Archive for October, 2009

Houston Internet Advertising

Houston Internet advertising is benefiting companies all across Houston and beyond when they contact Directory One at (800) 477-1324 to receive a comprehensive website analysis and learn from the top Internet advertising company in Houston exactly what is necessary to drive the largest possible number of clients to their business website.

Latest Internet Advertising News Today!

Exciting news for businesses that include Internet advertising in their business marketing plan has just come out. Both Google and Microsoft have agreed to begin adding Twitter feeds to their search engine results. Now, in addition to the extra linking benefits from this social media marketing outlet, Tweets will now be showing up in the Google and Bing search engine results.

This add tremendous value to those who participate in a diversified business marketing plan through Directory One which includes social media marketing. We at the Directory One Search Engine Marketing firm are constantly staying on top of the latest and greatest opportunities for keeping all of our clientele on the top of search engine result listings for their targeted customer audience.

Houston Internet Advertising Firm

For over 20 years we have continued to work hard to ensure that we do not miss any opportunities to help businesses grow and succeed. That’s what we do and we love it! It is always exciting to watch our clients move up the list and to hear the feedback of the increased number of leads that are generated from the telephone calls our clients receive because of not only our Houston Internet advertising methods, but also from the call to action web content that our professional Internet writers create.

We keep websites active as the Google trend has moved more and more toward favoring the latest information posted on-line.

We work with businesses that receive nearly 100% of their business through their company websites. We design, build, optimize and promote websites for corporations, small businesses and organizations that enjoy the benefits of maximum exposure in the Internet marketplace.

Give our SEO experts a call at (800) 477-1324 and enjoy the opportunities that will arise for you to celebrate as your business increases and your business phones keep ringing with new sales leads!

Hiring Directory One to work for your business is like hiring a new and powerful sales force that is consistently current on all of the latest and greatest ways to build your clientele. Get Directory One’s help with your Houston Internet advertising and let your website generate leads for sales that you can close the deal on by providing your excellent products and services.

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Video Advertising - Internet Advertising

Video advertising is an excellent tool in Internet advertising.  Call Directory One at (800) 477-1324 to discuss the many options that are available in video advertising and Internet advertising for your company today!

There are a lot of marketing benefits for companies that choose to utilize video advertising. At Directory One we have an excellent studio and live film crew for creating television commercials, promotional and marketing videos and green screen scenes, and streaming video for the Internet.

We also supply high quality videos for corporate training purposes and more.

Video Marketing Benefits

Video marketing is especially powerful because a large portion of the population are attracted to visual and auditory learning methods.

Video advertising appears in the search engine results listings, often toward the top of the organic search results, when Internet searchers type in key words and key phrases.

When you utilize video marketing as part of your Internet advertising plan, your company is displayed as being a step above the rest of your competition. Video advertising will also create an expert appearance for your company.

All marketing experts understand that trust is a huge part of actually closing a sale. Putting yourself, your employees or your product into a visual format with video marketing  as a portion of your Internet advertising strategy, instills confidence and trust in your potential customers, which can help to seal the deal.

You can even duplicate your written content by putting it into video and it will not be considered to be duplicate content in the search engines.

Internet Advertising Firm

Your best choice for video advertising is the Internet advertising firm, Directory One.  Call today at (800) 477-1324 to schedule an appointment to view our studio.  We are the affordable alternative in television commercials. Our highly trained staff has a reputation for excellence that we are proud of.

Call today and speak to the Internet advertising experts ready to answer any of your many questions regarding video advertising, Internet marketing and more. Your business can grow. We will show you how!

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One of the most difficult obstacles for businesses wading into the social media waters is the ever-shifting nature of the platforms. Whether it’s an entirely new ( and suddenly popular) platform that you must adapt to — or a major change to an existing platform — it seems like nothing is ever static for long in the world of social networks.

Case-in-point is Facebook’s  announcement that it will be changing how its “Group” feature functions. Facebook groups used to be incredibly useful tools for businesses to promote upcoming events or even themselves. With the advent of the Facebook Business Page (or Fan Page;)  it appeared the social network wanted to shift groups to the background in order to monetize and maximize the use of Facebook pages for business.  As the news feed evolved — Groups were kept off of the real-time feed. This handicapped their ability to spread rapidly.

Now Facebook is putting Groups on the newsfeed — though word is they will limit a group’s appearance on the feeds to only those comments or postings that are made by an individual’s friends. This is still a potentially big development. Facebook Fan Pages are great tools — but one thing that always made groups better for getting the word out quickly was the ability of an admin to invite large groups of people to a group. The spread of pages is unfortunately limited to a slower style of virtual-word-of-mouth.  If groups retain this feature while also joining pages and profiles on the newsfeed — it might be well worth the effort to create a group page as well for your business. Actually — it might make sense to create multiple groups to cater to multiple campaigns.

To learn more about the use of Groups vs. Pages and Profiles on Facebook; contact a Houston social media marketing company today. You can also contact me at @SMMJenn on Twitter or by emailing me at jenn@newnectar.com.

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Social Media Creates Opportunities & Efficiencies for Small Business

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Online Press Release Benefits

Online press release benefits are numerous.  In addition to getting the word out in an equally professional and effective manner as their traditional print counterparts, online press releases are actually more helpful to your business growth than former styles of press releases have been to companies in the past.

Call Directory One today at (800) 477-1324 for further press release and website content details.

Online press releases receive instant circulation.  Immediately upon posting, your press release is distributed to a variety of media markets and is even picked up by additional websites and news reporters as time progresses.

Benefits of Press Releases

Press releases let your customer base know about the latest news about your company or organization.  They provide interesting tidbits of data that helps bring your business to your client’s minds above the competition.

When you use an online press release service, such as Directory One, you will not only discover that your distribution is better than that which a mere print press release could provide, but also will find that your on-line press release is an excellent search engine optimization tool.

Press releases are also one of the fastest ways that you can get your business message in front of the targeted segment of the public audience to most efficiently increase sales.

Optimized Press Release

At Directory One, our experienced writers will provide you with an optimized press release that will show up at the top of Internet search engine results as your clients utilize key term phrases when they are searching on their computer or through their mobile web services.

As any PR training will describe, press releases are a valuable part of any business marketing plan.  At Directory One, we are the top provider of press releases for Houston businesses. 

When you use the press release services at Directory One, not only are you reaching the largest audience possible, but you are also increasing the credibility of your own website through back-links and by increased website visits as a result.  Your business website reputation is significantly enhanced and the benefits of this are numerous.

Call Directory One today at (800) 477-1324 to experience the online press release benefits that you only need telephone us to begin to receive.

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In previous blogs, we’ve talked about ways to use Social Media to interact directly with potential clients. I’ve shared how Facebook Advertising can get your message in front of potential customers for very little cost ; and how a Facebook Business page can grow your business – but today I’d like to talk about some ‘alternative’ uses for social media. Many of these examples are platforms (such as YouTube) that can be used for more traditional social media marketing uses — but I’ll also introduce you to several unique platforms that allow you to collaborate with business partners and work more efficiently.

Social Media Tools for Collaboration

Social media creates great possibilities for real-time collaboration. You are likely already familiar with Google Docs – which allow you to share documents with your colleagues for instant revision, editing, and general collaboration. You may not be aware of other tools that allow you to collaborate via wikis. You’ve probably heard the term “wiki” before in reference to “wikipedia.”  Imagine a private “wikipedia” of information on your clients, services, ideas, etc… pretty neat, eh?

A wiki can be part of your internal site, but that requires you work with your website developer or IT guy. This may be a solution for you , but you might want to experiment with external wikis first to see if they are a good fit for your collaborative needs.  Online, hosted wiki sites allow you to create and edit multiple wikis on so-called “wiki-farms.” These external wikis, like an internal wiki platform, can be as private as you like.

Why is this helpful for small business?

Wikis allow you to centralize and grow information related to a specific topic. Say you have a new business idea – you can create a wiki and allow your partner to edit it. On the other hand, perhaps you’d like to create a wiki about your competition. You can share information and knowledge within the wiki – and attach links and files as well. Wikis can either be public or private (even if they exist on a wiki-farm) so you can keep some information close-to-your-chest and share other types of information with potential clients, customers, or partners.

Example sites include Wikispaces & Wikia

Social Media Allows You to Manage Your Clients and Your Time

Several social sites have sprung up to allow you to manage your clients. A new one that is garnering a lot of attention is BookFresh. Bookfresh allows you to manage your client appointments online – and to access that information via a smart phone when you’re away from your computer. More than just a calendar, BookFresh allows your clients to actually schedule appoints (and be reminded of them,) online.

Another time management tool is Remember the Milk, a site which allows you to not only create tasks online for yourself – but to share them with other people on your team.

Why is this helpful for small business?

The interactive nature of these tools makes them superior to say, a calendar application on your iphone. In addition, these products are either free (Remember the Milk) or low-cost alternatives to expensive software solutions.

Example Sites: BookFresh, Remember the Milk, Ta-Da List

Social Media Can Help You Train Employees & Clients

Media sharing sites can be great for marketing – but they can also be a great way to share training information or to make a pitch to your client. This can be done either in video form (and then post to a video sharing site)— or you can use powerpoint to create a slideshow (and then upload it online for viewing and embedding.)

Why is this helpful for small business?

Product demonstration or detailed instructions can often best be conveyed via video or a Powerpoint with animation or additional text. While these products can certainly be emailed – posting them online creates ease of access and it creates opportunities for comments, feedback, and even SEO.

Example sites: YouTube is the preeminent video sharing site. Videos from YouTube can also easily be embedded in websites and blogs and shared on other social media platforms. Slideshare is a great platform that allows you to upload Powerpoints and other documents – and as an added bonus, it is integrated well with Facebook via a special application.

Simple social media solutions can help your business become more effective and efficient. For more information on how to utilize social media to help your business grow, contact a Houston social media marketing company today.

Questions about this or other social media marketing topics? Use the comment section below, email me at jenn@directory.com , or go all SMM on me and contact me @SMMjenn on Twitter ; and I’ll do my best to address your question in an upcoming blog. You can also consult Directory One today at 713.465.0051

Read More:

Social Media Marketing: Follow the Money

Social Media Marketing: It Starts at Home

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SEO : Strong Internal Link Structure Is Critical

Search engine optimization involves a great number of details.  One of these details is an internal link structure, which is a multi-faceted topic.  Some would like to sell the concept that you only have to know a couple of things and you’ll be good to go.  Believing these tales is a great way to be left behind in the Internet marketplace. 

Call Directory One at (800) 477-1324 today to learn more about the many methods and benefits of utilizing an SEO company to make sure that these many details are not missed and your competition is not benefiting from your choice to listen  to those who would downplay the importance of a detailed SEO methodology.

Internal Links Affect Website Credibility

One thing you will discover if you ever do much link analysis of various websites is that search engines receive data on the number of links that a website contains. 

In the process of a link analysis, you will discover that some of the links that are counted in strength for credibility for certain websites are actually internal links from one page of a website to another. 

Another benefit of having strong internal links is the SEO effect of activity.  When the consumer public is reading one of your web pages and they see a link on that page, there is a probability that they will click on that link and thereby increase the external activity that is occurring with your website.  Increased user activity is noticed by the search engines and add credibility to your website.

Part of getting people to click on those links also ties in with the methods of adding credibility to your website through another SEO method of targeted Internet marketing and key term power.

Search Engine Optimization

A strong internal link structure is critical for your search engine optimization plan for a variety of reasons, including those listed above.  It is unfortunate that there are so many companies and individuals marketing themselves as SEO experts out on the world wide web that publishes a great deal of inaccurate information in an effort to mislead everyone who would perhaps compete with their company.

At Directory One, we are an integrity-based SEO companythat is not concerned with playing the misleading game in order to attempt to boost our own credibility. We have kept our business going by applying good, effective optimization techniques that help our customer’s business grow.

We educate and communicate openly with our clientele.  We create a unique marketing SEO strategy for each business that we work with.  Contact Directory One today at (800) 477-1324 to learn more about SEO and how a strong internal link structure is critical, as well as to have any other search engine optimization questions answered.

With over 20 years in the industry, Directory One is the company to call today!  Find out many more details about how to create truly strong internal links within your website that will build your business credibility in search engines.

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