Fun Facts About Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday

By Janette Speyer

Thanksgiving signifies a time of year where people gather with their families and reflect upon what they're thankful for. The first Thanksgiving celebration is believed to have taken place in 1621, when Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians got together and celebrated the autumn harvest. The tradition continued for many years, but it wasn't a national holiday until President Abraham Lincoln officially declared it during the Civil War.

Today, Thanksgiving has many meanings, based on various family traditions. It can be anything from watching football, to eating juicy turkey or reuniting with family members we don't see often. For some, it may even mean getting to bed early in order to get the best sales at the mall on Black Friday, or now Black Thursday!

10 Fun Thanksgiving Facts

For a little diversion, here are some facts to share around the family feast:

1. The first Thanksgiving lasted three days

2. Lobster, rabbit, chicken, fish, squashes, beans, chestnuts, hickory nuts, onions, leeks, dried fruits, maple syrup and honey, radishes, cabbage, carrots, eggs, and goat cheese are thought to have made up the first Thanksgiving feast.

3. The pilgrims didn't use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers.

4. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird

5. Turkey has more protein than beef or chicken

6. Only male turkeys gobble while hens make a clucking sound

7. Fully grown turkeys have 3,500 feathers

8. Commercially raised turkeys cannot fly

9. Turkeys have heart attacks

10.The heaviest turkey was 86 pounds

Black (and Blue) Friday

The marketing frenzy surrounding this phenomenon has taken off in recent years. Before the beginning of the Black Friday tradition, most people spent the day after Thanksgiving with family or recuperating from too much food. It's been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005, when the term "Black Friday" was officially coined. Some claim it is because the sky is black when shopping begins; Others refer to the hoards of shoppers as a reference to the Stock Market Crash in 1929 called "Black Friday." I prefer to say it is what helps start putting retailers in the black. Since most non-retail employees are given this Friday off from work, it makes sense that it would be the busiest shopping day of the year.

This year, the shopping frenzy at many department stores will begin at midnight, the night of Thanksgiving. As more companies started to catch onto this, competition took off and retailers started getting more competitive with their hours. Some stores are offering sales starting on Thanksgiving evening at 10:00 PM and extending until 2:00 AM the next morning. While the shopping frenzy used to continue casually throughout the weekend, most retailers have cut it down to just one day, thus creating a sense of urgency and more shoppers.

The Biggest Online Shopping Event of the Year!

Cyber Monday also made its official debut in 2005 when marketers decided to transform the Monday following Thanksgiving into the biggest online shopping event of the year. According to comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, consumers spent over $1 billion shopping online on Cyber Monday in 2010. With holiday shopping still fresh on consumers' minds when they return to work on Monday, it slowly caught on as a new niche that companies could capitalize on if they made it an official shopping day full of sales. Since its introduction, the term "Cyber Monday" has even been used internationally to mark the official start of the holiday shopping season. It also does have its perks, most notably the fact that you don't have to go without sleep in order to get good deals on merchandise.

Getting Back to Your Roots

Whatever your tradition, Thanksgiving makes us all think about what's important to us. If you're not particularly excited by the idea of spending lots of time, energy and money on gifts right after Thanksgiving, you're not alone. While some may flock to stores to get the best deal on a new flat screen TV, it somehow takes away from what the root of Thanksgiving is meant to be about. It's a time for reflection, and a time for being reminded of all the gifts life has already given you. If you are planning to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, make sure you check company's Twitter and Facebook pages for the most up-to-date insider scoops!

The Web Success Team wishes everyone a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving. We hope you are able to be with your families to share the start of this wonderful holiday season.

Here's one of our favorite stuffing recipes (simple, and yummy!):

Chestnut Stuffing:

3 cans of chestnuts

1 onion

Garlic

Salt and pepper

Put it in the food processor then stuff it in the turkey. If you have a 16 lb. turkey, make sure you cook it for at least 9 hours to ensure it is cooked throughout. Enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving!

Reach More Customers with the Power of Online Marketing

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Your website can become an effective marketing hub for your business. To learn more about the power of Direct Response Web Marketing, log on to http://www.websuccessteam.com/whydirectresponse.htm.

Contact the Team today for a complimentary consultation to your web success!

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How Bank Check Scanners Are Valuable To Financial Institutions

By Joshua T Messenger

Check imaging offers a wide range of document imaging systems for financial institutions, designed to simplify teller processing. Sold by software providers, discovering which features of bank check scanners prove to be valuable will assist you with making the correct choice for your corporation or branch.

Reliable

Teller automation is a vital function in our everyday world, providing confidential transactions that are cost-effective for banks, and convenient for customers. Since nearly every adult in our country relies on a financial institution for cashing services, bank check scanners need to be extremely reliable, with precise accuracy during processing. Reputable companies will be honest about their warranty return rates, giving you an inside peek at how often a scanner lets businesses down, or holds up its end of the bargain successfully, every time. Scanning malfunctions lead to errors, a teller that cannot service the public and a greater employee turnover rate. When customers cannot rely on a financial institution to process their checks the moment they need them cashed or deposited, they become irritated and often seek other options.

Adaptive Thresholding

Adaptive thresholding is a feature that allows tellers to capture images in multiple settings to provide the highest quality bitonal image available. The scanner uses advanced technology to automatically select the image with the most clarity, allowing tellers to focus on time-sensitive customer service issues rather than worrying about errors caused by blurry pictures. Four different magnetic algorithms are used to scan and verify documents for proper record keeping. The device compares both the magnetic and optical readings to reach the best decision for financial imagery, all on its own. This process is called OCR MICR verification-correction, and is considered a valuable asset to organizations seeking a simple program to reduce human and outdated system error.

Convenient

The programmers of bank check scanners often forget that a major financial institution deals with an extremely high volume of customers, at an even higher pace. A system that is too complicated for tellers to learn and use not only cuts into a bank's daily routine, it defeats the very purpose of the automatic scanner. Documents should not require several repeated attempts just to feed them into the device. This is a waste of time, and an extremely frustrating situation for both the teller and the customer who is waiting patiently on the other side of the counter. The majority of tellers prefer feeding documents from the right side of the scan, rather than the left. This preference is just what comes naturally to most people, and as subtle as it sounds, switching sides will enhance the teller's speed with each customer. The ability to drop anywhere from one to a large quantity of checks into the machine single handedly, without any obstacles in the way, saves financial institutions an incredible amount of employee time and money.

Financial institutions using bank check scanners are encouraged to learn how each feature of their device affects performance rates so they may select the check imaging software providers that are best for their teller needs.

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Bank Check Capture Devices: Solutions for Tellers

By Joshua T Messenger

The role and value of image capture for banks is without question. Document scanners are used to improve financial accuracy and customer service throughout every banking location. Unfortunately, many banks that use a check capture system designed for easy and fast teller operations produce the opposite. Understanding the common problems associated with scanners from a teller's point of view will provide the perspective you need to purchase solutions for your company, rather than complications.

Teller Problem: Scanning Documents Excessively Due To Common Exceptions

Repeatedly scanning checks that register as errors or exceptions is a typical frustration for tellers, and an even bigger annoyance to customers that are patiently waiting to process their transactions. The most effective way to turn a complicated bank check capture into a smooth transition is by using equipment featuring adaptive thresholding. Devices that are designed with adaptive thresholding functions act as a multiple settings reader each time documents are scanned, intelligently selecting the highest quality bitonal images before they are displayed. This eliminates the need for tellers to keep feeding the machine countless times to produce a read that is satisfactory for banking purposes and customer records.

Teller Problem: Manually Inputting or Correcting Information That Fails To Read

If the objective of a financial institution is to improve document accuracy and customer relations simultaneously, a machine that requires a teller to manually enter information completely misses the mark. When dealing with confidential, valuable, and precise figures, the risk of financial loss from simple human error is astronomical. Besides accuracy issues, manual input requires a teller to spend unnecessary time with each customer, stalling the line. No one likes to wait in a long line at their local banking branch. The excessive amount of time spent by each customer waiting will produce devastating consequences as they close accounts to switch to a faster serving competitor.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) verification and correction is the best way to avoid manual input hassles. These technologically advanced scanners feature four unique magnetic algorithms to verify each document. By comparing both the magnetic and optical readings, this type of bank check capture software proves to be the most reliable way to deliver accurate images to tellers, every time.

Teller Problem: Not Knowing How to Correct a Malfunctioning Scanner

There is a difference between selecting a device that will successfully update your operations, and choosing products that are next to impossible for tellers to operate on their own. High tech does not mean you should have to call a specialist every time common malfunctions occur. When tellers are unable to fix simple problems, they are also unable to serve customers. Scanners automatically equipped with diagnostic and self adjusting features will correct errors before they interrupt customer services within your branch. Self adjusting feed rollers are also available to compensate for the expected wear and tear over time, ultimately increasing the amount of time tellers are doing their jobs, rather than pushing buttons to coax their equipment to work.

Common complaints from tellers using bank check capture equipment is explained to give buyers valuable tools for purchasing image capture for banks throughout their organization.

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How Bank Check Capture Systems Benefit Teller to Customer Relations

By Joshua T Messenger

As with any business, customer service is a key factor for determining success or failure. It is absolutely common for consumers to avoid doing business with companies that offer poor customer care, regardless of how amazing the product or services they offer may be. In other words, a sign-on bonus, promotional gift, reward point system, or low interest rate at a branch is much less appealing for customers that have had a bad experience at the location. It is important to understand where customers are coming from, what they demand from a financial institution, and what experiences encourage them to take their business elsewhere.

Manufacturers of high quality check scanning banks not only develop products with the teller in mind, they place extra emphasis on the end result that will be delivered to the customer. Businesses need customers to survive and earn a profit, which makes their loyalty a number one priority of any successful branch. Discovering how a bank will use a check capture system to significantly improve customer relations is a wise decision for any organization that is aspiring to be the best, or even major financial institutions that plan to stay number one.

The Waiting Game

Banks are not exactly the place customers want to spend their leisure time. Drive-thru banking lanes were built decades ago for tellers to assist customers on the go, offering standard services comparable to walking through the doors. We live in a society that feeds off of instant gratification and convenience. We are also a nation known for its fast-paced lifestyle and incredibly hardworking ethics. This means your customers will have plenty of reasons to be frustrated when they are stuck in a long line, simply waiting to deposit their checks. If they do not literally walk out of the branch to avoid missing their next obligation, by the time an irritated customer approaches the teller, he or she might be difficult to please, to say the least.

Your customers deserve to have checking, savings, and business accounts with financial corporations that do everything in their power to thank them for their loyalty. In addition, the tellers you employ are the people that are dealing with disgruntled customers on a daily basis. Failing to smooth operations and convenience customers results in a higher employee turnover rate for each branch.

They Say Jump, You Say How High

Bank check capture systems designed by reputable suppliers meet and exceed the extraordinary demands of every customer's personality, no matter how impatient they may be. By speeding up the process of scanning checks, the volume of customers each teller will be capable of assisting rises dramatically. Faster operations lead to smaller lines, shorter waiting times for customers, and an overall boost in productivity for banks. Technologically advanced features of bank check capture software comes standard, for organizations to optimize the accuracy rate of document scanning and internal database resources. Products that have a positive track record of reliability, throughput, diagnostic correction, and feeding capability are essential devices for any business seeking to improve or maintain customer relations.

The purpose of check scanning banks is described to inform buyers of the significant advantages bank check capture devices have to offer relating to customer service.

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Internet Business Blog Is A Fresh Tool To Handle Internet Marketing SEO

By Juhani Tontti

For instance WordPress blog is easy to start and easy to use. However, it is more useful to run it under your own domain, because only then the link juice comes for the benefit of your internet business. Otherwise your internet business blog builds links to WordPress only.

1. An Effective Internet Business Blog, Like WordPress Has Several SEO Plugins.

The plugins like All In One Seo, Broken Link Checker, SEO Smart Links, Yet Another Related Post Plugin and Urban Giraffe Redirection are all useful, but the blogger has to pick the ones, which fit to him best.

2. WordPress Internet Business Blog Is Well Equipped.

WordPress does not do everything for you to guarantee, that the posts rank well in the search engines. The first thing you have to do is the keyword research, which happens in the same way as for the website page. On the other hand WordPress offers header optimization, title tags plus internal and cross linking. And the post requires some inbound links to be able to rank well.

3. The Post Content Is The King.

You must never write to the search engines, because they do not buy anything. They do not build the brand, because only the human beings can do that. Same with the trust. After the keyword is chosen, you should put it into the title and into the body of the text.

But to rank well with the chosen keyword, the post requires some links. The link building system should follow the latest Google Panda update. A post should be linked from the variety of sites, like article directories, social sites, social bookmarking sites, web2.0 sites, forums, newsrooms and from the single high page rank sites.

4. A Blog Post Must Be Well Prepared.

There is no niche, which would like an amateur level content or the thin content, which actually is useless. Many internet business marketers want to write and distribute more instead of focusing on the quality. But one thing is sure. The quality beats the low quality quantity. Always.

It takes time to find the needed information for the chosen theme and it takes time before an author learns, who is the authority in the niche. Only the high authority authors are worth reading. A good news is, that every niche has the leading experts.

5. The Amount Of The Comments Tells A Lot.

The very nature of the internet business blog is, that the content is from one human being to other human beings. The blog is very personal in nature and if there is no comments, it is really a problem. Something is missing. A typical reason is, that the content is so low quality or tries to sell something, that it does not arouse any emotions and reasons for comments.

Juhani Tontti, B.Sc., Marketing. The Latest Google Algorithm Update Favours The Internet Business Blog, Because The Blog Shares A Fresh Content, Which Is Important For The Internet Marketing SEO.

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How to Start a Blog - Free Simple WordPress Themes

By R Conte

How to Start a Blog

Free Simple WordPress Themes - Blogging Tips and Tricks

WordPress is a blogging tool that can be used by many, if not most, small businesses or individuals to reach their target viewers. It is a blogging platform which gives you the ability to create your own theme, or just use one of the countless free simple WordPress themes offered.

How to Start a Blog Using WordPress

Upon signing up for WordPress, you are immediately able to log into what is called the dashboard. The dashboard is the central location of your blog; the place from which different blog posts, blog pages, links to and from the blog, and design options can be accessed. The design will be found under the section entitled "Appearance" on the dashboard. From here, personal touches can be added to the blog. To start, the first thing that needs to be done is to choose a theme. A theme is what people see when they visit a blog, essentially the design of the blog. It also defines the control you have over the blog in regards to the look and feel.

How to Start a Blog - and Use it as a Website

Using WordPress has many benefits. First and foremost, it's free. Second, it's easy to use. Third, it is very flexible. While WordPress was originally created for blogs, many users employ it to create websites - even static ones. Instead of posts, simply create pages with any information or pictures that need to be displayed.

How to Start a Blog - and Functionality

Another reason for the popularity of WordPress is that it is continually being evolved and updated. Being an open source software, users contribute fixes, updates, themes, and plugins continuously. You don't have to worry about it ever being outdated. Finally, there is plenty of support provided if you run into trouble. Since WordPress is run and maintained by volunteers from around the globe, there is plenty of help available around the clock.

One of the many free simple WordPress themes is known as Litelog. It works like Chrome, Opera, or Safari and is easy to customize. Another free template is called, "Unread." This template is ready for widgets and advertisements. It even has a featured image that rotates on the home page. WordPress also has many premium themes, but they have to be paid for. The only difference between the paid and unpaid themes is that the paid themes have more features, like being ready for page-navigation, optimized for advertisements, and they are more SEO friendly.

For starters in the field, there is a tremendous variety of free simple WordPress themes from which you can choose. Most of them are very good, and many small businesses and individuals may find that they do not need anything more.

R Conte is the owner and principal author at SEO Writer Pro, a brand new website offering high quality, Affordable SEO Article Writing and fresh, well-written Blog Content from a dedicated, professional SEO writer. Click here to discover how you can save money buying relevant, timely, high quality content with our Special Introductory Article Writing Offer.

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Free Traffic Generation Resources You Haven't Seen That Won't Cost You a Dime

By Ellie Gant

This is a comprehensive guide to free lead generation and free traffic generation for your business online. Real quick before I explain some of the best free lead and traffic generation strategies, I want to explain a little about what is internet marketing, lead generation, and traffic generation.

Internet Marketing - is generating sales and/or capture leads from prospects that are searching the Internet. This can be big bucks for your business if you generate effective lead and traffic generation.

Traffic Generation - is creating the most exposure to your website from online marketing efforts. I will go into these effective strategies in a moment.

Lead Generation - is once the 'visitor' is viewing your website, you then want to capture them as a 'lead.' Generating them as a lead is where the big bucks come in. You don't want them to just visit your website, you want them to leave their contact information (usually email) so that you can have them as a lead. To capture them as a lead is the most profitable science in internet marketing. To create profitable lead generation please you can read further and visit my website.

Outsourcing Vs. Your Time - You can do this on your own or outsource. Why to outsource? Lead and traffic generation is very time consuming and if you want to spend time on your business then its best to leverage your time to a professional.

Another reason to outsource is because the free avenues are only as effective as your time spent. Meaning if you are not constantly marketing these channels then your lead and traffic generation is only congruent to consistency.

How important is professional traffic generation? Even if you conduct these strategies free, you still may commit some mistakes and thus not creating an effective marketing. You will eventually correct those mistakes, however that is usually after quite some time and often a lot of money.

Now onto the best free resources. Before you concentrate on developing leads that convert into sales, start with traffic generation. Here are places you can go to get this for free.

eBook - create free eBook that reports free advice and strategies about your services. Create enough free value that people can apply what your eBook contains. Once you create this there are hundreds of ways to market this. Start with uploading to "Smashwords." As long as your eBook is written correctly, you will defiantly find the best ways to get this free eBook in front of so many people that will in turn create free traffic.

Video tutorials - If you give away some free tips and strategies on what your paid services usually don't offer for free, I can guarantee that not only is your video going to get a lot of views but you can free traffic generation. When you put your website in the description section of the video site people will definitely scope it out. This works very well even if the video is recorded from a basic camera, but it's all in value you provide.

Forum posts - As long as you are posting relevant and valuable content in forums, then you will for sure get targeted traffic to your website.

Private Label content - do a search on private label rights and private label content and you will already have some ideas brewing that will help you get free traffic.

LinkedIn - This is great for small to mid-sized businesses that find it difficult to find the time set-up, run and manage a full-blown campaign with social media. Use LinkedIn Answers, which is a useful and under-utilized tools on LinkedIn. It's a section where people who want to ask questions about business go to get advice. Guess who's giving the advice? Use LinkedIn applications, where you can add your blog posts to your LinkedIn page, it's easy. Use LinkedIn Groups where you join groups, discuss, share, answer questions and provide your link in almost every post. You can LinkedIn Direct Ads, where this is not free but worth mentioning because the advertising program that can be used to drive new leads and traffic generation to your website. And finally create a LinkedIn Schedule where you follow all of this on a certain day of the week, every week and it will work as a great tool and resource for free traffic generation.

Content - create a blog where you write articles and upload videos on your services, industry news etc. If you write something new more than once a week, this content will get picked up in search engines. Content is king and will win over any advertising form online. If you get a blog, upload and activate these free plugins to WordPress: WP Super Cache, SEO Ultimate, All In One SEO, Indexing Tool, XML Sitemap, Pop Up Domination, Facebook Like, Facebook Platform, DandyID Services. Once you have optimized your blog, just create content and this will drive serious traffic to your website and business.

Resource directories - look up the best online resource directory for your industry and post a piece on your business and website. Just type in "(your industry) Resource directories" and you will find a few directories that you can post on for free.

ClickBank - Just type in ClickBank in a search engine and it will over how to buy, sell or promote digital products that can in turn can create traffic generation to your website.

Get a free consultation for your business today where I will cover how to create the most profitable lead and traffic generation your business. It's free here JayCrewMarketing.com.

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Website Development and SEO

By Virginia Silvestro

Many business owners wonder if using Search Engine Optimization is worth it. The answer is a resounding YES! SEO is to be the hot term of the year. Everyone talks about how great it is for building your presence on search engines. Is it easy to do? The answer is yes, but it may take some time and persistence to get it done.

Business owners wonder... do I need to buy SEO software... should I hire an SEO company? The answer to these questions are no, and maybe. There are many SEO tools available that are free to use. A simple search for SEO keyword tools will return many results. On to the question of the SEO company, should you hire one? You should hire one if you do not have to time to keep up with SEO tactics. Search engine optimization does require constant monitoring to stay on top of search engine results.

Here are some ways to increase your SEO rankings on search engines...

Keyword Research

Use a free keyword tool to find the keywords you should be using in your site to draw customers. You need to choose your keywords wisely. Why compete with 100,000 sites when you can compete with 1,000. (This is where your keyword tools come in). Start small and build your way up. It is best to focus on about 2-3 keywords per page. It will also work to your benefit if you repeat your keyword at least 3 times on the page.

Website Content - Keep it original and site specific

Your content should reflect what your site is about. Keep your content informative and useful to encourage return visitors. Intertwine your keywords in your content. Make sure to update your site at least once every 3 months to keep your content fresh. This allows for two benefits: repeat customers and you will not be overlooked by search engine robots.

Optimize Your Site

Make sure your Title tag includes the keywords you chose.

Make sure your META description describes your site. You don't want to leave this blank.

Have an HTML sitemap

Use H1-H6 tags for your keywords

Place ALT tags on images

Added bonus ***name your page with a keyword. For example, if your site is selling Children's Clothing, the page with Boys Shirts should be named:

www. mystore. com/Boys_Shirts.html NOT http: // www. mystore. com/Shirts.html

The more specific your name, the better the optimization.

Blogging

Blogs add fresh content constantly. You can incorporate keywords into your content to draw more search results. One of the easiest ways to add it is through WordPress. Followers will increase your ranking. Another bonus... your business becomes more credible.

Backlinks

This may be give the biggest SEO results. Look for sites with high PageRank that allow you to leave your website link. The more you have, the better off you are.

These are some of the key SEO tips and SEO strategies that one can use to boost your web presence. It takes time, patience and precise calculations to get to the top.

Gin Silvestro is the Web Design expert at GetVizible, a SEO services company.

GetVizible is a New York based internet advertising firm specializing in pay-per-click management and SEO. They also provide professional website design for small businesses, organizations and startups.

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How to Get Website Traffic Using Articles

By Pat Turman

There are numerous ways to get website traffic and I am going to talk about one of the easiest ways to do it. What I'm talking about is writing articles to generate traffic to your website.

Writing articles with good content around a product or service you are offering and then submitting these articles to article directories is a great way to generate website traffic. However there are three key points you may want to remember.

1. Do good keyword research first. A key component is writing an article around a keyword or keyword phrase that you are using to target your web audience. Say for instance you are selling floormats for a Toyota FJ Cruiser SUV. You need to research via the internet various keywords or keyword phrases that one may use in the search engines to find floormats for this vehicle.

Once you find relevant words and phrases, determine how many searches are being done using those words and phrases, then check out your competition. If you determine those keywords are what you will target then you move on to number two.

2. Write quality informative content around the keywords and phrases in relationship to your product. Again using the example above. You can formulate articles around floormats for different year FJ Cruisers, cargo area mats, rubber mats, carpeted mats, and different color mats. There are many options. A rule of thumb is to write articles that are at least 400 words or more. This gives relevance to your content. As we say content is "King".

Make sure you write the articles with information that you believe, from your research, your targeted audience is looking for. Make sure you add the keywords and phrases throughout your article so the search engines can find your information.

But don't stuff you articles with keywords because they will be rejected by the article directories and deemed clunky or unreadable. Try to stay within 1 percent to no more than 2 percent keyword density within your article. Therefore with a 400 word count article you should have no more than 4 keywords.

3. Once you have your articles written then you can start submitting them to different article directories. You will need to set up an account with the directories first. Some article directories are free and some may cost a small fee. I recommend starting off with the free directories to drive website traffic to your site and see how it goes.

Make sure you read the terms and conditions of the directories to know where you can put your links to your affiliate products or your website. By placing links in your article you can direct the viewer back to your website where you provide additional information, offer the visitor a product, or explain your service to them.

Article marketing is a great way to start building links to your website which is a plus in the search engines. As more people find your information, find your information relevant to what they are searching for, and then click through to your website you begin to see an increase in website traffic.

Hopefully you have learned a little more about using articles to increase your website traffic. If you would like more information and find the top 25 article directories to submit your articles to check out my website at Niche Business 101.

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How to Increase Blog Traffic Without Going Broke

By Gerald Weber

Traffic generation is the topic of thousands of e-books and online courses, and nearly every blog around the world is trying to find the best way to increase blog traffic. The problem is that many of the best traffic generation methods cost a good deal of money, such as Pay per click or pay per impression ads. However, there are a number of solutions that will help you increase web traffic without going broke, solutions that you can implement even when on a tight budget:

Try using Craigslist to help you market your products in your city and your state. It will take a bit of time to post ads on all of the cities near you, but you can take advantage of the free classified ads website to increase public awareness of your blog or your website by posting on the website. It may not generate as much traffic as you might like, but you can certainly increase blog traffic significantly if your ads are interesting and relevant.

Facebook and Twitter are two of the best ways to generate more traffic for your blog or website. These two social media sites are free to use, and you can expand your network every day by adding and making new friends. You can then post a link to your blog every once in a while, or simply add your blog URL to your profile page to interest people in visiting your blog.

YouTube is a great traffic generation method that won't cost you anything more than time. All you need to do is make videos that will be interesting to people surfing YouTube, and add a link to your blog both in the video and in the comments. Once people see the video and are interested, they will see your blog link at the end and will click on it to visit your website.

Use Squidoo to create a free lense that will attract web traffic according to its relevance with the keywords being searched. Seeing as Squidoo is one of the highest ranked sites on Google search engines, you will likely be able to generate a good deal of traffic to your lense by making the content interesting. Once you have provided value in the body of the content, a link to your blog at the bottom of the page will help people to find out more about what you offer.

Use article marketing to help you generate interest in your blog via article directories and guest blogging. If you are a good writer, you will find that writing up content related to your website will be incredibly easy and a great way to attract interest. Submitting the content to guest blogs and article directories will be a great way to increase blog traffic, as these sites will receive much more traffic that you can funnel to your site via your quality content with a link posted at the bottom.

Gerald Weber is an entrepreneur and founder of Search Engine Marketing group in Houston Texas. His firm focuses on traffic generation and tips on how to increase blog traffic.

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4 Big Mistakes You Must Avoid to Build Your Successful Information Business Online

By Joe Koh

If it is your first time starting an information business there are some mistakes that you want to avoid. These are so detrimental you don't want to learn about them through trial and error as this will be a waste of time.

If you make these mistakes they will cause you the loss of money and valuable time not to mention energy. Here are the things you need to avoid if you are building an information business for the first time.

1. Ensure you are not using a mediocre website. When people visit your website, if it doesn't look like a high quality website they will think that you are just a scammer looking to take their hard earned money and not provide what it is you are promising.

Not only your design should be professional but you should also have quality content on the website so that people can find all the information they need right there without having to send an email or make a phone call.

2. You must use content-based marketing solutions as this is the best way to promote your business. This provides you with the opportunity to give your clients an idea of what they can expect from you. Do this by writing and distributing articles to the various article directories online.

You should also have a blog that should be well maintained. If it sounds like a lot of work it is because it actually is a lot of work but if you can afford it you can outsource the task of writing and do the posting yourself. Here you will see that initial investments will pay off if you partake in content marketing.

3. The next thing you should ensure you do is to stay in touch with any of your prospective clients Getting people to your website is not the only thing you need to work towards, you also need to find prospective consumers and keep up the communication with them so that if they need the services you offer in the future they can come right to you and not to your competitors.

4. Being aggressive can be a good thing when it comes to business promotion but at the same time it needs to be balanced as you don't want to be too aggressive. So you don't want to just leave promotion to only content marketing but you should also use other marketing methods as well so that you get your word out the most places so that you can reach potential customers everywhere.

Click the link and discover the SECRETS on how to build a successful information business online:
=> information business online

Ask Joe Koh your internet marketing questions anytime at:
=> http://askjoekoh.com/askInternetMarketing

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Basic Internet Marketing Techniques That Work

By Michael R. Force

In order to have a successful business on the Internet, you need to market it the right way. Many people think that this involves a lot of links posted all over the Internet like a bad case of the chicken pox and just as much money. But none of this is true. Basic Internet marketing techniques are all it really takes to successfully gain customers for your business.

Many people think that in order to gain a lot of customers, they have to get a lot of people by spending a lot of money. Actually, there is not a really relation between these three concepts at all. Gaining a lot of customers is not proportional to a lot of people, and you can save a lot of money by using more basic, but effective Internet marketing techniques.

Each company requires a slightly different approach to marketing, but the idea is always the same. You actually aim for quality over quantity in marketing for your business. And you consider only the potential customer base for your marketing and market to them. Although this very basic set of Internet marketing techniques doesn't seem like something that really will work, it in fact works better than you would expect.

When you market to everyone, you essentially waste your money. No matter if you try to sell to someone out of your potential customer base or not and try to get them to visit your website, it won't make a difference in the end. You won't gain sales from these people because they are just not interested in your product or service.

The people that will buy your product or service are in your customer base nearly all the time. This means that they only people you really have to try to sell to are in your customer base. This portion of the basic Internet marketing techniques is really a money-saver to you.

When you market to your potential customer base, you don't have to pus at much out there for people to see because you are marketing to a much smaller group of people. This gives you the opportunity to focus on a smaller group of potential customers. And when you do this, you have more time to provide them with much higher quality marketing work.

This higher quality form of Internet marketing techniques is a necessity in order to have successful marketing. You need to provide information that is valuable to people that are already interested in your product, which means more details on why your product works the way it does and why they will want to purchase it. This is a form of marketing that will sway someone already interested in your product or service to purchase it.

When you have an online business, not all marketing is successful. Basic Internet marketing techniques are much more effective and also much more affordable than just trying to get as much traffic to your site again. This also helps you not have to work near as hard on marketing.

Michael Force is an Internet Marketing expert who has averaged over 7-figures a year online for the last 10 years and has trained tens of thousands on how to create profitable online businesses. Learn more about how Michael can help you too at www.MichaelForce.com

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I Want to Build a WordPress Blog

By Bruce Stewart

WordPress is the very best platform to create your site on. Google loves WordPress because of its content management system. It is easy to add fresh updated content to it every day. If you keep consistent with your content posting the Google bot will visit your site every time you have placed content on it. Google's job is to find valuable content to feed its massive content driven search engine. Why Google is so huge is because it is the rest of us who give it information so it may pass this information on to the millions of people who search the web every day.

Once you have decided that you yourself wish to create a blog then there are step by step resource online available for you to accomplish this procedure. You can be struggling in the beginning to come up with what it is that you want your blog to be about and do for you. The first thing that comes to mind for most people is that they wish to make money with their blog. Now this is well and good but the odds of you making money from this blog in the near future is slim to none, sorry to be the bearer of a disappointing message here.

The mindset to approach your blog building venture is with the mind-set of offering unbelievable value to people about your chosen topic. By doing it this way you will notice after a matter of time that you will have acquired a following of readers who come back to your blog on a regular basis. Because you post articles etc consistently on your site you will attract these follows like bees to a honey pot. Take note big tip here "Being Consistent is the Key." People in general don't care about how much you know they just want to know, that you care.

Tip One:

Find a market that is a small market in a larger market. We call this start out with a micro niche market. Use the Google keyword tool to do this and look for monthly exact match keyword phrases that have a search volume of 100 to 1500 per month and competition bar is around medium. Choose 6-8 of these and save them to your note pad. Remember this is your first site so you are not going to get right straight out of the gate.

Tip Two:

Use one of these keywords and create a domain name about 3 or 4 letters long. The extension can be a .com, .net, .org, .info doesn't matter. If you just want your blog to be in your own country then use your countries extension. It is best that you register this domain name for a minimum of 2 years that way Google thinks that you are committed to that site. This is another key tip.

Tip Three:

Next is you have to create a hosting account for your site. Now days there are loads to choose from and that is just a matter of making a decision. I use HostGator and Blue Host and they both have great 24/7 support to fix any issues. Tip here is to pay for a year's hosting up front not month by month. Don't over analyse at this stage as it is not worth it. Hosting companies are reliable these days.

Tip Four:

Now you have domain name and hosting it is time to liven up your blog. Starting out you will need a theme and at this stage just use the WordPress default theme as this will get you going. Tip here is it not the look of the theme that brings in a following it is the message that you deliver on a consistent basis that counts.

Tip Five:

Now it is time to tweak a few of the settings in your WordPress platform and add some plugins. This info can be found by searching in your favourite search engine or from my site. The tip here is to make sure in the privacy settings that you check the radio button that blocks the search engines from visiting your site because your site is not search engine friendly at this early stage. This is a massive tip here for the overall success of your site.

Tip Six:

Use six of the keywords that you had found and set up six pages using them as page titles. Create about five categories with names that relate closely with those keywords. Tip here is that the page titles and the categories have to match like relate closely not too far off beam.

Tip Seven:

Now it is time to create content on a regular basis. These are called posts and they will match one of the categories and also reference one of your pages topics as well. The tip here is post on a consistent basis. Find out what other sites in your market are talking about and create your own material based on your own opinions good or bad of the said topics. Tip here is you have to become a reporter and report about your own views on any subject matter. This can be daunting when first starting out but will become easier over time.

This is just the raw basics of setting up your own blog/website and once you get started it can become addictive. You can participate whether it is on a part time or fulltime basis. Remember do not go into this thinking you are going to make money from it. Now if that happens after awhile when your skill set gets better, then well and good that is the bonus part.

Find the latest information and download the massive FREE Mind Map of Affiliate Marketing Resources " Website Building " by clicking HERE today or visit my site here: Free Affiliate Marketing Training.

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Does Your Website Have An Offer?

By K Dear

Every online marketing strategy should contain some kind of irresistible offer and your website is one of the places that offer needs to be prominently displayed. If you want your website to do more for your business than just be a brochure, adding an offer is one of the components that will be a big step in making your website really work for your business. In addition to telling visitors about your company, products, and services your website should be bringing you leads.

Having a website costs money. You've paid for the design, the domain name, and monthly hosting. If you've designed the site yourself you didn't pay a website designer but you may have spent time and money to learn how to do it. You may have purchased software, templates, images, or content. When you consider the time and money you spend on your website, it's definitely an investment that you should expect to get a return on. That return can best be measured in leads or new customers.

Having an offer on your website is one of the best ways to bring in leads and new customers. Offering an incentive to get people to come in to your business or get on your mailing list has proven to be very effective both online and off line. For this to be effective, however, the offer must be something that has a perceived value to your market. People won't waste their time to get a special deal if it's not worth the effort.

So what are some things you can offer? This is a list that you can start with and hopefully use it to help you brainstorm into new and creative ideas for your offer:

• Coupons - make sure the discount amount is worth it (10% off on a $5 product probably won't do the trick!)
• Something for free - free drink with dinner, buy one get one free, free consultation
• Information packet - white paper or ebook that has some relationship to your product or service such as a book of tips, how to do something, etc.
• "Club" benefits - newsletter, something free every month, 10% discount on purchases each month, etc.

Choose an option that makes sense for your industry and your business. Be sure that your online marketing strategy document has the details to your offer so that you'll always include that in your marketing efforts. Try to come up with an idea that is unique and fresh. You'll stand out from your competition if you do something different that nobody else is doing. If you decide to give information away, make sure that it's really good information that will be super helpful.

If you're stuck and aren't sure of the best way to go here, take a look at your competitors websites. See what they're offering and figure out a way to improve on their idea and make it completely your own. Don't focus on just your competitors - look at similar industries across the country. What are companies like yours doing in other cities? What are they offering that you don't? Steal their ideas and change it up to fit you.

When you decide what to offer, you'll need to make sure your website visitors know the details and exactly how to claim it. Put the offer in a very prominent spot on your website. If you want them to sign up for your mailing list (and you should want them to do this!!) make sure every page has a sign up form. Let them know what they'll be getting for doing this.

If you're offering a coupon, tell them how to claim it. Make sure the coupon "rules" are clearly defined so there isn't any confusion about how to redeem it. If a customer is confused, they will simply not act. They usually won't ask questions, they just won't do anything. So make sure they know exactly what they need to do to get the discount or claim their free gift.

Kelly Dear works with small businesses to develop and implement individual online marketing strategies. Making sure each of the businesses she represents is found online by potential customers is key. If you are a small business owner who wants an honest and creative approach to online marketing, call Kelly to help develop the right plan for you.

http://www.KDMarketingSolutions.com
770-847-0147

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Reasons to Focus on Local Internet Marketing

By Quentin Williams

Focusing on local internet marketing when optimizing your website for search is very important. You must ensure that the keywords that are used are getting to the targeted traffic that you desire. The techniques that are listed below should be implemented into your marketing and SEO plan to ensure that the potential customers that are visiting your site are actually in need of the services or products that you offer.

Before you begin, you need to select the locations that you hope to attract. By focusing on the area that is specific to your business, you are going to save time and money by not advertising in an area that has no need for your particular service or product.

When you are submitting your keywords, you should be sure to include multiple location keywords. These keywords should include country, state, city and neighborhood. It will bring more targeted traffic to your site that is specific to your area.

When writing your titles and URLs, include your geographic region. It is going to make it easier for search spiders to pick up those keywords and provide your site as a result.

Put the Yellow Pages and other local online directories to good use. Many people will go straight to those sites when trying to find a service that they are in need of.

When writing your header or footer, add your address to it. It will not only provide you more traffic, it will make it easier for your potential customers to know exactly where you are located.

Get some local links for your site. If you can find a way to get links to your site through other sites that are in your area, you will increase your traffic. You could in return post the links to the sites that were generous enough to post your link on it.

You definitely need to get listed on different major local sites. This could include local Yahoo, Google Maps or any others that are going to provide the consumer with information leading to your site.

Using the preceding strategies will work for any brick and mortar company as well as those who are online based. Finding your targeted audience and implementing the keywords that will apply to them, as well as the location, is going to help draw the traffic to your site. You will draw in a larger percentage of viewers, up traffic and increase your profits by focusing on smaller search engine targets.

Find out more about local internet marketing at my blog. Learn how set up and run a successful local marketing campaign with Quentins recommended local marketing strategy.

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Use Auto Responders - 5 Key Reasons For You To Use Auto Responders

By Charles Kiyimba

Do you use auto responders as a marketer, a software developer, an organization, a religious group, a publisher, a home business owner, a web designer, a trainer, a government department, a provider of any service? Do you automate your email marketing campaigns to improve your communication system in your business or organization? One of the first lessons I learnt when I started my online business was to automate my email marketing and communication. I would like therefore to make it clear that success of any business or organization depends largely on having a good communication system. That's one of the major reasons as to why you should use auto responders.

I started using auto responders when I designed my first website and I discovered it to be a marketing tool I can never do without. Not only is it important in promoting my business, it's also important in communicating to a large group of people without overusing my energy and wasting my limited time. Even if you do not have a website, you can still market with auto responders on your blog.

What's an auto responder? It's a program that automatically sends emails with pre-written responses to any person with an email address that requests for them. It's also known as automatic email or email on demand. If you have ever subscribed to any newsletter on the internet, probably the "Thank you" messages and the newsletters you received were sent to you by this wonderful program. To use auto responders on your website, you need to put a capture form intended to receive new subscribers to your email opt-in list.

Why are auto responders important in your email marketing campaigns? There are various reasons for which internet users automate their email marketing campaigns and I would like to share with you some of them in this article.

1. When you use auto responders, you are able to capture email addresses of your website visitors so that you can use them to build your own opt-in list. This targeted mailing is used to grow your business by sending automatic follow-up messages to your subscribers, who can finally turn into real customers. Getting new customers and turning subscribers into buyers is one of the major reasons for automating your email messages in your online business.

2. Internet users use auto responders to communicate to large groups of people. In situations where you have to communicate to so many people in your business or in your organization, using auto responders is the best option. For instance, you can use them to broadcast special announcements, to send newsletters, to publish your articles, to support your community and/or to provide updates to your workers. Ability to deliver such information to hundreds or thousands of people over the internet is another reason why I automate my email messages in my online business.

3. Automating your email messages enables you sell your products worldwide 24 hours a day and 7 days a week at no cost. Auto responders do not sleep. They are awake all the time to do a wonderful job for you. They do all the donkey work even when you are sleeping. For instance, they can receive and confirm orders, acknowledge receipt of payment, welcome new customers and send "Thank you" messages. All this is done for you at no extra cost. This is one of the benefits you will enjoy when you automate your email marketing campaigns in your online business.

4. Marketers, government departments and organizations use auto responders to send personalized messages. This makes the recipients of the messages to feel close, recognized, part of the group and to respond positively to your messages. You can send personalized messages to a large group of people with each recipient's name mentioned in the message.

5. Auto responders help you to save time and energy. Since they are used to perform the so many daily tasks that would require your physical input, they end up saving a lot of time for the user. In addition to saving time and energy, they cut down on the costs that would require a personal touch to be performed. The only time and energy you spend is when you make the initial one-time setup of the messages in your auto responder. The only cost you incur is the monthly subscription fees you pay to the service provider, which is undoubtedly very minimal. Usage of auto responders saves time, energy and money.

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that if you truly want to boost your online business or to improve your online communication system in any kind of work or business you are involved in, you have to automate your email marketing campaigns. I use auto responders in my marketing campaigns and they really do a wonderful job for me.

Charles Kiyimba owns http://www.CashWithGoleza.com and http://www.golezadesigners.com where popular home business ideas and opportunities are tested rigorously to find out what works and what doesn't. Visit today to discover the secrets behind building a successful home business.

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How To Choose The Right Search Engine Optimization Company

By Mohammed Abdul Nadeem

If you don't have proper SEO professionals working for you in-house, then it becomes imperative for you to hire the services of a reliable search engine optimization company. The good news is that there are many service providers who can help you promote your website and improve its page rankings.

Firstly, you will need to decide on your marketing budgets before hiring the services of any search engine marketing firm.You could search the net for information on SEO Service providers. You could then narrow down on the ones that provide services to suit your budget.

The search engine optimization company that you choose must adopt latest techniques to help your website climb up the page rankings. With the growing competition among providers, it should not be all that difficult for you to find a good search engine marketing firm for reasonable prices. However, you might want to communicate clearly with them in order to gauge their proficiency in the business.

Any good search engine optimization company will adopt only the legitimate methods for helping your business grow online. Any search engine marketing firm claiming to offer unrealistic results is most probably adopting unethical techniques, which could get your website banned. Your business reputation could get severely hampered if you associate yourself with such service providers.

Secondly, you will need to know all about the procedures that a company follows to bring about more visibility to your website. In order to do this, it would be wise for you to understand what exactly it takes to get more exposure to your website online.

Let us see briefly look into various steps involved in SEO:

• Your website should have original contents
• Your website contents should have your domain related keywords
• Avoid any broken links
• Manually submit your website to all the popular search engines
• Manually submit your website to the web directories under right categories

Although the above mentioned steps are pretty much basic, it can be a time consuming process. If you don't have the time to do it yourself, you might want to take help form some reliable search engine optimization company.

The real online marketing starts only after completing those steps and it is an ongoing process. Marketing online doesn't mean that you will able to sell merely by asking people to BUY BUY BUY from you. The customers are smarter than that. You will need to give them a real reasons why they should choose you over your competitors.

One of the best ways to help your prospective customers make the right decisions is by bringing about awareness about your business. You could create a blog and write informative content related to your business, or you could submit informative content to article directories, from where you could back-link them to your websites.

If you are hiring a search engine marketing firm to help you with online marketing, you might want to discuss more about how they would go about it. The above mentioned information can help you ask the right questions with them. You will need to hire them only if you are convinced about their abilities to help you grow your website in a legitimate manner.

We provide the best info about search engine optimization company or search engine marketing firm. For further details please visit the provided links.

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The Importance of Social Ecommerce in Modern Business

By Jan Swam

Many big businesses today know the importance of social ecommerce and are using it to help reach a wider audience through the internet. With the rising popularity of social networks and social media, it is only right that businesses take advantage of these new trends to help establish their businesses online. This marketing method is very effective that almost all big names in practically any business industry have some form of social ecommerce in place and even some small or medium businesses survive through it as their only way of attracting customers.

There are many benefits of using social ecommerce to help grow a business:

Cost-Efficient System

Social ecommerce is very cost-effective and may even be done effectively without any financial obligation because most, if not all popular social networks are free to use. Businesses can instantly create their own business page and start attracting fans, subscribers, or followers instantly. It is like owning a free virtual advertising real estate in a prime location where there are a lot of people.

Reach a Wider Audience

One of the best things about social ecommerce is that almost everyone nowadays has a social network account which means businesses who create their own pages can interact with plenty of prospects even outside the city or outside the country where the business operates. In many ways, social ecommerce plays a huge role in helping a business grow globally. Businesses can make transactions with customers even half a world away easily and conveniently utilizing the social media tools.

Get Targeted Traffic

One of the biggest problems of advertising a business is doing it ineffectively because the audience that sees the advertisement does not care or have no plans of buying the product or the service. Ineffective advertising that leads to untargeted traffic can be very costly and may even lead to losses. With social ecommerce, you can take advantage of several systems that can help you attract only your target audience to make your business more efficient.

When a business creates a social ecommerce page on a popular social network, people can easily find their pages when they are searching for the product or service the business addresses on the social network. The best part is that these pages can also be found in the main search engines which means the page is accessible to thousands of people who really are searching for the product or service the business provides.

Engage With Customers

People love interacting with the brands or companies that provide them the best products or the best service they enjoy. In fact, it is not rare to find big companies that have hundreds of thousands of fans, followers, or subscribers in any of the social networks they are a part of.

Social ecommerce needs to be undertaken not just to sell a product or a service, but also to interact socially hence its name. Many businesses that have been successful utilizing social ecommerce are more interactive with their followers, fans, or subscribers by regularly updating them, asking relevant questions, or even just commenting on their posts. This creates a sense of community within a social ecommerce page thereby making customers feel more comfortable and more loyal in doing business with the company.

Ghigg is a Social Commerce Platform for Fixed Price Services. The Social Hub enables S-Commerce and Social Outsourcing by empowering individuals and businesses to buy, sell and gain in a social framework Ghigg is also a Social Commerce Platform for Crowdsourcing Solutions. The Social Hub enables Social Crowdsourcing by empowering individuals and businesses to seek and solve services efficiently, rapidly and cost-effectively by a crowd of globally geo-targeted skilled Solvers in a social framework.

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SEO Companies Can Help In Increasing the Visibility of Any Website

By Mohammed Abdul Nadeem

Technological advancements in the past few years have caused huge transformations in the very way we live. Obviously, these advancements have also changed the way how people conduct their business. A decade back, we used to rely on print media and TV advertisements for various sales and marketing promotional activities.

The arrival of internet technology has paved the way for another strong marketing platform which is considerably cheaper and globally accessible. Ever since internet has been introduced in our life, the total horizon has changed radically, and that has completely changed people's way of thinking too.

Business conducted with the help of websites is found to be much easier and convenient. People are able to get any information with just a few clicks of the mouse. Internet has opened up many new sectors and millions of entrepreneurs have come up with many new offers in the market. Internet is in fact considered to be one of the greatest discoveries of the present times.

Plenty of online business has emerged due to the presence of internet. There are well known search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo etc, which can help you search millions of data and information. This has given rise to many SEO companies, and search engine marketing has become one of the most popular methods to get noticed by the potential clients.

Let us first understand what search engine marketing is. Basically, it is a set of techniques that help websites better search engine rankings, so that people are able to access those websites easily while searching for information. These methods are extensively adopted by all the top SEO companies.The main intention is to increase the visibility of websites online, and to reach out to more and more potential clients or customers.

The methods used by SEO companies might vary from each other, but all of them have a common goal. It is boosting the traffic on the targeted website, which automatically results in the business growth.

SEO technique is a new online marketing approach and the top SEO companies try to make the website friendlier for the search engines. Some of the popular techniques are efficient web development, creating keywords rich content, back-linking from forums and blogs, link building on directories, pay per click campaigns, classifieds posting and many others. The SEO companies focus on creating more visibility to their clients' websites, so that their pages get higher page ranking when compared to their competitors'.

There are plenty of top SEO companies who are engaged in promoting various websites in their own typical ways. Every company has their own technique to get the desired result. Therefore while selecting your partner for promoting your website you must evaluate them thoroughly. You have to ensure that whatever techniques they are using for increasing the visibility of your website meets your business goals, which is getting more customers.

Knowing about the experience and track records of these companies is also very important. So, when you select any SEO company, make sure that you check their past record and know about their success rates.

We provide the best info about top SEO companies or SEO companies. For further details please visit the provided links.

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A Few Best Practices for Today's Search Engine Optimization

By Ron Haggerty

No doubt you've noticed that Google's search results page is continuously changing. In the past, it consisted of traditional organic and sponsored site matches for relevant keyword search. Today, it is comprised of videos, images, local maps, reviews, as well as social links. If you are competing for search engine rankings, below are a few basic tips that can get assist in getting prospects to find your website.

Social Media Matters

Social media is having an impact on search results. In fact, both Bing and Google has admitted in interviews that their search results are positively affected by social signals, such as Twitter tweets, Facebook Likes, and Google+1s.

Search engines are realizing that if people share your content that it's probably pretty good, which means consumers can now influence search results with clicks, tags, ratings, and bookmarks. Also, since search engines are able to display results in virtual real-time, tweets and Google+ results are now appearing above all other content.

Without a doubt social media is impacting how search engines are able to deliver more immediate and relevant results, which will only assist those businesses that are creating content that people love and engaging with them.

Local Priority!

For most searches Google displays its Places Listings and for many local companies this is an excellent opportunity to obtain visibility online. In fact, research has found that users are inclined to focus on the Google Places listings regardless how they are positioned on the search results page. With that said, if you're a local business owner, at the very least you NEED to have an Optimized Google Places listing. Take advantage of all the content opportunities that Google provides by including as much information about the products and services you offer. Additionally, when possible link specific keywords or phrases back to a page on your website that is designed for conversion.

Another opportunity with Google Places are Reviews. While Google only displays reviews that were created on their site, it is also important to seek out reviews from other online directories such as CitySearch, Insider Pages, Angie's List, Yelp, Judy's Book, Yahoo! Local, Superpages, and Trip Advisor. More and more, consumers are turning to reviews prior to making purchases so being considered a reputable source online can provide you with a significant competitive advantage. Finally, ensure that you listing is stated exactly the same in all of your directory submissions. If you abbreviate your address on one of them, abbreviate it on all of them.

Ad Heavy Pages Will Be Punished

I'm sure you been on a web page that could be considered ad-heavy... pages that have virtually no content. Well, Google is currently testing algorithms that determine the things that really matter, and how much content is above the fold. Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team at Google has recently stated, "If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it," asking publishers to consider, "Do they see content or something else that's distracting or annoying?"

Remember, content is still king. The most effective long term SEO strategies include the creation of well written, relevant content across the internet. One way to accomplish this is to not only blog, but to guest blog on other non-related industry sites. Just remember that the content needs to be relevant to what you do. I write articles and blog posts for the water park industry even though it is an entirely different market than internet consulting. However, there are any number of related topics that I can write content as it relates to my area of expertise within the water park industry.

You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure

When managing a website it's essential to make changes based on results, but in order to do so it's critical to use the right tools. When reviewing key word performance use a tool that measures the competitiveness of the keyword or phrase as well as your page rank and position on various search engines. This data, if monitored regularly, will allow you to compare the performance of your key words. This information is critical to making smart decisions when adjusting your content marketing plan.

Ron Haggerty

http://www.wsib2b.com

Ron has been a certified internet marketing consultant and a managing partner with WSI Internet Marketing since January 2006. During his tenure with WSI, he has worked as a web developer, designer, team leader, project manager, and as a business consultant. His greatest strength is that he understands what it takes for small to medium sized businesses to be successful. Prior to WSI he opened numerous successful small to medium sized businesses and was responsible for every imaginable aspect including concept design, start-up, marketing, day-to-day operations, and P&L oversight.

If you're looking to improve your internet presence please contact Ron. He will evaluate your current online presence and help you establish a strategy suitable for your company's needs.

WSI Internet Marketing has offices in Orlando-Winter Park, FL and New Orleans, LA

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