on their own. In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, the future of a business rests upon the ability to properly market products or services, and proper brand promotion from day one.

Signs Now Mill Creek, a signage firm serving the greater Seattle area, takes the guesswork out of marketing with its free, online guide titled “How to Plan a Business: Marketing a New Business for Success.” The guide is available on the Signs Now Mill Creek website at http://www.signsnowmillcreek.com/home/signs-by-industry/starting-a-business.html. There are also 30 checklists targeted to specific industries, ranging from retail stores and real estate firms to restaurants and automotive dealerships.

“Business owners often find themselves asking, “What is the best way to market my business?” “Why is my current marketing strategy failing?” More often than not, the answer is that the business does not have an effective marketing plan,” says Signs Now Mill Creek owner Rani Bal.

Read More:

How Social Media Can Derail Your New-Business Efforts

Social media has had a dramatic impact on the life of the agency business development executive over the last several years, particularly when it comes to prospecting, doing market research and gaining industry intelligence.

Whether it's zeroing in on marketing decision makers at companies on LinkedIn, or learning what's on the mind of that individual through his Twitter feed, we use social media on a daily basis to bolster new business. What I've learned most over the last year is that, along with many benefits, social media can actually work against your agency.

Let me share a few risks you might not be aware of -- as well as how you can capitalize on them.

Linking to your client prospect
When you link to a marketer, whether a prospect or current client, you are letting your LinkedIn colleagues know who you're talking to or working with. That's not necessarily bad. By monitoring LinkedIn, you can give your agency team a sense of the landscape and agencies you might be up against in a review.

It also has some downsides. Our agency was recently participating in an agency review and within the first day of talking to the prospect, who we were already linked to, a number of agency business development folks connected to the same contact. While the prospect wasn't revealing agency names of the other participants, we pretty much knew who we were up against.

Recommendation: Don't link to your pitch prospect until after a review. This not only keeps the review quiet, but it also doesn't give your agency competitors an opportunity to find potential weak spots in your armor.

Read More

Top tips for online marketing on a shoestring

Social media is a great tool to help increase awareness of your brand, participate in thoughtful industry discussions, and engage with potential customers. If used correctly, social media can do wonders for your reputation and credibility.

It is worthwhile to register a Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin account under your business name. But, know that not all of these outlets will be suitable for all businesses. Try different strategies and see what works. Businesses that involve customers’ personal life or hospitality (e.g. hair salons, restaurants) may find the most success on Facebook, while IT consultants may find the most success on Linkedin.

Whichever site(s) you choose as your focus, remember that the primary goals are responsiveness and engagement. Share your knowledge and insight; contribute to the discussion; interact with users. Be active on your page and work to garner likes and comments, so that potential customers will continue to see your updates. This type of engagement will help to build up a network of people who know who you are, recommend you to others, and link to your site.

Read More

Usually smooth Giants make marketing error

Marketing is a tricky thing, and though the Giants have mastered it in many ways, in one glaring instance, they've messed it up.

This is a team that is no hard sell, compelling enough to be the focus of a Showtime series ("The Franchise," premiering Wednesday), and tied tightly – sellout after sellout testifies – to its community and fans.

But a contest on the Comcast website involving the team seems to be an unnecessary step toward tastelessness.

The contest seeks a baby to be born of Giants-fan parents as close as possible to nine months after the team's Nov. 1 World Series victory. OK, fine.

But whenever the contest is promoted during game broadcasts, it goes from babies-are-fun cuteness to (in not so many words), "So, you had sex the night the Giants won the Series. Tell us about it."

The Comcast Sports on-air talent charged with pushing mom- and dad-to-be to dish about their night of championship and – possibly – contest-winning passion, the otherwise suitable Amy G, comes off as a microphone- toting peeping Tom.

Saturday night, she interviewed a very pregnant woman and her significant other and pressed for details. The woman giggled, the man stammered something about champagne and things getting fuzzy after that, and Amy G leaned in to get the scoop.

Read More

Online marketing mistakes every business should avoid

This is a continued series of marketing articles explaining all seven online marketing mistakes.

Last month the first mistake was explained: "Your website's call to action stinks." This column will cover the second and third mistakes.

Not gathering email addresses

I recently had a conversation with a business owner who we'll call John. John wasn't anything special, he had an average business with an average income. He worked about 60 hours a week and spent the weekend at home with his family.

His company was a service business and he provided a good service that helped his clients. He was good at what he did.

There was a sales problem. He wasn't getting enough clients. This is something most business owners can relate to. At times it's hard to bring customers or clients through the door.

Read More

Top tips for online marketing on a shoestring

Online marketing is an invaluable tool for businesses looking to increase awareness of their product and engage with potential customers. With an understanding of the resources available and a little bit of creativity, an online marketing strategy can be one of the most cost-effective ways of maximizing your business’s potential.

During the Business Startup show at London’s ExCeL centre in May, Simply Business partnered with PR agency 3 Monkeys and SEO agency Distilled to discuss some of the top marketing tips for people staring out in business. We have taken some of the top tips from the day and added some of our own and will be publishing them as a blog series over the next week. You can read the second tip of our seven-part series below.
2. Learn the ins and outs of Google.

With users today relying on Google for everything from their smallest needs to their biggest purchases, performing well in search engines should be one of the primary concerns of your online marketing campaign. If your site is at the top of search engines, you will see more visitor traffic, which inevitably translates to more business for your company.

There are many sites and online resources which can help you to maximise your search engine ranking. SEOmoz is one site with great resources and information to get you started. Tools like “On-Page Keyword Optimization” and “Keyword Difficulty” conduct analyses to identify which queries maximise your ranking potential, and which keywords are best to target. Google Webmaster Tools can also tell you the keywords that are most relevant to your site, the number of hits your site is getting for specific queries, and a list of websites that most often link to yours.

Read More

Video content increases consumers’ online activity: ACMA

Video content is increasing the online activity of Australian consumers according to a new report that suggests start-ups need to ramp up multimedia efforts.

A report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority revealed that Australian internet users downloaded an average of 18.8 gigabytes of data per user during the 2010 December quarter, which is equivalent to 120 hours streaming of video content online.

In the 2009 December quarter that figure was 14.6 gigabytes per user.

ACMA chairperson Chris Chapman said the surge was partly due to increased downloading of video content.

The report reveals that 5.5 million Australians accessed video streaming sites such as YouTube and Google Video from home during December 2010, compared to 5.1 million in March 2010.

According to research company Nielsen Online, YouTube ranks as the fourth most popular website in Australia, with Google number one.

Nielsen research revealed that almost three-quarters of Australian businesses are dedicating at least 10% of their budgets to social media marketing, with YouTube forming an increasingly important part of the mix.

Marketing consultant Farid Alhadi, who specializes in YouTube marketing, says no marketing strategy is complete without a multimedia presence.

Read More

Marketing-Free Social Media

What role does social media play at your bank?

We're in multiple areas: Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, blogs, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn. We use it more for branding than for marketing. It's a way to share information with customers, content related to financial services. We also send holiday messages to people.
Is there anything that you avoid?

We stay away from the marketing aspect because of regulatory concerns [regarding online ad content] ... last week we sat down with two regulators from the FDIC for a cursory exam prior to our larger exam ... they liked that we were not doing any type of advertising on social media. And imagine trying to disclose information about a rate offer in 140 characters [Twitter's character limit]. It's not going to happen.
How can social media add value?

It's not a separate channel; we look at it as a way to get information out to customers who come to us with product questions, or integrate customer service issues with the branch or contact center. It's another way for people to interact with us if they choose to.
What are some of the major misconceptions about social media?


One is that everybody has to be in all of the different outlets. That's untrue, and the people who are saying that are those who make money selling banks on their own expertise. Social media is no different than any other interaction. You have to do it if it's right for your organization or right for your customer base. If you study the impact of a site and it can add value to your relationships, then you say 'yes.' If not, then say 'no.' People talk about the ROI of social media. I think that's a crock. It doesn't exist.

Read More

Can Google+ Bring Online Marketing Strands Together?

Until now, there have been two very distinct strands to online marketing, informed by the two giants of their fields – Google and Facebook.

The search engine giant has always been the undisputed ruler of the SEO marketing world, with Yahoo and Bing coming a clear second, while Facebook – along with Twitter – have been instrumental in pushing social media to the forefront of all successful online marketing strategies.

Now everything is likely to change again as the two strands come together, thanks to the launch of Google’s very own social network, Google+.

Google+ has already been the victim of its own success, going over capacity within two days of its launch and necessitating a temporary halt until it could recalibrate its systems.

Experts are saying that Google+ could herald a new dawn for online marketing, bridging the gap between such business-orientated networks, such as LinkedIn, and the more casual friends networks like Facebook.

Read More

More Tips For The Online Entrepreneur

It’s the Fourth of July here in the U.S., and small business owners around the world are celebrating their independence with increased activity in the online space. Working online allows small businesses access to new global markets, opportunities for new low cost marketing options and an incredible new array of networking and other tools. Here’s our roundup of tips for the online entrepreneur. Have something you think we’ve missed? Share it in the comment section below:
Blogging

Does your business have a blog? Lots of businesses do and are finding the benefits offered by business blogging. Giving your small business an enhanced online presence could include experimenting with the many advanced features a blog offers. A simple Website may not cut it these days. What do you want to achieve with your business communications? A blog may help. Small Business Shift

Monetization basics. Yes, businesses can make money online and, yes, your blog could become more than simply a Website marketing another business. It could be your business. But before you get too excited or listen to a lot of get rich quick gurus, please understand. This is a lot of hard work. The Work At Home Woman
Social Media

Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter for traffic? Using social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter to refer traffic to your Website is one tactic often used by online entrepreneurs these days. But time is limited for anyone in small business, so, given the choice, which sites are the best for referring traffic? Facebook, of course, is number one, but you may be surprised at the second place contender. Seeking Alpha

Read More

Microsoft's Monster Moat and Marketing Issues

There seem to be thousands of articles written about Microsoft's (MSFT) valuation, poor leadership and stock price. I am surprised, quite frankly, that by now no one has coined, "Steve the Stink Ballmer." People are calling for his resignation even though the underlying business performance has been pretty great.

There is no doubt that Microsoft is cheap at these levels. A P/E of 10, throwing off loads of free cash flow, low debt, tons of cash, great returns on assets and equity and a solid projected earnings growth rate of 10% plus. The important questions to ask at this point are:

What will probably happen in Microsoft's future domestically and internationally?
Can Microsoft's business prospects generate enough investor optimism to move the needle on the stock price?
How much intrinsic value has Microsoft built for itself over the years?

The purpose of this article is to answer these questions and to build a case that Microsoft is undervalued relative to its intrinsic value and its moat is bigger than people think. I will do this by addressing the following areas from a QUALITATIVE perspective:

Microsoft's moat is bigger than people think.
Microsoft's poor marketing and branding in the consumer segment are fixable.

Read More

Multinationals need custom online marketing approaches

Multinational companies should adapt their online marketing activities to suit their markets.

Adjusting social media campaigns and other online marketing activities will mean communications remain locally relevant.

Michael Edwards, director of digital and experiential marketing for health and beauty firm Amway, told Clickz his company uses Facebook to engage with distributors across the world.

Describing this method of communicating as "transformative", Mr Edwards said: "It is a technology that connects the global, regional and local dots."

But it needs to be used correctly. Amway wants to be locally relevant, which is why Mr Edwards explains the 30-odd members of staff tasked with social media customise Amway Facebook pages to support this strategy.

"We look at Facebook customisation in the same way that we look at the products we launch and support around the world," he added.

The launch of Google+ this week is likely to provide new challenges for those working in online marketing, regardless of its similarities to existing channels.

Read More