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Local Advertising: Devising an Online Strategy That Suits You

Experts squawk about Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, designing websites, and a whole litany of online and social media possibilities, but not all of them make sense for every single business. When it comes to local advertising, small business owners must seriously consider how to concentrate their efforts. While we all must utilize the internet and social media to some extent, what will be most effective for one owner, may be a waste of time for another. By reflecting on some key issues, devising a successful local advertising strategy becomes less about what everyone else says and more about what you truly want and need. Before you embark upon any online advertising initiatives, you must decide whether you are going to do it yourself, delegate someone in house, or out source it. All of these are perfectly valid options, but you need to consider whether you have the technical expertise, time, and money to support your decision, whatever it happens to be. Initially, it may be difficult for you to gauge your resources and exactly what this undertaking will require

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Local Advertising: Devising an Online Strategy That Suits You

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Write Current Content and Explode Your SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

Content is King As a small business owner or entrepreneur trying to broaden your internet target and get recognized, I’m sure you are aware of the value of new, fresh, recurring content on your site of all types. When it comes to written content on page copy or blogs and articles, you need to be able to write well, be informative and entertain, that’s obvious. That’s for your viewers. But if you can’t write as well for Google and the other search engines to maximize your subject matter for Search Engine Marketing, you are the proverbial tree in the forest that falls when no one else is around. This article provides a frequently discussed yet misunderstood technique to help you make your material applicable and explode your SEO online. Google Adwords Keyword Tool Perhaps you’ve heard of Google Adwords, Google’s primary pay for placement vehicle on their mother of all search engine returns. You might have run a campaign or I bet you’ve at least been petitioned by Google Adwords “experts” to run your campaigns for you to help you pay less per click, otherwise known as PPC. Well, Google offers a free instrument to help you select keywords and phrases based upon how much they are searched every month and how much competition there is from other marketers.

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Write Current Content and Explode Your SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

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SOPA Spells Loss — A SPN Exclusive Article

Every business with an online presence – no matter the size – is going to be affected by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is set to be voted on when Congress resumes later this month. Companies like Google that provide a gateway to diverse content on the web will be hit directly, but even smaller businesses – from online payroll providers to ecommerce sites – could be affected, even if they don’t at first appear to have a direct link with anything SOPA was created to fight. Every user of the Internet, whether a business owner or not, needs to understand why SOPA exists and what the unintended consequences of this poorly considered piece of legislation will really be, both for small companies and the nation as a whole. After educating yourself, take action! If you disagree with SOPA and want to help stop it before it causes any damage, there are things you can do, both through your company and as an individual. What is SOPA? SOPA was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives last October by Republican Representative Lamar Smith and 12 co-sponsors. It was created as part of an effort to combat online piracy on behalf of copyright holders by requiring that any site that links to or does business with an offending party be held legally responsible for any illegal acts the offender might commit, whether or not the site contacted is engaging in any illicit activities. What Does This Mean For Small Business?

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SOPA Spells Loss — A SPN Exclusive Article

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5 Reasons Why You Need to Use Rel=Author on Your Content

Have you heard of Google’s Authorship program yet? Whether you’ve heard of it or not, you’ve likely seen its fruits in the search results. You know those listings that have a photo of the author next to them? Most likely they get that extra cool stuff because they’re using Rel=Author correctly and Google has accepted them to participate. Unfortunately, it’s been a bit hit-or-miss as to whether your content gets accepted or not. I saw mine accepted for a day or two many months ago, and then *poof!* it was gone. I reviewed their new guidelines recently, however, made a few changes, and sure enough, within a week or so, my content started showing up… yay! While you may or may not get your content into the program, the only way to know is to try, and persistence is definitely a key. If you’re thinking it’s just not worth the trouble, here are 5 reasons why it’s super important: 1. It’s Kinda Sorta Easy to Implement

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5 Reasons Why You Need to Use Rel=Author on Your Content

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Educating Your Visitors – The Power of Giving and User-Friendly Websites – A SPN Exclusive Article

I’ve been involved in sales and marketing for over twenty years – half my adult life. And sometimes I still get confused when I browse the Internet and visit websites searching for information, or to make a purchase. I’m absolutely amazed at how complicated some marketers make doing business online. Let’s talk about searching for information for a moment. After all, most people go online not to buy anything, but rather to search for information to solve a problem they have. Knowing this is important, because if you understand that the Internet is driven by information and information seekers, as a marketer, you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. 1. You can provide information seekers with the information they’re looking for. 2.

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Educating Your Visitors – The Power of Giving and User-Friendly Websites – A SPN Exclusive Article

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2012 Resolution – Avoid 7 New Website Legal Compliance Gotchas

Your personal New Year’s resolutions are important. You bet. However, if you’re a SaaS or Internet marketer, your best-laid plans for 2012 may hit the skids if you fail to avoid new website legal compliance gotchas that emerged in 2011. So, It’s highly recommended that you add to your personal resolutions the requirement to review the checklist of critical developments and related gotchas in these 2 categories: privacy and Internet marketing.

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2012 Resolution – Avoid 7 New Website Legal Compliance Gotchas

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The Explosion of the Mobile Web… Is Your Website Ready? – A SPN Exclusive Article

Just a few short years ago, it was a good bet that you would read articles like this one on your PC or laptop. Today, it’s just as likely that you are reading this article on a smartphone or tablet computer. So what’s changed, what happened? The mobile web happened, that’s what – and the Internet will never be the same. So, what’s the mobile web? Loosely defined, the mobile web is a way of accessing the Internet via a wireless network, using a handheld mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer

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The Explosion of the Mobile Web… Is Your Website Ready? – A SPN Exclusive Article

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Tips on How to Convert Your Articles Into Videos

When I wrote the article “10 Proven Benefits of Converting Your Articles into Videos” the first comment I received from one of my followers was “How do you turn your articles into videos?” This prompted me to come up with this simple explanation on how to go about it. There are several options of converting your articles into videos. For instance you can use PowerPoint to create animated slides and convert them into a video format. You can use a flash program to create your videos. But these options really require technical know-how and most people may find it a little bit difficult. The easiest way to convert your articles into videos is by using an article-to-video-converter software that turns them into videos in the shortest time possible. It is user friendly and it doesn’t require much technical know-how. But you need to select a good program that allows you to edit your article in any way you want.

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Tips on How to Convert Your Articles Into Videos

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Caution: Avoid These Four Social CRM Pitfalls

You can make the most of the opportunities presented by social CRM (SCRM) and social media by avoiding these four common mistakes. Social Media — It’s Not A Broadcast Network Many companies fail to grasp the two-way nature of social media. So they use sites like Facebook and Twitter to saturate their audience with messages while making no effort to listen to their customers and respond appropriately. It’s the social media version of “shock and awe.” This is understandable given the evolution of marketing as outbound communication only. But today, such behavior is seen as loutish and clueless. Your Customers Might Misbehave — You Can’t You should behave as a peer with your customers, not a pal. Your customer community may be fairly rambunctious, even coarse on line, but that doesn’t mean you should match their behavior. You shouldn’t.

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Caution: Avoid These Four Social CRM Pitfalls

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The New Part Played by Social Media in SEO

When most people start planning SEO for their website I can bet you a large proportion of them get stuck when it comes to really understanding what part social media has to play in SEO. Social media often lags further down the priority list behind SEO for a variety of reasons, mainly a lack of clarity as to what benefits it will actually bring and the fact that it’s often difficult to relate a tweet or Facebook message to a return on investment whereas with SEO, for example, website owners can more easily attribute a growth in sales to new rankings for key-phrases. However, the way that social media has evolved means that it now plays a much more important role in search engine optimization. Searches are now taking into account the reputation of websites as reflected in social media sites to determine rank. What Content do Users want to Share? A more common occurrence nowadays is the placing of social networking buttons alongside pages and various pieces of content within the website.

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The New Part Played by Social Media in SEO

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