How much back linking on my website should I do?

April 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

I saw this ad today on Facebook and had a chuckle. Would you really want 1000 back links to your website every month? Sounds like a

Backlinks for a website

Too Many Back Links?

good idea but when it comes to getting back links to your website more is not always better. In fact too many back links to quickly can actually get you the wrong type of attention from Google and the other search engines. You can actually get sandboxed by Google for to many links to fast. It could be looked at as link spam. This means that the search engines will not show you in the organic searches anymore. I would rather only get one quality link from a high ranking site than 1000 crappy ones.

The point of this article is to educate you in mistakes that site owners unknowingly make when trying to legitimately promote their websites. You may think you are doing yourself a favor but in reality you are hurting yourself. When dealing with a search engine optimization firm make sure that you know the methods that they are using to boost your rankings are legitimate. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Getting your website to rank in the search engines takes real work. Crappy content will get you crappy results. You need to spend the time and create good content and establish valuable link relationships with other site owners.

There is white hat seo and black hat seo. You guessed it, white hat is good and black hat is bad. Make sure that your seo firm is using white hat seo strategies. With the amount of work that goes into creating a useful and successful site it would be a shame if the search engines no longer are sending you traffic.

Please contact us today for an SEO Consultation and Evaluation of your website.

Filed Under: Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Your Business Website Going To Make It?

February 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Are you lost in the buzz of what to do with your website? Have you been burned in the past?

The old days of Search Engine Optimization was relegated to how well you could optimize your website (keywords etc.) and who you could get to link to you (how many other sites were voting for your site). These are called on-page and off-page SEO strategies respectively. The Internet and promoting your website here in 2010 are much different.

  • On-page consisted of keywords, title, description, Headline tags, keyword density, alt tags, proper anchor text for interna links and other methodologies.
  • Off-page consisted of link building from other website owners using good keyword anchor text.

New Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing Realities of 2010

Today, in 2010, for competitive industries like real estate, mortgages, insurance, etc. these SEO strategies are not sufficient for keeping your website at the top of the search engines for your targeted business interests. The old search engines used to solely rely on static websites to populate the search results that that they displayed to their users doing searches. This is just not so in 2010.

The search engines are now looking at news sites, social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, video websites, and press release websites in addition to all of the other sites out there, including yours. With all of these sources out there, powerful “trusted” sources like FaceBook, Twitter, CNN, Reuters, and Youtube delivering up to the minute content to the search engines like Google static websites cannot keep up with staying relavant. As a result of this shift in where search engines look for information the online marketing world has gotten far more complex requiring website owners to step up their game plan to include a multi-faceted approach.

We are not going to minimize the dire need that website owners have with their websites and their lack of proper SEO if they want a legitimate chance to come up in the search engines. In fact, traditional SEO on their website is the starting point, whereas in the past it used to be the frontier of marketing online. A good on-page and off-page SEO campaign is essential for any website as it tells the search engines what the site is about.

Search Engine Marketing Strategies For 2010 – Are You Staffed For These?

  • Optimizing image files on websites – ensure that each image has a descriptive keyword or keyword phrase so that the image can be found in the search engines.
  • Produce and publish videos and slideshows – this method of marketing has exploded with the onset of YouTube. Over 60% of Internet searchers would rather watch a video about how to do something than read about it. But not only publishing your video on YouTube is enough, you then have to tell your audience (clients) about it and have them go vote and make comments about it. There at least different sites to publish on. Do you have the tools to do this?
  • Press releases and news wires – the search engines are looking at these sources for the latest and greatest information. You can get a lot of distance out of a carefully planned PR campaign both for direct traffic to your company as well as SEO benefit with backlinking from other websites.
  • Are you local – if you are a locally based business, you can do local SEO – this is a whole different animal for larger more national companies. Getting found for local geo targeted searches is a great opportunity – it is also a great opportunity for your customers to comment online and make recommendations about your business – all designed to help your rankings grow.
  • Blog, Blog, Blog – we know for some of you this sounds like either “blah blah blah” or “more work, more work, more work”. Well, how serious are you about your company’s survival moving forward from 2010? Every business has news happening around it that affects their business. You should umm…needs to be informing your clients and potential clients about news affecting the products and services that your company offers. We, people, buy from people we trust – your customers and potential customers will learn to trust you and buy from you if you are giving them updated news information.
  • Second point about blogs – content on the Internet is king. If you are publishing content on a daily or almost daily basis your website will rise above those companies who do not. Google and the search engines love fresh up to date content. If you give it, you’ll be rewarded with rankings and ultimately customers.
  • Social media marketing – are you on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter? You should be, if you don’t know to these services work you need to learn about them. They are very powerful if done correctly. It is all about relationship building, trust building, and referrals – isn’t this what we’ve done for years with a business card, mixers and shaking hands? It has been an effective way to build business – well social media marketing is doing the same thing, but online.
  • Do you have a product – if you have a product have you submitted it to Google? If not, do so it will help your products thus you get found in the search engines. Again, getting found in the search engines will bring visitors and visitors will hopefully lead to buying customers.
  • Conversion tools – There are two names to the game with your website – get people to it and then get them to buy from you. Getting them to buy from you is all about conversion tools. How is your website set up for conversion? This is a whole science and strategy in itself. Conversion analysis and implementation will make a huge difference for your website and your bottom line.
  • Is your site graphically up to date – if your site was build over three years ago, it is time for you to consider an oil change and a new paint job. Website design changes and you have to change with it. If not, your site quickly looks out dated and visitors know it.

With the above list you should have a better idea about what is involved with your online marketing strategy. Excelnet Media offers these services to our clients in bundled packages. When you become our client we blend these tactics to help you reach our online goals. If you are not our customer yet, we should talk about how we can help you with growing your business on the net. Afterall, print is dead, TV is dieing, Radio is limited – the net is the next frontier – are you going to the edge or going to be left behind?

Filed Under: Business, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Is Search Engine Optimization worth the Investment?

November 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Even though the search engine optimization game has been around for years, the value to a business owner is still relatively not understood. This factor is perhaps why business owners are not taking the web more seriously when it comes to marketing and advertising on the web.

If you are not promoting yourself online, you can be sure that your competition is.

Call us today at 1-888-368-6668 to see how ExcelnetMedia can get more business in the door to your company from the internet.

Filed Under: Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: ,

Social Media Marketing Revolution

November 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Much is happening in the world of social media. Here is a quick summary of recent major research findings:

In 2010, 26 million (1 in 7) U.S. Adults Monthly use Twitter

A new study by eMarketer extends its previous estimates of people using Twitter. Here is a summary of some of the study’s findings or predictions. The recent study found that in 2009, there will be 18 million U.S. adults who access Twitter at least monthly. This prediction represents an increase of 200% above 2008 levels. The study further predicts that monthly Twitter usage will reach 26 million U.S. adults in 2010, some 44.4% up. ”

Earlier this year, eMarketer reported use indication as much more conservative, stating that there was evidence of a large number of users leaving the scene shortly after the first month and many others use it only sporadically. Recently, however, eMarketer has revised their estimates due to “recent data showing healthy-and growing-share of U.S. Internet users adoption of the popular microblogging platform,” said eMarketer senior analyst, Paul Verna.

Twitter is not the only social networking site to report its registration numbers. In September, Facebook officially hit 300 million users mark, making the social networking site almost as big as the U.S. population.

Americans spend 17% of time online in Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

As popular social media platforms continue to grow its number of users, it is logical to conclude that Americans are spending more time on social networking sites. According to a recent study by The Nielsen Company, 17% of online time was in social networking sites (an increase of 6% over August 2008).

In 2010, over 50% of marketers will use social media

Among those who pay most attention to this trend are advertisers. Marketers are increasingly aware that social media marketing must be a key component of their media buying strategy. Online ad spending increased by 119% to $ 108 million in August 2009.

This was recently affirmed the conclusions of the “2010 Study of Intelligence Media Planning” by the Center for Media Research, which examined the likelihood of marketing including social media in your marketing plan 2010. More than half (56.3%) of the traders said the media would be “realistic” to be part of that mixture.

Top 5 most popular media for marketing spend in 2010 were:

  • Email (56.8%)
  • Social networks (56.3%)
  • Search by keyword (49.7%)
  • Radio (42.2%)
  • Magazines (42.1%)

In addition, 57% of media buyers report that will buy non-traditional media, including Internet, video display, search, mobile and event sponsorships, while 43% said it will buy the media more traditional, like television, newspapers and radio.

Blogs more useful Social Media tools, say 51% of companies

McKinsey Quarterly Global Survey “examined the overall business assessment of the value of the different technologies of social media. As reviewed by eMarketer, “When it came to customer-related benefits, blogs are the most useful tool for bringing measurable benefits according to 51% of the survey’s responding companies worldwide. Next behind blogging are video sharing and social networking at 48% each, followed by RSS feeds at45%. ”

In addition to these findings, the top three reported benefits of Web 2.0 marketing include:

  • Increased marketing effectiveness (52%)
  • Greater customer satisfaction (43%)
  • Reduction of marketing costs (38%)

75% of marketing plan to increase media jobs in 2010

According to a recent study by the provider Unisfair virtual events, marketers are more focused on attracting and keeping customers in 2010 and plan to use social media to make this happen.

According to Unisfair, the 3 main priorities of marketing in 2010 according to U.S. retailers are:

  • Acquisition of new customers (60%)
  • Customer retention and commitment (48%)
  • Thought Leadership (45%)

Top 5 marketing tactics to be used by U.S. marketers in 2010 are:

  • Social media (75%)
  • Web Search / SEO (51%)
  • E-mail campaigns (49%)
  • Virtual (48%)
  • Online advertising (28%)

The study also asked traders to rank the value of the platforms of social media. LinkedIn entered the top 26%, 23% for Facebook and Twitter by 17%.

How might these findings from a social impact study of its future activities of the media? We’d love to hear from you.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

How Email Marketing Can Benefit Your Company

September 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Mail Bagg'sv2Excelnet Media is now offering Email Marketing monthly service plans.

The Direct Marketing Association’s research shows that email marketing is expected to generate an ROI (Return on Investment) of $43.52 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. Compared to all other direct marketing channels, email marketing outperforms them all.

How can Email Marketing benefit your company?

  • Increase your sales conversion – Most visitors to your website won’t convert to a sale on their first visit. Research shows that the average customer will visit a website 9 times before they buy. Once you have their email address you can keep your company in front of them by sending email newsletters.
  • Increase sales from existing customers – It can cost 8 to 10 times more to acquire a new customers than to sell to an existing one. Keeping in touch with existing customers can generate repeat sales. Again, frequent email marketing keeps your company in front of customers.
  • Add 30% to an average order – Up-sell and cross-sell products and services. For example, a customer orders a necklace from your jewelry store, follow up with an email about earrings that match the necklace.
  • Save money – Even after design, testing and sending the email, you will save 78% over traditional mailers.
  • Save the environment – Trees don’t need to die for email marketing.

Call 480-874-4379 or contact us for more information and plan pricing.

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15 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a Blog

August 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Going up green 256What is a Blog?

Blog is short for weblog. It is a type of site that provides commentary or information about a particular subject. The content is displayed in reverse chronological order. Other forms of blogs include diaries and photoblogs. Some popular blogging platforms are WordPress and Blogger. A more comprehensive definition can be found at Wikipedia.

Below are some of the reasons your company needs a blog:

  1. Fresh content – Fresh and up-to-date content leads to a more successful website.
  2. Increase your traffic from search engines – Content is King. Google loves fresh content and original content written on a consistent basisy. Blogging software such as WordPress is very optimized for the search engines already.
  3. Get more sales – Plug your own products or services.
  4. Increase traffic to your website – Link to your website within posts while plugging your products or services. Don’t overdo it. The Google gods will strike down on you if you do it to frequently.
  5. Be known as an expert in your field – by writing posts (articles) about your interests in your field.
  6. Keep in touch and in front of your clients with RSS – If you write interesting posts and frequently enough, people will subscribe to your blog through RSS. RSS allows readers to have your posts sent to them via their RSS reader or email. RSS is usually built into the blog already. If not, install plug-ins such a feedburner feedsmith.
  7. Backlinks - Other bloggers and websites will link to your posts.
  8. Be sociable – Blogs such as WordPress have numerous plug-ins so you can link or display your social profiles from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more.
  9. Be more personable – Your company becomes humanized. By reading your posts, clients will get to know you better.
  10. Educate clients on your products or services – A how-to section will cut down on customer support or pre-sales questions.
  11. Announce new products and services – Keep customers informed.
  12. Company news – Keep customers up-to-date with happening in your company.
  13. Customer interaction – Customers can participate in your blog by leaving comments and questions.
  14. Free publicity – A newspaper may cover your business in a story because of #5 above.
  15. You can do it all without the help of a webmaster.

Filed Under: Business, Marketing, WordPress Tagged With: