Author: Eric Brantner

Online Content Writer 

Businesses that purchase online marketing services want to know how their campaign is performing. They are spending money on a service, and they want to know how it is benefiting them. Typically, the search marketer will come up with some stats on rankings, conversions, and sales generated. However, not everything is black and white. For instance, social networking has many potential benefits that are difficult to measure.  

• Branding- One important benefit of social networking is that it allows you to establish your brand online. Branding is crucial for small businesses that want to be successful because people tend to buy products from companies they recognize and trust. If you create a consistent image and theme throughout the social networks, other people will begin to associate you with that image. That’s why it is so important to pick one avatar and stick with it. Nike doesn’t change their logo on each shoe, and you shouldn’t change your avatar on each network.

 

• Word of Mouth- Since social networks are, well, social, businesses can use this interaction to their advantage. If you have a good presence on these networks, word will spread between users, and you can generate sales this way. This isn’t the easiest statistic to track because you don’t always know if a customer learned about you as a result of social networking. A lot of times, customers may not even remember where they first heard about a company. It could have been in passing from a friend online or not, but they know your company and that’s the important thing.

                                                           

       Don’t understimate the importance of word of mouth

 

• Reputation Management- Your online reputation is very important; especially if you are a smaller company that is trying to establish trust. Social networks give you a platform for creating a strong reputation for your brand. It gives potential customers deeper insight into who you are, and that can create trust. These networks also give you the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. By updating regularly with informative content and interacting with the community, people will begin to respect what you say.

 

• New Ideas- Being a part of an online community gives members the opportunity to learn from one another. You can see what other people are doing to promote themselves, and you are able to determine which techniques are successful and which ones fall flat. You also have direct access to the potential customer’s mind so you can take suggestions from them to create a business that better meets their demands.

It is important to remember that not all benefits are tangible. In fact, many times it is the intangibles that make up a decent portion of your bottom line.

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Author: April Hall

Internet Copywriter

Let’s face it. Nobody likes a bully. Who enjoys working with other professionals who make them feel as if they don’t know anything and would be better off to leave the ideas to the “big guys”? This is never more true than in the world of internet marketing, where it is easy for novices to feel like they will never learn all there is to learn about search engine marketing, point per click campaigns, search engine results pages and site “crawlers”. But, the fact of the matter is that bullies in internet marketing are no different than those who used to troll your elementary school playground; and they deserve the same treatment: calm confrontation and smooth self-confidence.

Before you swagger over to your internet marketing company and demand that they listen to your ideas, make sure you have taken at least some of the following advice:

1. Gather a working knowledge of how internet marketing works. You don’t have to be an expert in search engine optimization or a certified computer programmer, but you really should take the time to learn the basics about internet marketing if you have decided to make it a part of your overall marketing strategy. Learn what keywords are, how they are chosen, and how search engines work–you can then approach your internet marketing company with some degree of confidence.
2. Give your marketers a list of keywords you want the content to focus on. Yes, you can do this. Using the Google Adwords Tool, come up with your own list of important keywords. No one knows better than you which products and services your company provides best, and it is actually easier for the content writers if they know the direction you want the content to go.
3. Check your site regularly. Make yourself a frequent visitor to your own website, checking to make sure everything works properly and content is updated in a satisfactory manner. Of course, you don’t want to be constantly playing a game of “gotcha!” with your web company; but you do want to stay up to date with the work that has been done.
4. Remember-you hire them. Ultimately, you hired this web development company; so if they don’t seem to be listening to your ideas, or they make you feel uncomfortable for bringing things up, take your business elsewhere. You aren’t that wimpy second-grader anymore–you are a professional adult who deserves to be treated respectfully. So (symbolically) wipe the floor with a rude web development company and find one that consistently gives your business the service it deserves.

Of course, the best way to avoid having to deal with a bully–both on the playground and in the boardroom–is to choose your friends and acquaintances carefully. Don’t sign a contract with a company that shows any initial signs of being hard to work with. Go ahead and ask for references-and actually contact those references! Ask if they company values client input and ideas, and be sure to ask to see proof that the web development company is successful.

It may be hard to get out of a contract once you have signed one, so make sure you want to have a relationship with the company before you sign on that dotted line. I mean, really, how easy was it for that little kid to stop giving the mean ol’ bully his lunch money in all of those after school specials we watched when we were younger? The easiest way to stop a bully is to take yourself (and your business) and walk away.

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Author: April Hall

Internet Copywriter

Ahh, choices… Turn on the television, open a web browser, or settle down with a newspaper and you are immediately inundated with choices for the next President of the United States. Which of these fine, upstanding individuals would make the best Leader of the Free World? (And yes, Stephen Colbert is still an option, in my book.):

With all of the talk about the Presidential election and what makes a good leader, I have been asking myself exactly what it is that I want out of a President. The fact of the matter is that I don’t expect perfection; I just want someone of good character who will tell me the truth. Someone who will provide our country with security, good economic policies that work for all of us, and forward thinking. And then I realized, I basically expect the the same service out of my web development company.

Security

Most voters rank security high up on their list of why they choose one candidate over another. Nobody wants to elect somebody who is weak on protecting our nation and who will not know how to handle a security crisis. By the same token, I want a web development company that has firm security policies and who has expert network security staff members on hand. This is particularly true when it comes to eCommerce; because customers will be trusting their personal and financial information to the company, I definitely am not looking for someone soft on crime. Perhaps someone between the policies of Dennis Kucinich and Rudy Guiliani is ideal..
Good Economic Policies

Whether voters are liberal or conservative, everyone would like a President who is working for their family’s economic interests. Times of recession (such as now) are filled with much more anxiety than good economic periods, and every candidate tries to run on their own promises of bringing the “good times” back to our country. Pledges to drive up the value of the dollar, lower the price of fuel and increase the number of jobs are more plentiful during election years than flag pins. The trick is to see through the haze of those pledges to the truth of what each candidate is offering.

Web development companies do the same thing. They promise you high search engine rankings and skyrocketing profits through little or no work of your own. Flashy advertisements fill browsers as web development professionals tout their ability to increase your profits and drive down your bottom line. Who wouldn’t trust a company that offers all this:

It takes a savvy consumer to see through the Mike Gravels of this industry and figure out how much work internet marketing truly is.

Forward Thinking

We all want to provide a better world for our children than what we are experiencing now. Through environmental policies, diplomatic relations and technology advancements, we hope that generations after us will appreciate all that we sacrificed for them. A good Presidential candidate needs to put forward a strong vision for where he or she wants to take our country.

Likewise, a web development company needs to be willing to sit down with their clients and discuss a joint vision for their internet marketing campaign. How much of an internet presence do they want to be? Do they want to eventually start an eCommerce option on their site? What about a business blog? A basic starter site is fine for the beginning of the project, but does the client really want to stay that small? A vision can look like the libertarian state of Ron Paul or the ambivalent, poverty-free nation envisioned by John Edwards, every company should have some firm goals for the futures of their clients.
Decision time for all: Time to pick a President who really will deliver on promises. Wading through the muck is sometimes hard as we all try to figure out what it is each candidate offers. But, in the end, it’s worth it if we find the one leader who is ready to build our nation into a beacon of hope for the world. Maybe the end result of finding the right web development company isn’t nearly as lofty; but it is important to the company who is looking to turn its own fortunes around through internet marketing!

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Author: April Hall

Internet Copywriter

Warning: This Post is Embarrasingly Simple; Seasoned SEO’s May Wish to Turn Away or Laugh
Okay, so I consider myself a professional writer. After giving up my English teaching career more than a year ago for a career in copywriting, I worked hard to learn the ins and outs of internet content. I learned (admittedly mostly through trial and error) what keywords were, how they can help the site make it to the top of the search engine results page, and how many keywords should be used on a given web page. Not to brag, but after a few months of doing the work full-time, I felt very competent as an internet writer after a few months, and even had the freelance gigs to prove it.

I was working, making money, and churning out pages of quality internet content every day. Pretty soon, I had a full time job with one company and was feeling great about my new career as an internet copywriter. A few months ago, however, I was hit by the cold hard truth: I was no internet guru! I was an amateur-no better than a copywriter robot who could produce good copy, but had no real understanding of keywords and how to choose them… (It was a time of real depression around my house, let me tell you.)

You see, up until that point, I was simply given the keywords chosen for any particular site and asked to produce content that worked around those words. I could do this easily and fairly quickly, and my content was good (if I do say so myself). About this time, there was a change in personnel at my company; and soon, I was asked to come up with my own keywords for web pages prior to writing them. Again, I was chugging along just fine by using the keyword research already done by other members of our firm until I came across some sites that had no keyword research completed! What? How could that be? I am a copywriter, not a search engine optimizer! This was too much to ask! It couldn’t be done! And then, my patient (and surprisingly understanding) writer coordinator graciously pointed me to the mecca of keyword research: the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

If you are a professional copywriter and have never heard of this tool, then you are as out of it as I was. (Or, more likely, you have been fortunate enough to have worked for a company with a staff large enough to have an SEO who coordinates this for you!) If you are a business owner who is designing your webpage yourself, Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a miracle tool.
The easiest option from there is to type in the URL of the page you are adding content to, and request some keywords suggestions. Google will then give you a list of suggested keywords. Of course, if you can, it is best to use more than one keyword; and maintaining a good level of keyword density is vital. (Optimum keyword density is a topic for another post!) Otherwise, you have some pretty good keyword research right there, and it only take a second or two. You really have no excuse for not being able to begin the optimization process right from the very beginning.

Now that I have gotten the truth of my incompetence off of my chest, I actually feel pretty good. I think I’m ready to begin learning more about Search Engine Optimization, which is really the next logical step. It feels weird to say that, since I’ve spent a year working in this industry; but the truth of the matter is working within the system, and actually understanding how the system works, are two separate things.

Experienced SEO Professionals: It’s Now Okay to Look, or at Least to Stop Laughing

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Author: Conrad Salvador

Web Copywriter

Social networking marketers have long been vying for an answer to all of their wrong password woes. With social networks popping up everywhere you look, so has the need for easy accessibility amongst multiple platforms. All this is about to change, because the age of data portability is now upon us.

MySpace, Facebook, and Google have all recently tossed their hat into the data portability ring with each one trying to outdo each other and looking to come out the victor.

Just last Thursday, My Space launched the “Data Availability” initiative, which allows users to share their profile information with the websites of their choosing around the web. MySpace users will be able to share content like profile information, friends, photos, and videos. Here is an example of how the data sharing will look like when applied in Twitter:

The very next day in a well-timed announcement, Facebook spoke of their own version of data availability dubbed “Facebook Connect”. It will offer the same services as its competitors, but boasts of a more trusted authentication process for users. How convenient is it that this pre-release announcement came out right before the launch of Google’s own offering confusingly titled “Friend Connect”.

A preview release of Google Friend Connect was launched just last night, which placed you on a waiting list for the services. Friend Connect claims to offer something that the others do not, which is the ability to turn any website into a social network. Website owners will be able to generate traffic by enabling their site to provide social features for all its visitors.

Here is a video introduction of how it all works:

It is still too early to predict who will win the data portability wars, but one thing is for certain. Social networking marketing is about to get a lot easier in the future. The arduous process of creating several profiles across multiple platforms will no longer be a difficult task. I’m curious to see how everything will turn out, stay tuned for more information………

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Author: April Hall

Internet Copywriter

Last week, Eric posted an excellent entry on the benefits of incorporating controversy into your internet content. Whether you have an interactive blog or a traditional website, using a bit of controversy is a great way to spur conversation and draw visitors to your website. It is easy to see how useful controversy can be–just look at how many comments Eric’s blog has received over the past few days! If controversy is so great for business, why not add more than a trickle to your blog or site? Why not go ahead and pour a deluge of debate into your web content?

The reason you need to be cautious when adding controversy to your web content is simple: too much can result in the exact opposite of what you are trying to achieve. It is fine to mention a timely controversy in a blog, and even to state (in somewhat strong terms) how you feel about the situation. It may even be appropriate to go into detail about how the given situation is affecting your business, your community,or even the greater society. However, you must keep your audience in mind as you are incorporating controversy into your web content. Language that becomes too harsh and concrete can turn your readers off and cause them to form a negative opinion of the writer (in this case, you!).

How can you encourage controversy while remaining diplomatic?

1. Be sure to encourage dissenting ideas and rebuttal comments. You can say almost anything if you preface it with a statement such as, “This is just my opinion” and end it with “What do you think?” As with any blog entry, interacting with your readers in the comments section will let them know you value what they think and respect their ideas.
2. Keep your audience in mind. If you have a business blog that is focused on a particular industry, it is probably inappropriate to rant and rave for an entire page on the pitfalls of religion, the decline of social society or any other hot-button topic that is only tangentially related to your blog. Your readers likely come to your blog to learn from you about your business; they go other places for social commentary!
3. Choose your controversy carefully. If you know that there is an extremely sensitive subject related to your industry (such as universal healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry), be very careful how you approach it. Being too opinionated can cause loyal readers to immediately check out; costing you potential profits for the sake of personal satisfaction. Remember, in the end your blog is about internet marketing more than anything else!

While internet content writers have begun to recognize the growing supremacy of King Controversy, there remains the need to recognize the steady presence of Diplomat Moderation. Just as with any sales, understanding your role as an Ambassador for your business means that you must sometimes place your audience’s needs and feelings above your own need to express your opinion. Who knew that SEO internet marketing is almost as much about civics that it is about business?

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