Internet Marketing
WordPress 3.0 Means More Robust Blogging
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 19th, 2010
Bloggers know that a new version of WordPress has hit the streets. Code named Thelonius, in honor of the famous jazz Monk, WordPress 3.0 merges the single-user version of WordPress with the multi-user version. We here are LeapGo are looking forward to playing with it.
Why is this important?
We think WordPress 3.0 is significant for a number of reasons. For starters, it’s the first major revision of WordPress for several versions now. That means there is a lot to look forward to. From the WordPress codex, here are a few of the features offered through WordPress 3.0:
- Ability to manage multiple websites from one central installation
- A new theme, Twenty Ten, that illustrates WordPress’s new features
- Custom menus
- Custom header and background APIs
- Admin username and password set during installation
- Bulk theme updating
- Shortlinks support
- Custom post types and custom taxonomies
These are just a few of the new features offered by WordPress 3.0. We haven’t played with this enough to give you a review of the features, but we are looking forward to using the new WordPress. What I will say is if you are a blogger or planning to start a blog for your business then WordPress 3.0 promises to provide you with greater benefit than ever before. Now is the perfect time to start a business blog.
What Is Ecommerce?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 18th, 2010
What exactly is e-commerce? It’s a question that is often asked by new small business owners or small business owners who are thinking about going online and doing business there. In a word, e-commerce is any type of business conducted online. It is generally referred to as selling products and services, but it need not be limited to that alone.
For instance, music sites that allow free downloads can be considered engaging in e-commerce, particularly if it is expected that those free downloads will lead to other transactions such as cell phone ringtone downloads, the purchase of CDs and DVDs or a link to an affiliate program is clicked. Any of those activities constitutes e-commerce.
E-commerce is also transmitting information about products and services – your e-mail newsletter, for instance. You can have an e-mail newsletter that drives people to your brick and mortar store for purchases. That’s e-commerce too.
So the selling doesn’t have to take place online. It generally does, but as long as you are using the Internet to promote your products and services then you are engaging in e-commerce. If you are ready to start your e-commerce strategy, contact a rep today to discuss how e-commerce can benefit your business.
Why You Should Hire A Ghostwriter For Your Blog
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 15th, 2010
Many small business owners start a blog only to abandon it after a month or two. That’s not a good idea. A better option is to hire a ghostwriter to write your blog every day. Here are 10 reasons why hiring a ghostwriter for your blog is a good idea:
- A professional blog ghostwriter won’t run out of ideas
- The time you spend writing your blog can be freed up to do more important things, like seeing to your customer needs
- A professional blog ghostwriter will spend time ensuring your web content is polished
- Your blog stands a much better chance of assisting your website achieve high search engine rankings than most other forms of Internet marketing
- Your company blog can be promoted in ways that your standalone website cannot
- A well-written blog can be highly optimized for search engine traffic
- A professional blog ghostwriter will keep your blog focused on the topics that your customers care about
- A blog is an excellent branding tool
- Your company blog is the best tool for reaching an audience with search engine marketing AND social media marketing
- A blog means more content and more web pages on your website, which benefits you in several ways including increasing your chances of receiving search engine traffic and inviting the search robots to your site more often to crawl it
If you’re still not convinced that having a company blog is right for you or that a blog ghostwriter can benefit your search engine marketing then give us a call at 1 (800) 211-7619 or contact us for more information about our blog ghostwriting services.
Localized SEO For Local Small Businesses
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 14th, 2010
There is perhaps nothing more important in today’s Internet marketing landscape than localized SEO.
More and more people are going online to find local businesses and that means that your business should start right now to engage a local audience online and reach your target market before another business snags it. This is particularly important for urban businesses or small businesses in a large metropolitan area, but rural businesses can tap into localized SEO and Internet marketing as well.
First, perform some competitive research to find out which of your competition is currently marketing online and which ones are getting ranked for the important keywords for your niche. Then try to find missed opportunities or holes in their marketing. That’s where you want to start.
Once you gain a foothold in your local market online then you can branch out into your competition’s more secure operations. This is a sneaky way to enter a market, but if your local market is already rich with online marketers then it’s the best approach – whether your business is in a large metro area or a rural area.
Localized SEO is becoming one of the most needed areas of online marketing operations and if you haven’t started your Internet marketing initiatives yet then you are already behind.
Why Analytics Is Important
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 12th, 2010
Analytics is one of the most important aspects to marketing online. What you can’t or don’t measure cannot be changed or improved. That’s why Twitter recently announced the purchase of an analytics company for its offerings to business users.
While it’s still unclear just how Twitter will use its analytics capability to benefit users, one thing you can be sure of – they do understand the importance of analytics.
Analytics allows you to track and measure your website’s performance. You can also track and measure the performance of your other Internet marketing campaigns – pay per click, Twitter, social media marketing, etc. With the proper analytics package you can measure your results for any marketing strategy and change what needs to be changed to better optimize your marketing efforts. That’s what analytics is for. And that’s why you should employ analytics whenever possible.
PPC Is Not A Set And Forget Tool
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 9th, 2010
Pay per click marketing is effective advertising because it has the potential to turn a few cents into huge revenues. But in order to make it work that way someone needs to manage it. You can’t set it and forget it and expect it to perform.
Probably one of the biggest mistakes that new advertisers make is thinking that you can write an ad, post it live and wait a few weeks to see what results come in. Search engine marketing is a very dynamic field. Blue widgets may be hot today, but yellow widgets could be hotter tomorrow. So you have to keep your ear to the ground and your eye on your wallet then make adjustments where necessary whenever necessary.
It is this dynamic nature of PPC that makes it so potentially lucrative, but also potentially dangerous, as an advertising medium. If you just set your advertising campaigns and let them run then you could be throwing away hundreds or thousands of dollars a month, or a day for some advertisers, on keywords that won’t convert. What you should be doing is constantly tweaking, experimenting and searching for the right keywords that convert for your business.
Just remember, when advertising through pay per click, don’t set it and forget it. Keep a close eye on your campaigns and make adjustments when necessary. If you aren’t sure how to go about this then hire a professional to guide you.
How Important Is Market Analysis?
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 8th, 2010
Businesses have been performing market analyses since they’ve learned there were specific segments of a market that they wanted to target. Online businesses also perform market analyses, but it’s usually done in a slightly different way.
A market analysis for an online business consists of searching for the right keywords to target so that your content can rank well in the search engines and your PPC campaigns can be more effective. You want to know what your competition is doing, but you also want to find out what are the right keywords for your business are based on the audience that you want to reach.
One of the most important parts of your market analysis is the examination of statistical data and analytics. A lot can be said through your site logs and certain information about your visitors. For instance,
- By noting the most popular keywords for finding your website you can identify profitable ways to reach your target market through pay per click advertising.
- Knowing your most important traffic sources can help you identify potential websites to emplace your PPC ads.
- Getting a feel for the navigation patterns of your users can help you identify what they are searching for on your website and give you a better idea of what you should be offering through online advertising.
- And if you have certain landing pages that are getting the lion’s share of your inbound search engine traffic then you know which pages to promote through PPC.
These are just a few of the things that you can identify through analytics to help you manage a more effective pay per click campaign. Before you start advertising, engage in a little market analysis. It can save you a bundle.
Why SEO Still Matters
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on June 2nd, 2010
It might seem like, in an age dominated by social media, that SEO is no longer a necessary concern for webmasters. After all, Facebook is the most trafficked website on the Internet and YouTube is picking up speed. Twitter is all the rage and Yahoo! is getting out of the search business altogether – so they tell us.
But I still believe that SEO has its applications even if Google changes its algorithms to downplay it.
So what good is SEO if Google itself seems to tell us it isn’t necessary? Perhaps we’re phrasing the question all wrong. Maybe our idea of SEO is outdated and needs an update. Could that be possible?
SEO – or search engine optimization – is the process of designing your website and writing its content so that it ranks well for particular key phrases based on how many people are interested in information about that topic. Any search engine worth its salt will be primarily concerned with returning the best results to searchers for the search queries they put in. And that sometimes means ignoring well optimized web pages that don’t meet certain quality guidelines.
In essence, if a web page is simply trying to rank well for the keyword phrase without offering any particular value to visitors once they land on the page then it doesn’t really deserve high rankings. In an age of social media, webmasters need to focus on quality content without abandoning time-tested SEO principles. It can be done.
Things To Think About When You Start A Blog
Posted by Jason Corgiat in Internet Marketing on May 25th, 2010
If you’re one of the many small business owners who haven’t started a blog yet and you are considering one then keep the following details in mind as you begin your blogging career.
- If you have a website for your business, put your blog on the same domain name as your website. Don’t use a free host for your business blog.
- If you don’t have a website and you plan to make your blog your business website, buy a domain name; again, don’t use a free host.
- Make sure that your blog is designed in such a way that it reflects your company values and you build a brand that is consistent across all of your web properties and off line marketing initiatives.
- Keep it professional.
- Employ sound SEO techniques into your blog posts.
- Make sure your blog is a veritable resource for people looking for information on your topic.
- Don’t write off topic too often; keep your blog focused on the needs of your customers and potential customers.
- Be friendly and courteous and sometimes even personal, but be careful not to make it a personal blog.
- Encourage comments.
- Go and comment on other blogs within your niche.
- Blog as often as you can. If you can’t blog every day then blog every other day. The more you blog the more you and your clients will benefit.
- Don’t make every blog post a sales message.
- Above all, don’t abandon your blog. If you run out of things to say and can’t continue writing after you have started, hire a blog ghostwriter to keep up the blog.
Your company blog is a reflection of your business. Make it a positive reflection. A blog can serve as a very effective marketing tool, but it must be written to often in order to achieve its potential. Once you start, keep it going and don’t give up.
