February Seminar

Small Business Marketing Seminar

February 21st , 2012 6-730pm

Sign up below to preregister for this free educational event and get your advance guide materials instantly.

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Marketing In 2012

February 1, 2012
Volume 1, Issue 1

2012 brings on a new challenge to all of us who run our small businesses in this difficult economic environment. This year, my goal at Kevin Rockwell Marketing is to help many more small business operators like yourself find more customers and stop throwing away money on marketing that does not work anymore. Sound good to you? Great. Then join me as I share some of the things that are working now.
 

Google changes for 2012

Last year Google did an update to their search algorithm (What is an algorithm you ask? Well it is something you forgot about from early math class for one thing. But in this case it is the complicated formula that Google uses to determine how web pages will rank in their listings. They take into consideration a variety of factors using their super secret method and then rank pages they have in their index) Last year that was called Panda Update. It sent many folks into a dither as their website rank got dropped. However, it was in some way overblown. The sites that got hit were mostly doing things wrong, and thus they got penalized for it. However many sites saw a boost in their rank from Panda as Google saw them as doing things right.

Now we come along to 2012 and there is new update to the way Google ranks your site. Not a major change as far as most analysts are concerned, but a change you should know about to keep your site current and ranked well in search results. Google is now leaning more heavily towards social media mentions and activity as a way to give your site rank. That means Google + mentions, Facebook mentions and so on will now be counted into the mix for ranking your pages. What does this mean for you? You need to have some form of social media participation for your site, even if it is as simple as adding a Google + ,or a FaceBook like button to your pages so your visitors can share your pages.
 

Google Places!

Did you know that Google gives local businesses a powerful way to get more free traffic? Through their Google Places listings they give you the chance to come up high in the search rankings for free. Now most of you should know about this if you are my client. But if not, then you need to make sure that you have one of these free Google places  listings for your business. If you optimize your listing correctly (we show you how, or we can do it all for you) Google will put your business up near the top of its search results for your main business category keywords. So for your listing you can create five top level categories you want to be found for in Google, for example: Dentist, Cosmetic Dentist, Teeth Whitening, Pediatric Dentist.

We have some powerful strategies in hand that can help make sure that you rank above your local business competitors for your category.

February Marketing Seminar

I will be holding a free small business marketing seminar on February 21st that you won’t want to miss. This 90 minute seminar will give you free information and tips that will get you more customers in 2012. I can assure you that if you implement the strategies I reveal, you that you will bring in more customers. How can I say that? Well it is simple; I have tapped into the methods that are working now to get your business in front of the people who are looking for your product or service.

Here is what I will be covering:
The secret to getting more free traffic to your site
The one place you must be listed at if you want traffic
What you should always do on your website
How to make marketing your business an easy weekly task

When is this event? Mark down February 21st at 6pm on your calendar. The seminar will be held in Alameda, CA
1151 Harbor Bay Pkwy, Alameda, CA 94502

Leveraging your content for more customers

One thing I encourage all small businesses to do is to create regular new content on their website. The search engines like to see fresh content being added to your site on a regular basis. They give you credit for this activity. But the key thing here is to not make creating that content a burden on your business activities. If it becomes a burden you won’t do it. We know that. So optimally you should be creating small chunks of content on your site. This can be in the form of blog posts, new content pages, and updates to existing pages.

You might ask, what do I need to write about?  I advise you to create content about  news from your business industry (comment on industry trends, express your opinion on news), give tips and tricks on  how customers can do something with your product or service, give advice on key topics in your business, or just post a video you find on Youtube , or one that we can create for you,  that is about your business niche.

Now for the key point of this item; leverage! That’s right, you need to leverage the content that you build to further reach new customers. It is called content syndication, and basically it entails sending your new content out to a variety of powerful web sites so you can build inbound links to your site and get in front of more viewers so you can expand your marketing reach. This can be as simple or as complex as you want it. I prefer simple. So I streamline my process of syndication to a process that takes less than ten minutes for each post or article I create. (Oh and another secret, I don’t write all my own content. I outsource it to skilled writers) Basically I make a post and then I bookmark that post, Tweet the post, share the post on my special site which then syndicates it out to 20 other social and web 2.0 sites for my on autopilot. In just a few short minutes I have built quality links to that post and to my site. This small effort will bring traffic to your pages. It works. Want to know more? Sign up for a free copy of my book and you will get access to my insiders guides to syndicating your content effectively.

Still seem overwhelming? Talk to me about how I can provide a “done for you” solution for your marketing

To preregister for the February seminar, and get your free materials in advance click here- www.kevinrockwell.com/FebSeminar
 

How To Stand Tall On Your Own In The SEO Game

Optimizing a website for search engine performance is not a fad and it is not a mystery. Good SEO is so valuable for online businesses that professional consultants are able to specialize exclusively in optimizing websites. So the question is: Do you have to hire one? Or is SEO something you can handle on your own? Here is the vital things you will need to do if you intend to tackle search engine optimization yourself.

First, and most important, you need to learn how the search engine rankings actually work. This encompasses both gaining a basic understanding and keeping abreast of changing trends. Update frequency and search relevancy were the first factors to affect search engine rankings. Now, search engines also check for keyword relevance and website linkage. Soon, the engines will be incorporating credibility data in their ranking process. You can see there is a lot of information to take in!

Another piece of background education you need to pick up is an understanding of the indexing process – something completely different from the rankings. The search engines can only present (and rank) results from webpages they have indexed. While you can get some pages indexed by request, what is far more important is how your website interacts with the automated programs (called "spiders") that build indexes automatically. A spider-friendly website will appear more quickly and more often in the indexes.

To return to a point from above, you need to master keywords to do your own SEO effectively. This includes knowing how keywords work from the search engines' point of view and learning what keywords are most effective for your business. The former calls for research. The latter can be handled with analytic tools that will show you which keywords are over-saturated or under-represented in your industry.

It is also important that you keep in mind that your SEO skills are like oratorical skills. They help bring people to your website; they draw attention. All the search engine optimization in the world, though, cannot improve what visitors find at your site. You should be sure your website's content is high-quality before you set out to boost it up the results pages.

If you already have an effective website stuffed with great content, you also need to look at how it is organized. The structure of your website (how you organize files into directories, for example) can have a big impact on its SEO performance. You need to settle on a fairly stringent overall structure and stick to it, and then tailor your SEO work to fit that structure.

Planning is important to any successful SEO effort. You should set firm goals for search engine optimization before you dive in and develop solid strategies for meeting them. While all good strategies have a certain amount of flexibility, ignoring the big picture entirely is a sure recipe for disaster.

Once you have your SEO work underway, you need to be able to gage its effectiveness. This involves more than reading your visitors counter. You will have to cultivate a thorough understanding of the more advanced analytic tools, so that you can tell why and how visitors arrive at your website. Armed with this information, you can make informed decisions about which SEO tactics are most effective.

So, this is what is really involved in doing your own SEO. It is not impossible to master, and many webmasters do their own, very effective optimization. Before you decide to join their ranks, though, it's best to know what you are in for. If the road ahead looks too steep, remember that those specialists are out there.

Do You Use Groupon?

Deal of the Day sites have exploded on the marketplace lately. The market leader is Groupon but there are others like Living Social, Trubates and now ClaimYourDeal. Why do these sites make sense to consumers? Well they get a great deal and save money on things they want ot buy or things they want to try and never had enough incentive.

Now for the merchant who contributes to these offers what exactly are they looking for in the deal? Well more customers in the door for sure, but I would say that most businesses want to build a bigger customer list, or following for their product or service.

The daily deals certainly get customers in the door and for many businesses this is a low or no cost marketing channel to get more exposure. Sure they are giving up some of the sale by participating in the deal but if they give the consumer a great experience once they come in the door they have the chance to turn that customer into a long term client and or a great referral to other consumers.

Now as a business should you consider using this marketing channel? I would say that MOST business to consumer businesses can find value in this type of marketing. BUT it is crucial that you do it right.

What can you do to ensure success in daily deal marketing?

1. Make an offer that makes sense to your operations. Don't over extend your resources, staffing, or product supply. Carefully evaluate what could happen if your deal is a hit.

2. Prepare your staff ahead of time so they know what to do when someone comes in bearing a coupon deal. Instead of seeing that customer as a bargain seeker why not treat them as a special person? Give them special treatment (free appetizer at a restaurant for example), make sure that when they give you the coupon for the deal that you give them in return your card that tells them how to join your customer appreciation club or gives them a discount on a future purchase. Anything you can give them that incentivizes them to come back for more.

3.Get them on your list! Do anything you can to get them to sign up for your list so you can communicate with them further. Don't let them go out the door and not give you a chance to communicate with them further. Get them to like your Facebook page!

4. Sign them up for your mobile marketing campaign where they would give you their cell phone number in exchange for you sending them text messages with special offers and coupons.

These are but a few ideas to ensure success with your daily deal marketing. For more on these ideas and how you can ensure success comment below and we can do a free consult for you to build your best daily deal marketing program.

SEO Successes

This is one of my recent SEO success stories for a client. Taking them from way down on page three of Google results and dominating page one of Google for their keywords. They now own two to three of the top five listings on all four of these keywords, giving them fresh new exposure to new customers needing their services.

I just have to comment…..

A friend sent me this and I just have to post it myself. So tired of the hypocrites rising up and shouting about saving the country. Where were they when the leaders who started all of this mess were running things?

Dear Tea Party, what took you so long?
Thursday 4 November 2010

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount
and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed energy company officials to
dictate energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed
no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting)
on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign
sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.

You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just
disappeared in Iraq.

You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing
policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.

You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping
Americans.

You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in
combined budget and current account deficits.

You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter
Reed Hospital.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city – New Orleans -
drown.

You didn’t get mad when we gave people who had more money than
they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.

You didn’t get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in
several decades.

You didn’t get mad when over 200,000 US citizens lost their lives
because they had no health insurance.

You didn’t get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the
Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in
investments, retirement, and home values.

No…..You finally got mad

When a black man was elected President and decided that people in
America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the
millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst
economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow
Americans who are sick…Oh, Hell No!!

Mobile Phone App Development

KRMarketing is proud to announce that we have been retained by Diligent Mobile Inc to work with their client base representing their innovative and high quality mobile app development services.

Mobile app development is a huge growth area right now and for the foreseeable future as the sales of mobile smart phone devises is going through the roof. iPhone, Blackberry, Android, they all are doing very well in the consumer and business market space. Consumers are adopting them at record rates.

Why Go Online If I Am A Local Business?

If I’m local, why do I need to be online? My customers are all local based foot traffic, not international web surfers.

I can agree that is view is a valid argument, albeit outdated in this modern age of technology. These days you have to think of your web property as your technologically advanced business card. People today, local or otherwise want to do things on their own time, at their own pace. And that includes learning about you and your company. They are not searching for you and your business in the same fashion they once did and we have to adapt.

It used to be that you had to focus on first impressions of your business, that being your external image from the street perspective. But these days customers are acting in new ways to find out whether to trust your business. So how does it work when they first run across your company? Well they now go to look up your website to see what you are all about. From there they decide if they are interested in building trust in what you do as a business and whether they want to learn more about your products and services.

So your decision to build an online presence with your offline brick and mortar business is not if but when. And if you have already made the jump you now need to figure out how to leverage this valuable asset to your advantage. You cannot afford to let traffic walk by your business and not check it out. Well online is the same. Grab those visitors with a strong message of confidence and trust and build new customers out of them!

It doesn’t matter whether you are targeting only local prospects or if you want to branch out and sell your products or services to the world, a properly set up, SEO’d website can only help you achieve even greater success.

BUT, amateur looking blogs on blogger.com do not cut it. You need a real website, self-hosted with your own domain name, that works as a lead funneling system to convert your visitors into paying customers and capture their information via a lead capture system, so that you can continue to market your products and services to them on an ongoing basis.

As we all know, it’s much easier to sell to a current customer than to constantly track down and convert new ones. So a website that is set up properly does the job of both… converting new prospects, and keeping old ones a satisfied customer who comes back often.

By the same turn, it is absolutely unnecessary to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy website, full of flash and graphics that ‘looks cool’. In fact, you’d be wasting your money because a flash website won’t do you any favors when it comes to Google, and SEO.

That is where so many offline business owners muck up and get burned. But I’ll save that for another day!

Web Video Show

One of the services we provide our clients that falls into the branding and promotion wing of marketing is producing a web TV show for our clients. We create from start to finish a bi monthly (or more) 5-10 minute long web TV show that allows the client to get more exposure, impart valuable knowledge and engage with the web TV audience to enhance their brand.

Below you will find a sample show from one of my clients who is trying to build her own personal brand in the personal nutrition field.

Meet Rania Batayneh:

If you would like to produce a web TV mini show for your business give us a call and let’s talk about how you can get started this month. This type of branding can make a big difference building customer trust.

Offline Consulting Secrets

Offline Consulting

My newest product is a video interview with offline consulting diva Mari Gudelis. Check it out:

Unlocking Offline Secrets

Free Press Release Sites – My Favorites

Using free press releases to get the word out about your business and to create some powerful links to your website (which can only increase your rank in the eyes of the search engines) is widely known in the online world. However many offline businesses do not know about it or understand how it works. So I am always on a mission to educate my clients about this strategy. You can build valuable assets on the internet that give you near term boost for your site but also creates long term assets that help your traffic and rank for years to come.

In order to help local businesses out we found a good list of free press release sites where you can submit your press releases. They are pretty simple and easy to navigate and submit to, however if you should desire there is always the option to automate or outsource this task.

So, here is the  list, ordered by Google PageRank. The links lead to “Add/Submit a Press Release” or “Register” page.

No.	Directory	PR	Free	Comments
1	http://www.betanews.com	7	Yes
2	http://www.directionsmag.com	7	Yes	* Register
3	http://www.prleap.com/	6	Yes	* Register
4	http://news.thomasnet.com/	6	Yes
5	http://www.nanotech-now.com	6	Yes
6	http://www.npr.org/	6	Yes
7	http://www.prlog.org/	6	Yes	* Register
8	http://www.bizeurope.com/	6	Yes
9	http://www.free-press-release.com/	5	Yes
10	http://www.clickpress.com/	5	Yes	* Register
11	http://www.downloadjunction.com	5	Yes
12	http://www.newswiretoday.com/	5	Yes	* Register
13	http://www.openpr.com/	5	Yes
14	http://www.pressbox.co.uk/	5	Yes
15	http://www.filecluster.com/	5	Yes
16	https://secure.digitalmediaonlineinc.com/	5	Yes	* Register
17	http://www.sbwire.com/	5	Yes	* Register
18	http://www.1888pressrelease.com/	5	Yes	* Register
19	http://www.afreego.com/	5	Yes
20	http://www.sanepr.com/	4	Yes	* Register
21	http://www.theopenpress.com/	4	Yes	* Register
22	http://www.free-press-release-center.info/	4	Yes	* Register
23	http://www.prfree.com/	4	Yes	* Register
24	http://www.ukprwire.com/	4	Yes	* Register
25	http://www.pressreleasespider.com/	4	Yes
26	http://pressabout.com/	4	Yes	* Register
27	http://www.pr-inside.com/	4	Yes	* Register
28	http://www.itbsoftware.com/	4	Yes
29	http://www.pressmethod.com/	4	Yes	* Register
30	http://www.itbinternet.com	4	Yes
31	http://www.newsblaster.com/	4	Yes
32	http://www.24-7pressrelease.com	4	Yes	* Register
33	http://www.freepressreleases.co.uk/	4	Yes	* Register
34	http://freepressindex.com/	3	Yes
35	http://pr-gb.com/	3	Yes	* Register
36		3	Yes
37	http://www.prcompass.com/	3	Yes	* Register
38	http://www.pressexposure.com/	3	Yes	* Register
39	http://www.i-newswire.com/	3	Yes
40	http://www.cgidir.com/	3	Yes	* Register
41	http://www.mediasyndicate.com	3	Yes	* Register
42	http://www.techprspider.com/	3	Yes
43	http://prmac.com/	3	Yes	* Register
44	http://www.publicitywires.com/	3	Yes	* Register
45	http://www.seenation.com/	3	Yes	* Register
46	http://news.eboomwebsolutions.com/	2	Yes	* Register
47	http://www.afly.com/	2	Yes	* Register
48	http://emeapr.com/	2	Yes	* Register
49	http://www.prwindow.com/	2	Yes	* Register
50	http://www.pressreleasecirculation.com/	2	Yes

*You need to create an account in order to submit a press release.

If you know a site not listed where you can submit your press release it’d be great if you could comment below.

Website press release

Video Marketing at E1KADay Seminar

Headed off to Las Vegas tomorrow to shoot video for Dennis Becker at the second annual Earn 1 K A Day Seminar. Last year we all went to Orlando for the first seminar and we had so much fun that Dennis is putting on a second one this year. I will be providing video support for the documentation of the presenters and on Sunday I will be giving my own presentation on Video Marketing to the attendees. Looks to be an exciting and informative weekend, not to mention all the terrific networking that will be going on.

This crowd is more savvy to what video is on the web than my normal clients who are offline businesses but there is even more reason why they should be using video to market their products and services. They see it every day being used by others. I intend to help guide them to using a strong video marketing strategy to build more traffic and customers.

It is a busy schedule so not sure there will be much time to play in Vegas this trip…

Google Local Listings – Citations

Great source of info on how important citations are to building your local business listing in G. Next up will be a post on how to find great sources of places to get citations for your site.

Citations are defined as “mentions” of your business name and address on other webpages, even if there is no link to your website. An example of a citation might be an online yellow pages directory where your business is listed, but not linked to. It can also be a local chamber of commerce, or a local business association where your business information can be found, even if they are not linking at all to your website . You may also see the term “web references” used on other websites—a synonym for “citations”.

Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Other factors being equal, businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.

Citations from well-established and well-indexed portals (like Superpages.com for example) help increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business’s contact information and categorization. To paraphrase former Arizona Cardinals’ coach Dennis Green, citations help search engines confirm that businesses “are who we thought they were!”

Citations are particularly important in less-competitive niches (like plumbing or electrical) where many service providers don’t have websites themselves. Without much other information, the search engines rely heavily on whatever information they can find!

Citations also validate that a business is part of a community. It’s hard for someone to fake membership in a chamber of commerce or a city or county business index, or to be written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog. Citations (and links) from these kinds of websites can dramatically improve your Local search engine rankings.

Currently, the ‘Web Pages’ tab of your Google Local Business Listing is the most complete list of your citations, though Google probably doesn’t show every single one it knows about.

source

One of My Twitter Tools Revealed

This Twitter Tool is pretty new and so it may not have much recognition yet in the market but I have found it to be an awesome club in my bag for staying on top of my market niches in order to post relevant fresh content to my twitter accounts (client accounts too!).

If you commit to building your Twitter account you have to come up with things to say about your area of expertise, business niche and Pluggio is just such a tool.

It can do more than that so maybe instead of describing it you should watch this video and see what it is all about. OK?

Here is a screen shot of the Tweet window for making posts to Twitter from this tool.

Scheduling tweets from RSS feeds in your niche is a snap.

Overall I give this tool an A for usefulness, ease of use, and for saving my brain in the process of finding content and making it easy to post.

Check it out yourself.

Become An Expert

I have managed to twist Brandon’s arm and get his video for you to watch. How would you like to leverage your life story and turn it into a successful career as an expert? This guy has done it and now he is offering his information to you. Watch the video and be rewarded.

Did you watch the video?

Want more? Click here.

Then give me your thoughts below…..

Twitter Tips

Promote Your Twitter Account:

* Fill out your bio. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.
* Treat your twitter profile as you would treat any other website. Send as much traffic as possible to your twitter profile.
* Use a “tweet this” button above/below all your articles which you think can go viral in twitter world.
* Add your name to twitter directories like: tweeps.pbwiki.com, justtweetit.com etc.
* Add twitter apps in your Facebook account that can send your tweets automatically to your Facebook profile.
* Link your twitter profile with your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blog etc.
* Use your twitter profile as email signature, forum signature and everywhere else you live online.
* Add yourself into more & more Twitter Lists.
* Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Broadcast your twitter account everywhere like in seminar, webinar, business card etc.
* Customized your twitter background. Use pic which is relevant to your nature/business.
* Set “auto welcome message” when someone start following you.
* Use your twitter profile URL while commenting on other blogs.
* Apply your real photo or your blog logo/banner on your twitter profile.
* Ask other twitter members to recommend you to their followers and you can recommend them to your followers.
* If you have good followers say 500+, you can display it on your blog as a widget/badge.
* Try to be more active on weekdays because on weekends, people enjoy their weekends & don’t care much.
* Participate in certain groups. Groups can be created using hashtags. And sometimes if the group message is a hot topic, then your tweets will be listed in “hot trending topics” in search or other famous twitter services. Ex:- #followfriday
* Bring your topic into top 10 Trending Topics.

Tips About Tweets & Posts:

* Be active on twitter through different types of posts.
* Tweet valuable things. Don’t just try to get traffic to your blog by tweeting only about your articles. Mix your tweets with friendly content.
* Tweet about your passion in life and use #hash tag them.
* Every tweet should be independent. It shouldn’t depend on previous or any other tweet.
* Try to show the main things within first 32 characters as only they’re visible firstly until & unless s/he is your favorite friend or must following u. Persons, who are online through devices can’t able to see more than 32 characters at first.
* Post your Digg story into twitter as new status http://twiggit.org
* Keep space between 2 links within your tweet. For e.g. during replying to some post if 2 links occur and they’re more closer than there are less chances of clicking these.
* Save your time by configure your blog RSS feed into http://friendfeed.com. Friendfeed submit new posts automatically to your twitter account.
* When you tweet something worth Re-tweeting, then use less than 140 Characters. Because, if your twitter ID has 5 characters, then a re-tweet will add a @ “a symbol” and “RT:” thus making a total of 140+1+3+5=149 characters. So use 125 or 130 characters.
* Tweeting link of some good pictures and breaking news get viral most of the times. You can also tweet about a new job or event.
* Asking questions – By asking questions, you can easily start the conversation with any stranger. May be they’ll follow u.

Twitter Tools:

* Friend or Follow – Friend or Follow helping you figure out who your friends, follows, and fans are on Twitter.
* Qwitter – Once you’ve done your initial cleaning, Qwitter is a nice app that will update you via email whenever someone stops following you. It will even let you know what you tweeted that caused them to stop following you, which could be useful (if you lose five followers every time you tweet about your cat, for example, that might be a hint to stop talking so much about your cat if you want to retain followers).
* GroupTweet – Create private groups to communicate with your group members alone by sending the tweet as a direct message to the group tweet account. That will convert the DM back to tweet and publishes only for the group users. Private communication is established through this way.
* Tweetmeme – Displays popular topics on Twitter and those people talking about that topic.
* TweetBeep – Just like Google Alerts, this service will send you an alert whenever your set keyword is mentioned on Twitter or when somebody link to your site.
* TwitterCounter – With this plugin, you can display the number of followers you have on Twitter.
* Socialoomph – You can send auto direct messages, follow those who follow you, unfollow those who stop following you. You can manage multiple accounts and you know everything the biggest thing is it’s free.
* Mrtweet – Find folks who are highly relevant. Add value to awesome people – recommend them. Be found by people who are naturally relevant to you.
* Ping.fm – This service will update all of your social networks at once.
* Twitterless – Get notified when someone stops following you with Twitterless.
* TwitResponse – TwitResponse makes it easy for you to schedule the delivery of your tweets ahead of time.
* MyCleenr – Sort your friends by their last tweets, and you can get rid of the inactive and useless accounts you’re following.
* Tweetwasters – Find out how much time you and other users waste on Twitter.
* 2tweet – Tweet photos and videos by email
* FutureTweets – Schedule your Tweets.
* TwitPic – Share photos on Twitter – Share photos with your friends on twitter with twitpic. No signup required, just login using your twitter account
* TweetWheel – Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other! – Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other.
* TwitBacks – Free Twitter Backgrounds – Create your own Twitter background with your branding – Free
* TwitterFone – Send Messages to Twitter with Voice – Send messages to Twitter using voice!
* Twollow – Auto Follow On Twitter –
* Who Should I Follow – Twitter Friend Recommendations | Who Should i Follow? – WhoShouldiFollow recommends people to follow on Twitter.

How to Increase Your Followers:

* Search & invite people which have same profile like you.
* Search and invite people which have huge followers.
* Ping your twitter account through ping.fm.
* Find your mutual friends, followers, followings etc from various twitter tools.
* Unfollow those who stop following you.
* If you have a website or a blog, display the follow me button at the top or any other highly visible space.
* Invite all friends of your Gmail, Yahoo mail etc as they are the most potential followers you can ever get.
* Follow others users. If you do not follow others and keep expecting lot of people to start following you, this will not work.
* Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.

Bulk Follow Tools:

* Twellow – Find Twitter users in a specific industry using this service.
* Twitseeker – An alternate search engine for finding twitter.com users. Many of the favorite but not mine. Also, this tool is currently blocked by Twitter as per the violation of terms. It find users basis on the search terms and users tweets/profiles and you can follow all those searched users in bulk.
* Tweepi – (“Select All” feature is disabled on 28th january as per “Twitter TOS”) I’ve searched a new tool for getting huge followers. It’s a good tool to attract huge followers within minutes . Now the procedure to use:
o Find a twitterer, who’s having similar profile like you
o Login into tweepi with your account.
o Now you can follow other twitterer friends within minute.
* Refollow (Now My Favorite) – Free, superb tool for bulk follow & unfollow feature & lots of other creative features like:
o Find twitterers, whom you’re following but they’re not following you.
o Find twitterers, who are following you but you’re not following.
o Find friends whom you didn’t follow previously.
o Have or don’t have pictures on their profile.
o When they last tweet.
o Number of days since they last tweet
o See number of followers.
o See number of friends.
o Locked & Unlocked twitterers.
o Can set the filters like search for any term or exclude any term.
o & many others features.

Other Twitter Hacks:

1. If you’re listed on any unwanted list. Obviously you don’t want to stay there so how to remove yourself from that list. Block that user (which is the owner of the list) and then unblock him/her. You will not show up on their list anymore.
2. @myflightinfo: Use @myflightinfo to stay updated on your flight’s status.

Predictions for 2010

2010 – Who will be successful?

Weigh in with your thoughts below.

Grow Your SEO With The Testing Power Of PPC

Dear Business-Builder,

If you’re not already taking advantage of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to pull qualified traffic to your site, now’s the time! PPC is hands-down the fastest way to get targeted traffic to your site.

But did you know it’s also a lean, mean testing machine?

That’s right. This HUGE ADVANTAGE comes from the ability to quickly test, track, compare, and tweak your ads.

Use your results to decide what new keywords to optimize your site for. Figure out what types of opt-in offers get the best results. Use it to help you write top-performing copy for your website and landing pages. You can even use it to optimize the text in your meta description tags — which Google displays with your URL in the organic search results.

You can harness the power of your own pay-per-click campaign in just five simple steps:

1. Set up a Google AdWords campaign.
2. Set up your PPC conversion tracker.
3. Split-test versions of your ads.
4. Find out which ad pulls the highest click-throughs and conversions.
5. Use your top-performing campaign elements to optimize your website!

Let’s start by making sure the basic elements of your AdWords campaign are in place.

Step 1: Lay the groundwork for success
with these AdWords essentials

If you don’t have an AdWords account set up yet, go get one at http://adwords.google.com/.

The instructions are fairly straightforward. You’ll be setting up an “Ad Group” for each of your keywords. Within each Ad Group you can elect to have your ad appear when variations on your keyword are typed into the Google search engine.

And since you’re able to test different ads against each other within one Ad Group, it’s a good idea to create ad versions that include variations on your keyword.

As you go through the process of setting up Ad Groups, check to make sure you have these essentials in place:

• Use Google’s Standard AdWords Edition — NOT the Starter Edition. You want full control over all settings and advanced options that aren’t included in the starter version.
• Create one Ad Group per keyword to keep your campaigns organized. Name it after the keyword for easy reference.
• Enter three ways for AdWords to “match” your keywords to search results in the “Choose Keywords” box to make sure your ad gets the maximum number of impressions:

1. Broad match = keywordAs the name suggests, broad-matching matches your ad to a wide range of phrases built around your keyword. This includes synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases that contain any of the words in your keyword phrase, in any order.

   If you’re selling home-smoked salmon and using the keyword “smoked salmon,” broad match would appear for search terms like “salmon smoking,” and “how to smoke salmon.”

   Google AdWords automatically tracks which broad match variations produce the most clicks on your ads, and automatically excludes the broad match terms that don’t convert.

2. Phrase match = “keyword”Phrase match brings up your keyword phrase only in the order it’s typed. It may include additional keywords on either end.

   So your ad might appear for the search phrases “smoked salmon recipes,” but NOT “smoked like salmon”.

3. Exact match = [keyword]As it sounds, with exact match chosen, your keyword will only appear when it’s typed into Google Search exactly — with no additional terms included.

   With exact match, your ad will appear only when “smoked salmon” exactly is typed in.

4. Negative keywords = -[words you don't want]In the same area, but on a separate line, include “negative keywords” by typing a minus sign or hyphen before words you’d like excluded from the results.

   You would use “-smoker” to make sure your smoked salmon ad doesn’t show up in search results for salmon smokers.

   (Incidentally, making sure your ad doesn’t appear for search terms that include the word “free” is a REALLY good idea. People searching for free solutions to their problems are not your ideal customers! On the other hand, if you’re trying to get opt-ins with a free sign-up offer, people looking for free solutions are just what you want.)

• Write compelling ads that focus on the benefits of your product. Spell out (briefly!) the main way your product or service will improve the lives of your customers. A well-written ad will draw more attention and bring in more traffic than a poorly written ad with a higher ad position.Make sure your keyword appears in your ad title and somewhere in your two-line description. Google will bold the keyword wherever it appears, so the more often you include it in your ad, the more your ad stands out.

  Google will also consider your ad more relevant to the keyword (aka the searcher!), which can translate into a lower cost per click for you. Plus, your ad will appear more relevant to the person who typed in that keyword, so they’ll be more likely to click on your ad.

• Opt out of Google’s Content Network. Google’s Content Network consists of websites that display Google AdSense ads in exchange for a percentage of the cost per click paid by the advertiser. (When you sign up for Google AdWords, that advertiser is you!)Your ad appears on websites that are considered to have content that’s relevant to your keywords.

  Advertising on the Content Network is one way to get exposure beyond the search engines, but it should be tested carefully. It’s a different platform that requires different strategies.

  So if you’d like to target Google’s Content Network, create a separate campaign to do so.

• Create a minimum of 15 Ad Groups representing your top keywords to maximize the amount of traffic you pull with PPC. This also gives you a great opportunity to test the effectiveness of your top keywords.
• Set a minimum budget of $10/day, more if you can afford it. Anything below $10 and Google will think you’re not serious and won’t give you any breaks. (Did you know that the average AdWords client only lasts two weeks?)Set your budget options to the standard delivery method so your ads show evenly over time. Then set the ad serving option to “rotate” so your ads are displayed more evenly. These settings will give you the best sample audience:
  

Once you’ve created a minimum of 15 Ad Groups, set up AdWords to track your conversions.

Step 2: Monitor your campaigns with
AdWords’ conversion tracker

As I mentioned earlier, tracking your conversions means that you can make adjustments to elements of your ads for MAXIMUM results.

AdWords has a handy conversion-tracking tool that will allow you to easily test and tweak your ads:

Here’s how you set it up:

1. Log in to your AdWords account
2. Under the “Campaign Management” tab, select “Conversion Tracking”
3. Click the “Start Tracking Conversions” button
4. Put a check mark in the “Purchase/Sale” check box, and click “Continue”
5. Choose the format of your Google site stats label. (Not a big deal. Once you have enabled conversion tracking and someone clicks through to your site and buys something, your user will see this label — which allows them to give Google permission to track that conversion.)
6. Choose your report language and security report. Copy the code from the text area (starting with <!--Google Code...>) and paste it on whichever page you direct customers to when they’ve completed their purchase (usually a “thank you” page).
7. Test to make sure your conversions are being tracked by clicking on one of your own ads and navigating to your conversion page. Then check your “Campaign Summary” page in AdWords to make sure your stats are being tracked. (It can take up to 24 hours for these to show up.)
8. Return to the Conversion Tracking page and repeat the process, except:Put a check mark beside “Signup” instead of “Purchase/Sale” where prompted.
9. Copy the page conversion code to your “Thank you for signing up” HTML page.

That’s all there is to it. Using AdWords’ campaign management reports, you’ll be able to gauge the effectiveness of several different ads. Now you’re ready to create and test different versions of each of your ads.

Step 3: Split-test your ads for maximum click-throughs

Split-testing allows you to find out which versions of your ads attract the highest number of qualified visitors — that is the number of people who BUY your products once they click through an ad and land on your site. And Google AdWords makes split-testing EASY!

Just select an Ad Group, and click the “Create an ad variation” link at the bottom of the page to create another text ad. Create a minimum of two text ads per Ad Group.

Here’s an example of two ads we set up to test against each other:

1. Everything Neon Fish
   Neon fish supplies below cost.
   Visit Fish Tropics Today!
   www.fish-tropics.com
2. Find Neon Fish Supplies
   Find everything you need to build
   your own neon fish aquarium!
   www.fish-tropics.com

Use the ad you created when you set up your campaign as your “control” — the yardstick against which you’ll measure the performance of your other ads.

Then, changing one element at a time, test variations of your:

• Headlines/Ad title: Try using different words to grab attention. For example, “Buy” versus “Download.”
• Unique selling proposition (USP): You might think you know what differentiates your product from similar ones on the market, but your target audience might have their own ideas! So test your USP and find out!
• Benefits: Highlight different product benefits to find the ones that are most appealing to your market. For example, “save time” versus “save money.”
• Emotional appeal: Create an ad that connects through a fear of losing something compared to one that focuses on the gains of clicking on your ad.
• Offer/Price: Test different offers in your ads. For example, a 30-day versus a 60-day trial offer. And if price is a benefit of your product, try creating an ad with the price displayed compared to one using the word “affordable.”
• Call to action: What words most create a sense of urgency in your ad? Try using different power words like “buy,” “get your,” or “sign up”).

Test different ways of telling your target market what to do (e.g., “Sign up for free membership now” and “Save on used sports equipment”).

Google will automatically rotate your ads equally between impressions — so you can find out which ads are most attractive to your target market.

After you’ve got a few hundred impressions for each ad, take a look at your statistics and see which ads are more popular with your target audience.

As soon as you see one of your test ads consistently outperforming your control ad over the course of a few days or weeks, make this one your new control ad. (more…)

Google Buzz Arrives On The Scene

Alright all you social media Luddites time to wake up and smell reality. Communicating with your world has changed in recent years. Maybe you did not get the whole Facebook, Twitter thing. Many did but lots of folks just don’t get how it can help their business grow.

Those that have figured it out are reaping rewards from it every day. So today along comes the new kid in town from the biggest guys on the block. Google released Google Buzz to the world this afternoon after launching a streaming press conference on YouTube.

This one bears taking notice of in your world. You see there is no new site to go to, no new software to install, no new accounts to create. If you have a Gmail account, if you don’t then you should, it is already there. Nothing to install. The folks you contact regularly are already in there as your friends. It is easy right out of the box.

You can share links, photos, videos, and more.

While Google may have an uphill climb to compete with the Twitter and Facebook phenomena it is certain to get lots of attention and the ease of use is sure to make acceptance widespread. They have made it available on your smart phone too.

So watch this space as we delve into the workings of Buzz and what it can do to help you communicate with your customers and potential customers better so you can make more sales.

Oh and the name is perfect if you ask me. No more talking about Tweets. Buzz is where its at.

Tell me what you think of Buzz in the comments below.

[poll id="3"]

Online Video Ads – Real Solutions For Local Business

If you have ever considered your marketing options for your business and felt that you had no chance of doing video or TV ads you need to think again. Seriously. Web video and now online TV ads have become a very real marketing option that can drive geo targeted customers to your doors this week.

Please read this clip from a Jivox.com report on the effectiveness of online TV ads for small businesses like yours:

Reaching new customers can be challenging for most businesses. While tried-and-true methods such as newspaper advertising remain popular, a new ad medium has also taken the business world by storm.

Online video ads — short-form commercials that run on Web sites — are proving to be one of the most effective ways to advertise online, with some video ads generating twice the clicks of banner ads. In fact, advertisers report planning to allocate about 35 percent of their budget on the ads by 2012, according to Borrell Associates.

Small businesses are catching on to this trend, fueled by a host of do-it-yourself Web sites that offer inexpensive, locally targeted, online video ad programs. Companies such as Jivox (www.jivox.com) allow advertisers to get started for as little as a few hundred dollars per campaign and make developing an online commercial simple and fun.

For example, Princess Port Bed and Breakfast in Half Moon Bay, California used Jivox to create an ad with free video footage showing a couple holding hands and walking on a beach, with a link to a coupon. After Princess Port ran the video ad, bookings skyrocketed, and 85 percent of new guests redeemed the coupon.

So there are several options for you to get your business on the web in video and none of them have to break the bank and in fact are cheaper than banner ads, display ads in print publications. Plus consumers are engaged and they take action.

Sample ad we produced for a client recently:

Talk to us about setting up your online TV ads and getting results today.

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