Top 5 Ways To Use Web 2.0 for Web Marketing (3)

4) Encourage visitors to bookmark and tag your content
If you have a blog, add a feature that shows up at the end of every post that allows users to bookmark or submit your post to other Web 2.0 websites. 'Share This' is just such a blog add-on (or plug-in) that can do this for you. If you have a Wordpress blog you will be able to find a plug-in that allows you to integrate this type of feature (including Share This) into your blog very easily and without the need for any technical knowledge. If you write a memorable or compelling post, people can use this to make bookmarks to the post, Stumble it, Digg it and so forth. All of this can lead to more traffic.

5) Add a Web 2.0 feature to your website
First of all; your business website needs a blog. If you do not have one, then stop reading this and go to it. A blog provides you and your employees an easy way to post new information that is relevant to your business and helpful to your customers. And it allows your customers to easily communicate with you by leaving comments.

But beyond a blog, what other Web 2.0 features can you add to your website? If you are selling products, consider adding in a feature that allows customers to rate each product. It can be something as simple as one to five stars or more elaborate where they leave reviews. Amazon does this and it one of the major driving forces in their sales. When potential customers see that your products are rated by existing customers, they will be more likely to trust you and buy.

You could add a wiki to your website. A wiki is software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content. By encouraging your website visitors to create content for you, you are allowing your site to grow and become more informative, thus creating more chances to be found in search engines. These features can be found as third-party software packages and integrated into your existing website surprisingly easily.

The power of Web 2.0 is substantial. It is time you begin to harness its potential and by following these five suggestions, you will be well on your way. See JackHumphrey.com for a great list to start with.

Source From SitePro News

Putting the "Ad" Into Adwords (2)

3) A Stitch in Time.

It is important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.

You can adapt this schedule to suit your click volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You will learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Do not forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.

4) Study your Competition First.

Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.

This is particularly important if you are thinking of using Google's Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.

5) All for One and One for All.

Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.

Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad's headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.

Make sure core keywords follow through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.

6) Simplicity Sells Harder.

Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.

Be honest and do not use words like "free" unless you are really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.

7) Understand what Matters.

According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.

AdWords' power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they are looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.

Source From SitePro News

Top 5 Ways To Use Web 2.0 for Web Marketing (2)

2) Web 2.0-ize other people's sites that contain a link back to your website
Assume you already know how your bookmarks (or Favorites) work in your browser. There are websites that exist that act in the same way, but the bookmarks you set are public. Del.icio.us was one of the first and a very popular example of this. People's public bookmarks are browsed by others and lead to clicks to the sites you have bookmarked. So be sure to bookmark your business website and inner pages that are important. Also, these bookmarks can appear in search results in engines like Google and Yahoo. And some even think that search engines use book-marking sites in their algorithms, although this has not been conclusively proven. Simply and BlinkList are two more examples of these kinds of Web 2.0 book-marking sites.

Let us say you write an original, quality article and post it to your business website. Then you submit the article to a handful of content rating websites like some of the ones explained above. To further market this article, you can then use social book-marking sites to bookmark the page on the content rating websites that list your new article and that contain a link back to your article. This can be very powerful.

Or you notice that an authority in your industry has a link on its website that points back to your website. Go ahead and bookmark the page on the authority site, thus marketing it, which in turn markets your site as well. One particular Web 2.0 website that is very popular and can generate tons of traffic is StumbleUpon. This site allows people to give any page you deem worthy a "thumbs-up". And if you get enough "thumbs-up", people browsing StumbleUpon will see it and click over to that page. So I always make it a point to "Stumble" my business websites' homepages and sites that contain links to my business websites as well.
If you become an active member in a handful of Web 2.0 websites and utilize these first two suggestions alone, you will be amazed at the kind of traffic you can generate.

3) Engage in the conversations and activities
When I suggest above to become an active member I mean that you need to visit a few of your favorite Web 2.0 sites on a regular basis and actually contribute to the site with your opinions, votes, comments and submissions. For instance, if you like Digg or News vine, visit them often and submit quality articles, content and sites to them. And they do not all have to be your sites. In fact, the more impartial you are, the more people will trust you when you submit one of your articles. And you ought to vote for other people's Digg submissions as well. You may enjoy Facebook, Linkedin or MySpace. First, create a profile on the site, then go out and make connections within the community. The more you do this, the more you can harness the power of the people you meet to help market your website or yourself.

Visit and comment on blogs in your industry. This is another tried and true way to engage in the online conversation. Blogs are Web 2.0 and have been around for a while now. Unfortunately, leaving blog comments has been abused by so many people that you absolutely must only leave blog comments that contribute to the overall blog post.

Only add your website's link if you are asked to. These links will not help your search engine rankings but can drive traffic to your site.

To be continued..

Show your weblog at Acobay!

For those wish to show their blogs widely and reach more audiences and traffic to their blogs, then acobay.com will be the best place to make you dream come true.

In acobay.com, the more stuff you share with others, the more poeple you might connected to and the more people with visit to your blogs. Besides these, you also can have fun in showing your meterial to others, promote your blogs and get paid for the actions you made from there. For more information about acobay.com consumer network, please visit to their website.

Top 5 Ways To Use Web 2.0 for Web Marketing

Web 2.0 and Web marketing is a match made in heaven. There are many ways to create traffic to your website using the power of Web 2.0. Below I am going to examine what I consider to be the top five. Jack Humphrey, a well-known Web 2.0 expert, defines it this way in his Authority Black Book:

“Generally speaking, if people can submit links to content, submit content, make comments and vote good/bad content up/down thus affecting the amount of traffic that content can generate, it is Web 2.0.”

Blogs, wikis, file sharing sites, content rating systems, book-marking sites, and social networking sites are all examples of Web 2.0. Some of the more well-known Web 2.0 sites are YouTube (file sharing), Facebook and MySpace (social networking), Wikipedia (wiki), del.icio.us (book-marking) and Digg (content rating system). The list is almost endless, and the traffic that these websites generate is absolutely staggering.

So how can you harness some of this traffic?
1) Create original, quality and compelling content and submit them to Web 2.0 websites.
For example, if you write an original and compelling article, you can submit it to content sharing and content rating system websites such as Digg, Propeller, Newsvine, MarkTD or Reddit. Sometimes content sharing and content rating system websites specialize in a particular industry. MarkTD specializes in marketing, for example.

When you submit your article to these sites, people will give it a vote, and each vote moves the article up where it can be seen by more and more people. This has the potential of creating a lot of traffic for your website since each reader will need to click on the link to go to your site to read the full article. And you are building a permanent link pointing to your website that can be followed for months and years to come. (And do not forget, a link from a quality site to your website helps in your search engine rankings too.)

Or you can create an original video and submit it to YouTube. Here it will get rated and possibly seen by many people. If the video contains your website or a plug for your business, then all the better. YouTube is not the only video sharing website however. There are many, and one video can be submitted to them all. This same concept applies to your original images, photographs, digital art and audio files.

To be continued..

Self Storage Guide

A cool website that provides facilities to make yourself organized, know what you own, protect against weather, saving for later, for occasional use.

According to the website, simple self storage could be easier than simply because it is the largest privately owned self storage company in the United States and Puerto Rico. They operate over 228 facilities with over 16.1 million square feet of storage space. For more information about storage facilities, please visit to their website.

Putting the "Ad" Into Adwords

When you are new to AdWords, it is tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules.

1) Do not Fly Blind.

In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we have not ever seen a profitable example that did not track conversions.

AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Click-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it is delivering. We have seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.
Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.

Finally, do not forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.


2) Cut out the Middle Man.

In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it is vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:

Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you do not exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you will get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.

Ad Serving: If you are running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favoring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been received. We do not use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.

We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there is only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.

The Rotate option also gives you more granularities when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.

Network Options: Start your testing using Google's Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google's partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).

Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Do not run on the Content network with the same bid as Search - you are just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.

If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.

All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and click the Edit Settings button.

To be continued..

The Most Valuable Source for Leads (3)

As you can see, the tactics are not groundbreaking or unusual. On the contrary, the approach to market is contrived on establishing a brand, shouting a message to the masses, and hoping that the merit is recognized by the appropriate lead. The Internet, Trade Shows, Brochures, and Advertising, provide effective, if not innovative vehicles for spreading the slogan. While it may be necessary to invest in these channels of communication to maintain competitive placement, there remains untapped opportunity for higher rates of success when tactics engage customer referrals.

Stop what you are doing right now and imagine how referrals from satisfied customers could generate valuable leads and grow your business. It does not matter what kind of business you are in, or what responsibilities you have in the organization. Every member of an organization contributes directly, or indirectly, to customer satisfaction. Your actions may results in testimonials, endorsements, or positive word of mouth. If you could harness the power of customer referrals, your sales force would blossom with representation from independent trusted advocates.

So, how do you encourage and empower customers to grow this incredible pipeline of valued referrals? You ask them, of course. However, before you make such a bold request, your customers must know that you are fully engaged and obligated to their aspirations. When customers are assured that you are a trusted advocate, committed to customer satisfaction, they have the confidence to share referrals and recommendations.

Once customer confidence is established and the relationship is mutually rewarding, then it is just a matter of creating the appropriate opportunity for referrals to occur. This can be as simple as asking for referrals, or as formal as creating gatherings for existing clients and potential prospects to meet and exchange experiences. Introducing existing clients to potential prospects demonstrates immense confidence in your own relationship with your customers, because you are not fearful of losing the mutually rewarding relationship. Group gatherings and communications creates a unique opportunity to endorse your customers, grow their circle of influence, and for them to provide a third party endorsement of your efforts.

There are many ways to empower customer referrals by engaging individuals in group gathering or discussions, leveraging the Internet or Advertising, or by collecting a powerful collage of testimonials. The tactics for getting the most out of this goldmine pipeline are as diverse as the markets and customers in them. It all begins with recognizing the most valuable source for leads, acknowledging the value of these resources, and creating specific action items in a plan to unleash these untapped opportunities. Actively and effectively mining the most valuable source for leads will give you an advantage over 95% of your competition.

Source From Entireweb Newsletter

The Most Valuable Source for Leads (2)

With all of this insight, how did the same channel executives, distributors, resellers, and channel representatives respond to the survey by Chief Marketing Officer Council with regards to tactics for generating new leads in the coming year?

14% Plan to use Direct Marketing and E-mail campaigns
13% Plan to use Sales Brochures and collateral
10% Plan to focus on Tradeshows for lead generation
8% Will use Seminars to generate leads
7% Will rely on Print Advertising
7% Plan to use Public Relations and Article Placement
7% Plan to use the Internet and Online Advertising
6% Will revert to Telemarketing
6% Plan to invest in Internet Search Engine Marketing
5% Plan to engage customers in User Group Gatherings
4% Plan to rely on Yellow Page Advertising
4% Will experiment on the Internet with Blogs and Social Networking
3% Will use Online Directories
3% Will create Webcasts
1% Plan to use Content Syndication
2% Will try something completely different

The results of the survey regarding lead generation tactics for new business acquisition are hardly surprising. Very little has changed in the planning and tactics as conveyed by the survey response, and yet, the contrast in comparison to the most effective and valued leads is staggering. Even though 54% of respondents acknowledged that the most valued leads are based on customer referrals, the first mention of leveraging this goldmine occurs in the 4% of respondents that plan to engage customers in user group gatherings.

Fortunately, it would appear relatively that fourteen percent of respondents believe the most valuable lead generation comes from Direct Marketing or E-mail, and fourteen percent plan to use this tactic for lead generation in the coming year. However, even though only seven percent believe that the best leads come from trade shows, there are ten percent planning to take this tactic, and another eight percent who will augment this activity with seminars.

Although only eight percent believe that the highest chance for success comes from leads acquired by the Internet, there is a staggering number of diverse plans to leverage this channel of communication. The tactics include seven percent Internet and Online Advertising, six percent investing in search engine marketing, four percent using blogs and social networking, three percent using Online Directories, and another three percent experimenting with webcasts. The Internet provides an exciting vehicle to be creative, showcase the brand, and communicate to a very large audience. However, is it targeting the most valuable audience by engaging the most valuable leads that come from customer referrals?

To be continued..

The Most Valuable Source for Leads

Would you like to tap into the most valuable source for leads? You might be surprised to discover that you are climbing over the low hanging fruit in an effort to get to the top of the tree. In your haste to shout your message to the masses, you could be shouting over the heads of the potential business that is already in a queue at your door. Slow down and reflect for just a moment. Then tap into the most valuable source for leads.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has just completed a study of channel executives, distributors, resellers, and other channel representatives. The results of the surveys may not surprise you, but the contrasts of the responses provide a shocking insight into the sheer volume of missed opportunities. This is good news for you, because missed opportunities by others can create new opportunities for you. While you may agree with the initial results of the survey, consider how you can adjust your approach to the market and leverage these opportunities.

According to the survey results by the Chief Marketing Officer Council, most valued source of leads is from customer referrals.
54% Customer Referrals
14% E-Mail or Direct Marketing
8% Internet
7% Events
7% Leads from Vendors
3% Third Party Lead Generation Organizations
8% Other

Would you agree that the best leads come from the referrals of satisfied customers? Is it surprising that customer referrals were ranked as four times more powerful and valuable than E-Mail or Direct Marketing campaigns? Customer referrals were ranked nearly seven times more likely to result in sales and new business than leads derived the Internet.

Customer referrals are a means of providing immediate credibility. With the increasing ability for consumers to share personal expression on the Internet, Blogs, E-mail, and word of mouth, the ability to communicate has enhanced the voice of the customer. In business-to-business transactions, a customer referral is more likely to lead to an appropriate contact with a relevant message, which is far more powerful and likely to result in success than a cold call from a third party lead generation. Events and trade shows can be a powerful platform to market a brand, but fall short in delivering valuable leads.

To be continued..

Smarter SEO: How to Own ANY Niche (3)

Part Three: Deciding on Website Type

Deciding on Website Type 1:
Do you want a blog or a regular static site? For quickest results I recommend setting up a WordPress blog (free technology with thousands of free templates.) Google loves blogs because they are fresh, dynamic and already nearly perfectly optimized for their spidering bot.

Deciding on Website Type 2:
If you do go with WordPress, I also recommend installing the free WordPress plugin "All in One SEO Pack" by Michael Torbert. It is amazing and totally free.


Part Four: Finding Web Hosting

Finding Web Hosting 1:
There are tens or thousands of companies you can go with or you can even just host your site at WordPress.com.

Finding Web Hosting 2:
Personally I like to maintain full control of my site for future expansions and customizations. And I have so many niche blogs in service that saving even just a few bucks is a big deal

Finding Web Hosting 3:
But again, there are literally tens of thousands of hosts to choose from. Shop around and stick with one you really like. It is much easier to track each of your niche blogs with a single host (control panels, stats, etc.)


Part Five: Optimizing Your Site
Optimizing Your Site 1:
So far we have covered how to select the most profitable keywords, purchase unbeatable domain names, and use the Website type most revered by Google for quickest results and how to get reliable inexpensive hosting with bonus features. And we have only spent about $35 ($10 for the domain and $25 for hosting.)

Optimizing Your Site 2:
Now we move onto the actual optimization part. I will laundry list the things you need to keep in mind for a competitive edge and recommend a tool bargain if you decide you need one.

Use two of your most important keywords per page; the primary and a secondary.
Use your main and secondary keyword in the page or post title.
Try to make each page about 500 words in length or more, using at least five paragraphs.

Mention your main keyword about four times on the page as follows: Once at the beginning of the first sentence, once in the second paragraph, once in the third paragraph and once towards the end of the final paragraph.
Mention your secondary keyword about four times on the page as follows: Once towards the end of the first sentence, once in the third paragraph, once in the fourth paragraph and once towards the beginning of the final paragraph.
Add your keywords and META descriptions to the WordPress plugin "All in One SEO Pack" and let that do the heavy lifting for you.

Optimizing Your Site 3:
If you have an SEO analyzer tool, use it. This is a tool that goes through you site just like Google will, and does the same to your top competitors that dominate your search engine of choice, and then tells you EXACTLY what you need to do to steal their top positions.

Optimizing Your Site 4:
If you do not have a tool like that but think it would help, you can download a free trial version of one of the better ones at iBusinessPR0M0TER.com. If you decide to buy it, you will have the same tool that makes eBay number one all over the world. And for about $250.

Well that is it. You can dominate any niche you want with little time, effort or expense. Above all else enjoy the ride. Best of luck!

Source From SEO News

Smarter SEO: How to Own ANY Niche (2)

Part Two: Securing Domain Names

Securing Domain Names 1:
Now go to your favorite domain registrar and run a domain registration availability search for the keyword phrase with the highest Success Potential Ratio.

Securing Domain Names 2:
Use dashes! And do not feel like the splits need to be perfect. For example, if you have a possible domain that is three words long, first try it without any dashes. That will be gone, I can almost guarantee. Next try separating each word with a dash. Maybe it is taken, maybe not. If not, grab it. If it is taken, do not despair. Try just one dash between the first two words and let the second and third run together. If that version is taken, move the dash so it is between the second and third while the first and second run together. Chances are you will find one that works. And the best part is the search engines read it as the same keyword.
Keep in mind, this domain and resulting Website is for SEO purposes NOT branding. Who cares how long it is or how many dashes it has and certainly not you. The search engines will love it.

Securing Domain Names 3:
A word of advice. Get your domain name as quickly as possible. The older it is the better in Google's eyes. And they actually run date scans on domains using a Whois registry so they know the exact date and minute the domain was registered.
If you have not used one, check out AllWhoIs.com or BetterWhoIs.com and enter any domain name. It tells you all kinds of stuff, including the owner, registrar, date or registration and even the owner's home phone and address if that is what he or she used to register.

Securing Domain Names 4:
As for the domain type, .com is best bet and .net and .org extensions also do well. I do not bother with the others and I really strive for .com whenever possible.

To be continued..

Smarter SEO: How to Own ANY Niche

Just ten years ago if you wanted to profit in a niche market it was typically an expensive and risky undertaking. First you had to do the research to see if the industry was big enough to support you. Then you would setup a shop of some sort, whether it was a storefront, mall kiosk, or kitchen table, run a mail order company and tons of little classified ads to bring in the business. It usually took at least six months to see if a profit was likely in your future and finding good suppliers for specialty items could be just as demanding as selling the stuff you managed to get hold of. Thanks to the Web, those days are long gone.

Today, with a little basic information and $50 you can have a nice niche thing going. Or with that same $50 and some hard won insider tips you can OWN any niche you want. That is what we will focus on.

First things first, spend wisely. Setup a budget early on and find ways to stay within it. Use free tools whenever possible and when you do need to spend money on something, make sure it is a bargain. Okay, now for the good stuff. Let us start with finding our keywords.

Part One: Finding Keywords
Finding Keywords 1:
We can use a free tool to do this part. Go to Google Keyword Tool and type in a common word or phrase that describes your niche (check the Use synonyms box to get the best variety of results.)

Finding Keywords 2:
Now click on the "Approx Avg Search Volume" header to sort by the average monthly volume. You are going to take each of the search terms that look like good possible keywords and run a search on Google for them. But let us keep track. Take a sheet of paper (or Excel doc) and jot down the keyword, then the "Approx Avg Search Volume" and finally the number of pages returned on Google.

Finding Keywords 3:
When you have that information for a good handful of keywords you want to come up with a success potential ratio for each. It is easy. Just divide the "Approx Avg Search Volume" by the number of pages on Google. This is your success potential ratio. The higher the number; the better.

Example A: Approx Avg Search Volume (6,500) / Matching Pages on Google (100,000) = .065 is your Success Potential Ratio

Example B: Approx Avg Search Volume (9,750) / Matching Pages on Google (233,000) = .042 is your Success Potential Ratio

Example B has a lot more searches performed but with even more competition than A. Long story short, this means the keyword from Example A is likely our best bet to target.

To be continued..