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Google’s First Page… Guaranteed! – A SPN Exclusive Article

A couple of weeks ago, I visited one of the Internet Marketing/Small Business forums that I’m a member of, and noticed a new member had posted a typical newbie question in the SEO forum. The member wanted to know how she could be guaranteed to get her website on the first page of Google. As usual, members came crawling out of the woodwork with advice – including members who didn’t even own a website. Unfortunately, that’s pretty typical on Internet Marketing/Small Business forums… members who don’t own a website instructing other members how to get on the first page of Google… members who don’t own a business dispensing business advice. So be careful where you get your advice from… but I digress. Not surprisingly, not a single member responded with the correct answer. And what is the correct answer? The correct answer is there is NO magic bullet that will assure a first page ranking on Google. Never has been, never will be.

How To Measure The Return On Investment For Social Media In Marketing

“ROI on Social Media? What bloody ROI?” It’s only the first week of January 2012 and already I’m hearing the same refrain as 2011! “How do we calculate the ROI on social media in marketing?” When you begin using social media in your marketing strategy or as a stand alone campaign, it is hard to determine how those numbers of followers and ‘likers’ stack up against delivery of a return on investment. We have clients who ask us this regularly so here’s some clarity for you. Measuring social media ROI is very difficult for a few reasons. The first is that it is very hard to use social media trackers for individual sales and the second is that social media is not a direct sales channel, it’s a relationship marketing tool.

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.

Who Owns The Copyright of Work Created By A Contractor? A Trap For The Unwary

It’s really basic: ownership of the copyright in work a business pays for can often be critical for successful commercialization of that work. Unfortunately, the U.S. Copyright contains arcane provisions that will often produce a counter-intuitive result – leaving full copyright ownership with the contractor. How could this possibly be?? Internet attorneys, advisors and businesses cannot afford not to be aware of the applicable laws

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

10 Ways to Be Successful with Affiliate Sales

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most affordable ways to get started making money online. In essence, what you are doing is selling other companies’ products for a commission. You can make money without developing your own product or building your own sales site. All you do is promote the product and send the customers to the company’s site to make the purchase. Of course, I don’t want to make this sound too easy. It does take work, commitment, persistence and time like any other business.

10 Questions for New SEO Clients

Hello Jill, If you could only ask 10 general (non-industry-specific) questions of your new SEO customers, what would they be and why would their answers help you help them? Thank you, Andrew ++Jill’s Response++ Hi Andrew, Great question! I have a variety of different questionnaires that I send to clients, depending on the type of SEO consulting that I’ll be doing with them. For any SEO service, the more information I get from the client about their business and website, the better I can help them with their SEO. Here’s a selection of some of the questions I ask and why they’re important to the overall SEO process: 1.

4 Ways to Make Sure You Beat the Competition in Local Search – A SPN Exclusive Article

Google Place Search (formerly known as Google Places) rules local search. Just try it. Go to Google and type in “Personal Injury Attorney Your City.” The first seven listings in the “natural search listings” are all Google Places pages. Since 20% of searches are local and the majority of their over $30 billion in revenue comes from small businesses, Google has decided to go hard after local small business advertising. They started by creating 50 million Google Places pages using aggregated data from online directories and the Yellow Pages. These pages are mobile optimized and attached to Google Maps. Only about 8% of local businesses have actually claimed their Google Place Search page. Even less have fully optimized their pages. However, this is changing fast

An Argument Against Outsourced Content – A SEO-News Exclusive Article

Let me start off by explaining exactly what I mean when I say “outsourced content.” Just because a piece of content wasn’t written inside the four walls of your office, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s “outsourced” as I define it. Do I think hiring a freelance writer to manage your business blog counts as outsourcing? No. Do I think having a PR firm write and distribute press releases under your company’s name counts as outsourcing? No. Do I think hiring a social media marketing or SEO firm to write and promote content counts as outsourcing? No

10 Steps to Negotiating the Best Business Deal for You – A SPN Exclusive Article

Today in business you don’t get what you request– you get what you bargain for. You see, everybody asks “What’s in it for me?” So for you to get what you want, you’d better expect to answer that doubt for the people you collaborate with by learning negotiation know-how. I have had plenty of success in negotiating opportunities lately, specifically since I am not known as an expert negotiator. I have negotiated raises that were 5 times what was proposed, negotiated an executive level position worth thousands beyond the job description with triple the job security, and negotiated online services worth hundreds of thousands of estimated income for my company. How did an amateur like me accomplish these things and learn how to negotiate in business? Here are 10 steps that I use for effective business negotiation: Know What You Want … and What They Need How simple this sounds, but how difficult to realize. You need to know specifically what it is you want from the transaction or negotiation. Don’t wait for the other party to state their point of view to decide what yours is going to be. If you want a raise, how much?