SEO FIRE

When considering an online marketing optimization strategy you must first look to your website. SEO is always the first order of business when trying to improve web site visitation and conversion. That being said SEO is not the end of the process but rather just the beginning. Internet Marketing in the age of web 2.0 and beyond is as much a part of  the optimization effort as the website itself.

Our sister company www.internet-marketing-fire.com offers an Internet marketing assault package the dovetails perfectly with our advanced SEO services. By combining efforts both on site and off site you get a far more formidable competitive edge than with simply optimizing your website alone. These extended Internet marketing assault services drive customer acquisition and search engine presence to much higher levels allowing you to truly “Dominate the Online Conversation”.

For more information on how to achieve the best results possible from your online marketing effort download the excellent Executive Guide to Internet Marketing.

 By Jon Janes, www.janesjournal.com

The Internet Marketing world has changed dramatically in the last six months. Evolving search engine algorithms and new social services are reforming the search landscape right before our eyes. With blog entries, article directories, and social networking sites making up over 30% of all top 10 search results on the Internet it begs the question. What does it take to launch an effective Internet marketing campaign in the age of Web 2.0 and beyond.

As more and more of the web becomes a network of individuals at the expense of corporate destinations the tipping point of social media assault on the web will make traditional Internet marketing i.e. SEO and SEM obsolete. The shear onslaught of blogs, articles, audio, video, influence marketing, and link back tactics combined with search engine evolution to weed out the bad and highlight the good will inevitably rake havoc on many once venerated web search bonanzas.

In order to create buzz and drive demand on the web in the current climate you need a full tilt Internet marketing onslaught. Nothing short of a huge network of blogs, articles, websites, social media pages, and email campaigns all strategically working in tandem will be required to penetrate the increasing bloat of super optimized content that currently exists.

One company Internet-Marketing-Fire understands this and has mastered the art of penetrating bloated markets on the web. After proving concept with some of the largest companies in the world the Internet Marketing Fire - Internet Marketing Assault Package is our top rated Internet Marketing play for 2008.

Rarely do I comment on books about marketing but this one caught my eye. I must admit I’ve grown to be a bit skeptical about such things but this is one read I just could not put down. If you have ever read Robert Cialdini’s epic work “Influence” then you know what kind of manipulation is going on all around us. Influence On The Web by LKI (Linda Kay Industries) begins where Cialdini left off and exposes the tactics used by professional web marketers to “Make You Say Yes”.

The content is indeed eye opening and very useful, if not as a tool for marketing then as a protection for you, your friends and family. This is one I would provide to everyone I care about and I don’t take that lightly. Influence On The Web comes Highly Recommended by me and thousands of professional marketers around the world.

Protect yourself and explode your marketing potential get The Best Marketing Book in the Universe

Cut through all the hype. Everyone wants to make a quick buck, that’s a given. However, when it comes to starting your own business on the internet don’t be confused by the glamorous offers that promise you vast wealth and a life style worthy of Bill Gates. Contrary to what most “Super Affiliate” system sellers are saying, I can tell you without any question you don’t need to pay and small fortune to get started. In fact you can start your own business for free with just a bit of instruction which I will provide here in this article.

Yes it’s true that the Internet holds the key to amazing fortunes and prosperity for those who understand the methods and tactics that apply. But you can start your own internet business for free today without needing to invest a penny of your own money.

The methods are many but only a few are worthy of your time and effort.

Affiliate marketing is by far the most lucrative and the most common of the online wealth systems. What this means is that you advertise other peoples affiliate products and take a percentage of each sale generated through your affiliate links. Of course you must promote these links on your own dime but there are many free methods of marketing these affiliate links which I will show you.

Many of the best known companies offer affiliate programs through Commission Junction (www.cj.com). Another great beginners program is the Amazon.com Associates program. Go there and look around for more info on these programs. There is no cost to register and begin offering name brand products. So in essence through the Internet you now have a major advantage over the typical brand name brick-and-mortar outlet. In other words you don’t need to purchase any inventory to offer these products.

What you do need is a way to market your affiliate relationship. Affiliate links can be marketed in many ways for free. The easiest methods of marketing your new affiliate relationships are through your existing relationships. That means friends and family, then co-workers and church members. If you have a mailing list you can include your affiliate links in short stories or useful articles related to the product offer. Of course any websites you manage are prime targets for adding a web page to promote your links directly.

Article submissions (Like the one you’re reading now) are another excellent method of self promotion i.e. place a link to your web page in the signature block at the end of the article. While we’re on the subject of signature blocks think of all the places that you provide a signature on a daily basis. Emails, Your Business Card, Blog Comments, Forum Posts…Speaking of Blog comments you can start your own blog for free at Blogger.com or Wordpress.org and create an entire catalog of products. All of these are common tactics of professional Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs.

Take advantage of all these free tactics. What you learn in the process will be invaluable to your future success as an online affiliate marketing entrepreneur.
Linda Kay is an original Internet Marketing Guru who has helped hundreds of her students become affluent Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs around the world. Linda Kay will show you how to Make Money on the Internet.

Major props to the gang over at SEOMOZ for putting together one of the most challenging SEO exams ever and a damn good viral campaign to boot. Of course I had to try my hand at the test and I don’t mind giving them a link for their effort.

Many firms make the claim but there’s nothing like a real test to separate the experts from the amateurs.  Click on the link to take the test and see how your SEO expertise stands up to scrutiny.

These are my test results.

SEO Dark Lord - 100%

Are you an SEO Expert?

SEO-FIRE is a verified expert SEO consultancy.

Everybody wants to be in video and its never been easier to do than it is today. With all the low cost video editing software and the availability of web cameras for every budget any business can create professional commercials or newscasts  for your products and services. Don’t think you need a high polish work of art to make an effective impression. Many of the most effective online video clips are nothing more than an individual sitting at their desk with a web-cam mounted on the monitor. From a business perspective the availability of video interviews and commentary on your website is an indicator of marketing savvy and investment in staying current with technology. 

Lights, Camera, Action

If you want to create more polished work you will need a digital video camera, a tripod, and a well lit environment such as an executive office. You may also consider some softbox lighting to mitigate shadows on the set and make your presenter really “pop” on screen. Lighting is the key to truly professional results, without some type of directed soft lighting to highlight your presenter and eliminate shadows your production will not have the look and feel of a professional video.

For raw footage style video you can get away without the video editing software but the software will give you the ability to stitch scenes together from different takes. When using video editing software stay away from all the cheesy screen transitions that are available. Take a look at some high end commercials on TV. You wont see any gratuitous use of scene transitions just clean cuts from one scene to the next.

Once you have your finished production you can post it on your website easy enough or offer a video podcast for your mobile prospects or you can try your luck on YouTube where viral videos go to flourish in the sea of world opinion .

Online presentations are best created in MS PowerPoint and then converted to a flash based streaming file using either Articulate Presenter or Camtasia. My personal fave is Articulate. I like it’s extended player capability and features although the less expensive Camtasia is also useful for recording onscreen activity for software demos. In either case what you intend to create should be the deciding factor i.e. for PowerPoint presentations use Articulate and for onscreen recordings as in software demos use Camtasia.

You can also take a screen recording created with Camtasia and embed that in a PowerPoint presentation for conversion in Articulate. So I tend to use both when designing presentations for clients. So far as any tips for improving the quality of your presentations I would recommend:

1. Keep slides simple - Less is more here
2. Use standard Fonts and Colors
3. Eliminate unnecessary animation
4. Create a flow of information - Background, Challenge, Solution, Validation

It takes some trial and error to create a high quality automated presentation for the web.  Just as mastering PowerPoint takes some time so to these extensions of the presentation medium will have a learning curve. The beauty of these two programs is the ease with which they allow you to try and try again until you get it right.

Narration of the slides is where most people hit the wall. Just like speaking in public when the microphone is switched on the same fear and loathing will come into play. Here is where true talent for speaking is foremost. Nothing will kill a great presentation faster than a droning monotone voice reading from the slides. Don’t read the slides! You need to speak extemporaneously to the subject only referencing the key points on the slides. This is what separates the professional speaker from the amateur. Do it correctly and your audience will respond accordingly.

That being said many companies find success through cross departmental collaborations where engineering may supply the slide deck, marketing creates the narrative and sales provides the speaking talent.

What is Social Media? Often referred to as the 5th “P” in marketing Social Media is about “Participation” 

Social media unlike traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio is fundamentally different. Social media is not finite meaning there are no limits. Audience participation in social media, adding comments or editing the stories is the social differentiator. Then the content itself in social media by virtue of it’s electronic format can also take the form of text, graphics, audio or video.  These media can be combined and made available via feeds that can be downloaded by users with feed readers or pulled into other distribution sites featuring mash-ups of content from various sources.  

The term Social Media  has several different connotations, however in the context of internet marketing, Social Media refers to a group or network of web properties primarily driven by the users. For example, blogs, forums,  and video sharing sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get one’s content more widely distributed across multiple Social Media networks.

There are two sides to Social Media, the first side is made up of on-page tactics that a webmaster can do to improve their website for social media. This is known as SMO as stated above. Such optimization includes adding links to services such as Technorati, Digg, and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily ’saved and submitted’ to and for these services.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the off-page tactics of Social Media. This includes writing content that is remarkable, and news-worthy. Marketing this content is done by promoting links on the services mentioned as well as more traditional SEO tactics or creating video that may become viral when posted on Youtube or other video sites. Social Media is about being social so this off-page work includes getting involved in other blogs, forums and online communities.

What is Online PR anyway? Online PR is syndicated distribution of public relations documents via web services. There are various PR syndication services from the high priced BusinessWire and PRweb to the free OpenPress. Why optimize PR for SEO? External links back to your site influence your site’s quality rating in search engines. The more high quality links leading back to your site the better your potential for higher search rank position.

“PR optimization is the only legitimate link back strategy that gives you full control.”

Optimization

PR optimization is a two fold concern. First the content should be tailored to specific keyword phrases and second these keyword phrases will be the the anchor text for the links back to relevant pages on your site. 

Content Development 

News wires specify that a PR post must be a newsworthy event in an announcement format.  Prime subjects for PR would be Partnerships, Event Sponsorship, Product Release, Customer Wins, Executive Promotion, Service Announcements, Legal Filings, Awards, Industry Recognition ….

Format

Once you have your optimized copy with embedded keyword phrases linked back to your website you will need to put it in the standard PR format. You need a contact block at the top including Name,Title, Company, Phone , and Email. The first line of your copy should begin with the City, State, Date.

Example:

Contact:
Marc King
CEO/Senior Business Analyst
SEO10x.com
XXX-XXX-XXXX
EEE@EEE.com

San Francisco, CA. March 25, 2008 - SEO-FIRE the next generation of Interactive Agency announced the release of a new set of SEO tools for the Internet Marketing professional ….

Your copy will need to be at least 300 words to qualify for posting on most syndication services.

PR Management

You should strive to post at least one PR announcement per month. Many leading companies will post PR 2-3 times a week. As often as you have legitimate newsworthy announcements that you can optimize for your SEO requirements you can send out PR. You should not try to fabricate phony announcements. While it is unlikely that a syndication service would approve what appears to be  a deliberate attempt to spam the news sphere doing so would generate a perception of illegitimacy that would hurt your business.

Email Marketing has lost some of it’s power due to rampant abuse and spam that have the effect of desensitizing peoples perception of the medium and confusing users as to what is legitimate or junk. That being said email marketing still outperforms all other marketing channels in terms of cost and return on investment and there are steps you can take to effectively build relationships online that will mitigate the discontent where it exists.

If you have never created an email campaign the easiest way to get started is to simply examine the marketing emails you receive. There are numerous online resources that can assist the newbie email marketer but for those of you who have some experience with email marketing campaigns this post will cover optimization of your email marketing and improvement of your email marketing results.

Formatting the copy 

The format of your email is critical. Important information goes at the top and I mean the very top of the email. Though it is common practice in most businesses to put a graphic header in the email this is a classic mistake. Most email readers now block images by default forcing your recipient to take an extra step to see your graphic content. This is unlikely as your reader scans through several dozen or more emails. Business users typically use the preview pane in outlook to aid in the scanning of email content. An image header in this view will appear as a blank space or just the alt tag for the image. These users give far less weight to emails that are not formatted for their ease of use.

The Subject Line 

Subject lines should be short, catchy and relevant to the email content.

1. Bad example:
   Webinar - Learn how to maximize your email marketing for increased productivity and ROI
2. Better example:
   Email marketing roundup, productivity and ROI
3. Best example:
   Top 5 Tips email marketing ROI

Start with a well defined subject line.  In the three examples above you can see how each subject would lead you to take a completely different approach to the same content.

Layout Style

There are two primary layouts used in business email. Single link Event/Promo style and Multi-link Newsletter style. Each has a specific use. You have probably seen and may even be tempted to create a newsletter style marketing email with offers and special sales and incentives but this is a mistake. Our research has shown that customers respond far more favorably to a single purpose marketing email but wont scan through a newsletter style promotion to compare the various sales offers. Newsletter subscribers on the other hand will anticipate the longer newsletter format and scan through multiple story excerpts looking for relevant content but will also be turned off by newsletter disguised sales promotions.

Using Layout style to your advantage

Do create a newsletter that outlines headline news and interesting story lines and then send separate periodic single purpose marketing emails to promote events or special promotions. Studies have shown that an average customer takes 3 marketing touches for brand awareness and 5 marketing touches before the sale. So it is to your advantage to send separate emails over a period of weeks rather than trying to jam everything into one newsletter style email.

Tracking and Metrics

Most any email marketing service provider will have the standard tracking tools available.

You want to track:

1. Deliver-ability and Bounce Rate  (Are my emails being received?)
2. Opens (Are my emails being read?)
3. Click-through (Is my content generating interest?)

Keep a log of these metrics and compare percentage change from email to email and month to month. This will allow you to measure the impact of subject lines (Opens) and content offers (Click-through) . Over time you may see certain offers resonate with your customers better than others. Use this information to improve your email marketing effectiveness.

Marketing Management

Create a calendar of your fiscal year and break that into four quarters. Now notate all trade shows dates you will be presenting/attending. Around each of these dates you can anticipate sending an invite to your prospect list. You can also plan your monthly newsletter. Now look at what remains in each quarter and plan another 3 to 5 promotions that will go to your house list and other rented or 3rd party promotions. This calendar approach will commit you to driving a full force email marketing effort that will give you the highest possible returns.