Social Media

Are We In Social Overload?

Recently Google’s latest social network, Google+ opened to the public. In an effort to create a little fun around the subject, College Humor created a two minute video about Not Google+, which encourages people not to join Google+ as we have too many social networks already. Do they have a point? Google+’s most obvious competitor is Facebook. While Google+ offers certain advantages to its users that Facebook lacks, a lot of Facebook users were resistant to switching networks for no other reason than the hassle of it. Our friends are on Facebook, our pictures videos, links and info and the thought of having to build all of that up somewhere else didn’t quite seem worth it.

Here is the original: 
Are We In Social Overload?

Social Media Marketing

With the plethora of social media outlets on the internet today, they provide an excellent and relatively new opportunity to advertise your business or website. Therefore, having an efficient and realistic social media marketing plan is essential to any online business model.  If an online venture is able to combine social media marketing along with an effective SEM plan, your business is in fantastic shape and ready  for exponential growth.

Every user of a social media site has seen the advertisements and infomercials that now are common on sites like these. However, getting started and noticed on these sites is not nearly as difficult as it sounds. With the advent of Twitter, even those on smaller budgets can run effective and extremely profitable marketing campaigns that can draw a whole new audience to your website or business. In conjunction with this, being a power player on search engines and having your site optimized for that purpose is another excellent way to form a two pronged approach to expansion. All of these techniques can be combined in a phenomenal internet marketing plan, something that should create a spike in your hits, business revenue, or even your product or information being proliferated on the internet.

If you are able to effectively combine PPC and SEM in a cost effective manner along with a social media plan, your website will be multiple steps ahead of your competition.  Of these steps, social media marketing is the key, so focus on that and your site will experience unprecedented growth!

Why Online Businesses Should Advertise on Social Networks

It can be noted that nowadays, a lot of social networking sites are available for internet users. It lets them connect with friends and share everything, including their pictures, personal information and other stuff. Because of these and more features, social networking sites have very high traffic. But even if this is the case, is it wise for an online business to advertise on these websites? Read below and be enlightened.

Advertising on social networking sites could be very beneficial for online businesses for a number of reasons. First, there is high traffic in these sites. Because of this, your advertisement has a higher chance of getting recognized than by putting it somewhere. Second, these social networking sites cater to people of all ages. This means that no matter what you are selling, your product has a high potential of getting the attention of people who visit these sites.

Finally, by advertising on social networking sites, you can easily increase your sales. When a social networking site user buys one of your products and they are satisfied with it, they could easily promote it to friends which can become a potential customer. And in no time, you can easily increase your sales and your profit. You can also get connected with the social networking users by creating an account of your own. By utilizing all the features of a particular social networking site, you can easily add people to your business’ profile and make them see what you have to offer.

  

Website Marketing Tips

Without good marketing your website might as well not exist. After all, what is the point of a good product if no one knows about it? The secret to good marketing is to make your website stick out like a sore thumb – in a good way. The key thing to remember here is that users want information/answers really really fast. So it is up to you to get their attention and keep them there.

Know what they want – Your website must address an issue that the user is interested in. Having a website that deals with “Koi Carp feed and care” would be one such example. But once you have site like that, do not talk about anything else but Koi Carp. The moment you do, the users will deem your site worthless and walk away.

Get the right design – Avoid unnecessarily flashy colors and cluttered information. Keep it simple, to the point and easy to navigate. Whatever you do, do NOT use pop ups.

Content – The look and feel is useless without good content, so always be sure to back up your site with good, well-written content. This will make your site a place worth returning to.

User Friendliness – Use images, icons, mini info displays, etc to give your users quick information at a glance. Online ordering, comprehensive contact information, testimonials, etc will also boost your image in the eyes of the user.

Advertise – Get your website in the user’s mind where ever you can. Newspapers, radio, TV, bumper stickers, social media, forums, etc which means anything and everything you can get your hands on. Drive the traffic there and if you have done a good job with the previous four tips, the site should do the rest for you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – SEO is one of the most important things you could do for your website.  Learn as much as you can about SEO by reading online material or taking training course.  Just a quick tip, concentrate on your content as mentioned above, but also you will need many links towards your website to rank well. Ask people to link to you, do links exchange, purchase directory ads and engage in activities that will increase your links, for example you could write articles and submit them to other sites for publication. You may also prefer to hire a Top SEO Firm.

Social Media Marketing – Create profiles on major social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Twitter and Youtube. Complete and optimize your profiles with your keywords. Post updates on regular basis. Increase your friends and followers. These steps will hep you market your website more effectively. If you don’t have the time to do it yourself, we recommend using social media marketing services of iClimber.

Article marketing: Developing a Good Resource Box

Article marketing is a great way for you to promote yourself and create a reputation. While it is essential that the content you provide is useful, insightful and well written you should also keep in mind that your calling card should hold true in these matters as well. The calling card in this instance is the resource box that you place at the end of the article.

Developing a good resource box is as crucial as the article; after all this is what will compel a user to follow you back to your own website. Don’t waste your time selling your product here, instead sell yourself and sell it well. Here are some points for you to consider in this regard.

1. Identity – Your name should be established clearly. Surprisingly many people skip this in favor of pushing their product and their links.
2. Bio – Your bio should be brief. If your article does not convince them that you are an expert in what you are writing about, a bio is not going to change their opinion. Make it short and effective.
3. Attract – Instead of saying “visit my website” or something similar, give them a compelling reason to go there. Offer freebies that the reader will be interested in which will keep them coming back to your site after the first visit.
4. Domain – There is nothing too wrong with www.stevejobs.com as long as you are Steve Jobs. But if you are not such a well known personality, a domain name which has “internetmarketingtips” or “free-real-estate-advice” for example is more compelling for the reader to click on.
5. Succinct – Usually article directories limit the amount of characters that can be used in the resource box. Use the space wisely.
6. Accentuate – Use characters like ==> or >>> in front of the URL to accentuate it.
7. Hyperlinks – Try to hyperlink keywords and phrases in your text back to your website. This practice will also improve your standings in search results. However you should keep in mind that article directories sometimes limit the number of hyperlinks you can have in the resource box, so once again use this technique wisely.

If you are too busy or lack the expertise to do it your self, then we recommend Article Writing & Submission services of social media marketing company iclimber.

Article marketing: Writing Attractive Headlines

Content is King in article marketing, but no one will see the content if the headline does not attract readers. “A comprehensive discourse on piscatorial product promotion methods” is a nice enough title if you are looking to attract old English professors who are interested in starting a website to sell fishing tackle online, but the rest of the online population will probably pass up on reading it.

Keep in mind that your article headline will pop up in a list of many articles, so it has to engage the reader immediately and effectively for them to select it. So your title should:

1. make it clear what the article is about
2. get the reader’s attention
3. not focus only on keywords
4. be search engine friendly
5. be accurate

An example of a not-so-obvious bad title would be “Little Rock guitar tutor: 5 things to look for”. The article deals with tips for finding a guitar tutor, not specifically guitar tutors in Little Rock. The location should be used only when the article specifically targets a location; for example “How to hail a New York Taxi Cab”.

There are three types of titles that you can experiment with which are popular and have a high rate of success due to their search engine friendly format.

1. How to – “How to oven roast a duck”, “How to create your own napkin rings in ten minutes”, etc
2. Top 10, 50, 100 – “Top 10 Cookie recipes”, “Top 10 Guitarists of all time”, etc.
3. Keyword – This is a tricky concept and should be used with care. Keywords should only be a part of your headline and should be used appropriately.
Always keep in mind that your headline is the “worm on the hook”, the better the bait the better the catch.

For those  that need help of experts in this area, we recommend Article Writing & Submission services of social media marketing company iclimber.

Internet Marketing for Small Businesses

Small businesses often tend to skip Internet marketing due to many reasons. Unlike a popular misconception, Internet marketing is not only for the big players. If you think about it, small businesses really need to invest in Internet marketing methods because they have to get out there and advertise their products. Without decent amounts of exposure, small businesses often call it quits wondering why things did not work out for them. Success in Internet marketing is a combination of common sense and smart decisions.

Content is King – Whatever content you provide on blogs and articles should be extremely relevant to the product. The prospective customer should have 99 % of their queries answered in that content. If you need help in this area, a good content writing company is iClimber.

Cross advertising – If you sell digital camera bags, cleaning kits, straps, etc., make it a point to advertise on camera vendor sites, on photography forums, camera review sites, Photoshop forums, etc.

Social network sites – Promoting your website on social media networking sites here will take up a fair amount of time to get going and involves a lot of smart work but it offers you highly targeted markets. Doing it right will earn you some solid sales. Again, if you need help in this area, we recommend iClimber as a top social media marketing company.

Good old classifieds – Classifieds have successfully made the transition to the internet and are very effective provided you choose a legitimate site. Research the website well before you sink any money into this method.

Listings – Getting the business listed in some well-known directories is also advisable, but is not a primary requirement.

Using all or a combination of these methods will return positive results for any business. However they must be used effectively, so further research into these methods will give good returns.

iClimber provides free services for social media marketing

For anyone looking for help with their social media marketing plans, I’ve discovered a great site that should be a big help for you. It’s called iClimber, and they have some great resources for people looking to get going with social media. They have a great social media dictionary that explains the definitions of some of the biggest social media buzzwords such as API, niche blog and widget.

They also keep up-to-date with the latest social media news, highlighting key industry trends and new breakout companies. Along with all of this, they offer a wide range of services including social media set-up and promotion, social bookmarking and Web site copywriting.

Check them out for yourself and see how they might be able to help you: http://www.iclimber.com/

Podcasts Are a Fun Way to Generate Traffic

Creating your own podcasts and putting them on-line for everyone to download and listen may seem a little daunting at first. What if I sound stupid? What if I am not saying it right? These are the type of questions that keep popping in to your head as soon as you think about creating podcasts. Well, it’s not that hard and it is far less complicated. The challenge is to create your first podcast.

Start with a topic you are familiar with. Don’t drone on for a long time and keep it simple. You can then ask your listeners to let you know what they would like to hear about next. Most people love to know that they’ve been heard and their opinions taken in to consideration. If your listeners request for a podcast in a field where you are not an expert, do the easy thing and interview someone who is an expert. Variations like this will generate a lot of hype and excitement amongst your listeners and they will tell others about your podcasts.

Using podcasts to generate traffic means you need to let people know that you’ve added your own podcasts. So make sure to submit your podcasts to as many directories and websites as possible. You may also want to look at social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Tagfoot and Lensroll. You can also submit your podcast to Facebook and promote your website further. It is important to ask your listeners to check out your website at the end of each podcast. Have a splash page dedicated to your podcast listeners.

Website Promotion – Know the Basics

Once you have developed your website you need to tell everyone that it is available. If you do just the basics right, you should see traffic starting to flow to your website within a matter of days. Here is how to do it.

Search engine submissions – make sure your website is search engine optimized. Add meta tags, meta and title tags and make sure that the web page is in order. Submit your page at as many search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Alta Vista. These search engines will crawl your page, but that could take weeks. Therefore it’s better to submit it manually to see results faster. Here is a good search engine submission company.

Submit to Directories – Submitting your website to directories like Yahoo, Looksmart and AOL means that users of these directories can easily find your website under a specific category. Being listed in a directory also helps with link popularity. Follow the guidelines for submission by the directory owner as your site will be reviewed by humans and will be accepted or rejected based on specific criteria.

Build Link Popularity – Building link popularity is important for search engines to find your site and rank it and for people to navigate to your website. Having a blog means you can link to others while writing and they will most probably link back. Post comments on related stories on other blogs and articles thus creating a link back to your website. A good way to tell how powerful your link popularity is, is to check your Google PageRank. You can read here how Google Pagerank works.

Advertising – once you have used up all the free resources, you can use online advertising to promote your site further. Google, Yahoo and Facebook are great places to start.

Next Page »