If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Managing all your social media platforms is sometimes overwhelming. With a little help from web-based tools, this can be manageable and time-saving. See below for some of the tools available for managing your social media platforms. This is in no [...]
Selecting between Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t a case of measuring Return on Investment (ROI). There are big differences between the two approaches and the decision between either is reliant on different factors. There is a need to understand the differences before a last call is made on your [...]
1. Tell your company story. Though it may seem like simple advice, the story of why your company exists is a great place to start with a video. In contrast to the typically useless text on your company website’s about page, using a video gives you a chance to share the story of your business [...]
This is great for the new year because maybe it will get you thinking and doing!
Managing all your social media platforms is sometimes overwhelming. With a little help from web-based tools, this can be manageable and time-saving. See below for some of the tools available for managing your social media platforms. This is in no way a comprehensive list….it just give you an idea of what’s out there.
Ping.fm: Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap! It allows you to simultaneously update accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr through their web interface, text message, email or instant message.
HootSuite: According to them, they are the leading social media dashboard to manage and measure your social networks. This is a tool that allows you to manage multiple social media channels through one dashboard. If you have a company with more than one contributor to your social media program, HootSuite is a good solution.
TweetDeck: TweetDeck is an app that brings more flexibility and insight to power users. Like HootSuite, TweetDeck provides a way to track many of your social media channels on one dashboard. It can be a time-saver and a productivity- enhancer, assuming you’re not easily distracted.
Cotweet: Cotweethelps companies of all sizes engage customers, manage conversations, and report results across leading social networks like Twitter and Facebook. CoTweet is perfect for companies who have multiple people contributing to their social media campaigns. In addition to organizing and monitoring your Twitter and Facebook pages, it allows you to assign updates and social streams to members of your team based either on their expertise or who working at the time.
Seesmic: Seesmic connects you wherever you are. Keep up with all of your personal and professional networks, anywhere, anytime. Manage your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Ping.fm, and Foursquare accounts all from one simple interface. Whether you want to access your social networks from the web, a desktop application, or your mobile phone, Seesmic has a solution.
NutshellMail: Manage your Facebook Pages. Keep track of Likes, Posts, Comments, and Insights. Manage your personal Facebook profile too, with all your Facebook Birthdays, Photos, Friend Requests, Wall Posts, News Feed, Event & Group Invites, and Messages in one interactive email. This is by Constant Contact.
Sprout Social: Sprout Social will deliver relevant messages from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs & Articles, competitor insights, check-ins and more directly to your dashboard. Another organizing tool, Sprout Social manages multiple social networks from one dashboard, allowing you to optimize your outreach in each channel, identify people interested in your brand and convert them to loyal consumers.
PostRank: Tap into the intelligence of millions of online users active on the Social Web. PostRank delivers objective, real-time data and analysis on any topic, trend, or interest relevant to you or your business. Learn how you can use PostRank. PostRank, recently acquired by Google, has a dashboard that aggregates what is happening with all of your content across the web in a constantly updated feed. This way you can see what type of engagement your content is getting across different channels right as it happens.
If you don’t have time to manage your social media, even with these cool tools, JaxWorks SEO & Web can do it for you! See below and contact us for more info. These plans enhance and are part of the custom Facebook fan page we build for you, which start at $70.
Selecting between Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t a case of measuring Return on Investment (ROI). There are big differences between the two approaches and the decision between either is reliant on different factors. There is a need to understand the differences before a last call is made on your choice between the two or your use of both.
Many internet marketing experts who’ve used PPC advertising, worried by the ever growing value of PPC or stung by examples of click-fraud (click fraud is where your competitors continue 
to click your ads so you are charged and your budget is used up), are looking towards SEO as a substitute or alternative for their Pay-per-click efforts. Unfortunately, comparing Pay per click to SEO is like comparing an IBM AS 400 mainframe to an Apple Macbook Pro…there’s simply no comparison. They have distinct differences: they might be close in that both are PCs, but the differences outweigh the likenesses. Selecting between Pay per click and SEO isn’t a case of tossing a coin. It’s better to have to have a real understanding of each approach and the way to measure the ROI of each before reaching a decision.
The key to Pay per click selling is to think about it in a rather similar way as ‘conventional’ advertising: the money you pay out ends up in the ‘display’ of your ad for a particular period. The instant you stop paying, your advertisements will be removed. Results for Pay-per-click advertising are instant and quantifiable because you begin to get results inside a few days of your ad being posted on the search website page and much of the time , folks stop visiting your website the instant your ad is removed.
A search engine optimization campaign, alternatively, can have an outlined start and end point (outlined by the details of the contract made between you and an SEO company), but the results can last outside the contract’s termination date just because the measures implemented are, to a great extent, “permanent.” Think about an SEO effort as your classic brick-and-mortar conglomerate…you have the place and the goods and the SEO company paints the building, sets up window displays, puts your products on view, and then waits for the buyers to come in.
If your SEO team did the job correctly, folks will ‘wander’ in. You can choose to let your SEO group go after a year and leave everything as is, but folks will still drop by for awhile because their attention will continue to be called by your site’s window displays, exterior painting, merchandising display, or word-of-mouth. Eventually, your site will drop down in the rankings and will no longer be on the first page, but that can take a few months.
From this viewpoint, it isn’t necessarily a case of ‘choosing’ between Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization. There are express conditions where one is better than the other, either temporarily or permanently. For instance, if you want fast results, then Pay per click is the right way to go. If you want long-lasting results that take longer to achieve, then SEO should be your choice. Another option is to use PPC until your SEO company’s organic SEO efforts are making you rank on the first page and then drop the PPC.
There are hundreds of thousands of websites out there and if you want to be found for your product or service, SEO or PPC is the way to help others find you. Hopefully, you can now make a better choice of which way to go.
If you liked this article, please share below, and good luck on your internet marketing campaign!
1. Tell your company story.
Though it may seem like simple advice, the story of why your company exists is a great place to start with a video. In contrast to the typically useless text on your company website’s about page, using a video gives you a chance to share the story of your business with authenticity and can also be a great way to introduce new customers as well as new employees to your business.
2. Show your products or services in action.
Depending on your business, video can be great as a way to demo your products and show a potential customer what the experience would be like. Another great way to use this type of video is to focus on answering some of the most common questions you get from customers and potential customers. Pointing them to a video can be a great way to save yourself some time and also offer value to a customer.
3. Get a customer testimonial.
Anytime you see a suggestion like this, it almost always sounds easier than it is in real life. Asking your customers to record a testimonial doesn’t have to be awkward, though. The key is to make it feel more like an interview than a scripted message. That means building three or four good questions to ask your customer, such as what the project was and how they evaluated who to work with and chose you. Then ask the ultimate question of whether they would recommend you to a friend or colleague and why — you’ll probably get pretty close to 60 seconds already.
4. Show your location.
If you are a business with a retail destination, showing your location can have a great impact to help customers to learn more about your business and even find it more easily if they happen to be headed your way.
5. Animate your Powerpoint.
Aside from the video that you create by shooting footage, there are now a host of sites like Animoto that can help you create a video out of your powerpoint presentations. This can be a great way to take content that you already have and make it more interactive and compelling for customers to engage with — without a huge amount of additional work.
There you are…five fast and easy ways to marketing your business. Share this with your friends and get busy!
This is great for the new year because maybe it will get you thinking and doing!
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This is just a introduction but I am going to be doing a series of posts on how to market your business with video. Not only will this help with marketing your business, but it will help with search engine optimization of your website as well. Hope you enjoy it and be sure you share us below!
In the last several years that I have been working in the search engine optimization industry (SEO), I have been fortunate enough to come into contact with many small business owners looking to build a brand on the Web. Small businesses are not web marketing experts and therefore tend to make mistakes on their website SEO, soooo….
Here are six common SEO mistakes many small businesses make—and that you should avoid.
1. Building a site on a free subdomain or social media site
As a website accumulates inbound links, it begins to rank better within the search engines. When you build your site on a free subdomain, you risk that if you ever choose to move your website (and there are numerous reasons that you may decide to do so), you will lose credit for all of the links aimed at your “free subdomain” website.
Why? Because most free subdomain providers don’t allow you to to “tell” a search engine your site has moved without having to start over again from square one with your search engine rankings. Also, all the SEO is going to, say, WordPress, rather than your site. Same goes for using a social website, such as a Facebook page…this shouldn’t be your ONLY online presence!
2. Duplicate or non-descriptive title tags
The Title Tag attribute is largely agreed in the SEO community to be one of the most important “on page” aspects of SEO for each page of your website. Simply stated, the Title Tag attribute tells the search engine what your page is about. Many small business owners make the mistake of making their homepage Title Tag attribute merely contain something generic like “Home,” which does little to tell the search engines what your website is about—and therefore what words and phrases they should be ranking it for.
Additionally, many small business owners often use the same exact Title Tag attribute on every page of the site. Each page should have its own individual title describing the content on that specific page.
3. Building primarily flash-based websites
It used to be that search engines couldn’t index the content on Flash sites—period. Flash optimization has come a long way since then, but if you think regular SEO is tough, then Flash based SEO techniques will seem like rocket science. While having Flash based components isn’t a problem (such as a flash banner rotating images of your products), most small business owners would be better off avoiding heavy use of Flash, unless they also have the budget to bring in Flash SEO professionals to ensure the search engines can read it.
4. Using “splash” pages as homepages
We’ve all been to that website that has the very sexy graphic or Flash animation on its homepage that users need to click to enter the “real” website. Not only is this bad from a usability perspective (these pages confuse some people and they simply leave the website) but it’s also bad from an SEO perspective, for a couple of reasons.
Everything we’ve discussed above has been related to “on page” search engine optimization efforts. But not everything you can do for your site SEO-wise actually happens ON your website. SEO also involves “off page” factors. Below, we’ll discuss two that small business websites typically ignore.
5. Not optimizing local listing pages on popular local sites
Twenty percent of all Google searches are local in nature. And lately, Google Places is showing up at the top of the search results for more and more of those search queries. If you want to be found for locally based searches on Google, claiming and optimizing your Google Places listing is vital.
Additionally, Google pulls data from many other websites and it’s believed that they take that data (mainly reviews) into account when ranking your Places page within the Google Places results. This means that claiming and monitoring your listings (and getting good reviews) on sites like Yelp, CitySearchs and others is important to your SEO efforts.
6. Doing nothing on the “link building” front
Links are still widely believed to be the single most important “off page” SEO factor. Simply put, without links from other websites, your site won’t rank. The more competitive your niche? The more links you will need to get.
Unfortunately, many small business owners put their sites up and completely ignore the inbound link building process afterward. While link building can often be confusing to some small business owners, and it can definitely be time consuming, there is no doubt that if your goal is to improve your search engine rankings, you absolutely need inbound links.
Luckily, many folks in the SEO industry share their link building knowledge on a regular basis.
If you have any questions about this post or SEO in general, comment below! Also, share us with your friends.
The above is partially quoted from American Express Open Forum.
James Cooper of All Service Striping gave a presentation the other day that showed everyone present that All Service Striping does more than just stripe parking lots. They were hired by the Woodlands Township to help spruce up the sidewalks and signs in The Woodlands. They were hired by St. Luke’s Hospital to repair and clean their parking garage. All Service Striping call also provide maintenance, pressure washing, sidewalk repair, concrete repair, parking lot repair, and other services to park and recreation centers, municipalities, and hospitals.
Other services offered by All Service Striping are tennis court repair and coatings, seal coatings, roof coatings, and other special coatings required for commercial properties.
James feels he is a consultant to maintenance people, facility manager, property managers, and chief engineers, which is a new approach for someone in this type of business. He can put together a long-term plan for repair and maintenance and make it affordable.
Call All Service Striping today at 713-254-2907 or email james@allservicestriping.com for any of your commercial maintenance needs. Tell him I sent ya!
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Motorcycle detailing is difficult to find, but is a specialty of The Connection. The Connection can make exposed motor detailing, chrome and nickel plating restoration, and other motorcycle-specifics will look better than new.
Call us today and we will come to your home to speak with you about your vehicle at no charge, and explain how we can make your car or motorcycle look better than new, inside and out.
Every Web marketing campaign should have at its base certain elements that must be present in order for the campaign to be effective. In this article we’ll cover seven such Web marketing strategies that help get you on the map for no cost other than time and effort. They are by no means a complete solution to Web marketing, but they form a solid foundation and will add more value to your campaign than most other strategies you could use.
Make sure that the content on each page of our website is keyword rich. Search engines watch for keywords within the page and use them as a ranking factor. When you create pages on your site, be sure to name the pages by using keywords so that the full URL of each page contains keywords. For example: www.jax-works.com/1234.html is not a good page name because it doesn’t contain keywords. However, www.jax-works.com/search -engine-optimization-the-woodlands.html is much stronger because search engines see the relevant phrase right there in the Web address of the page.
Put the free button from www.addthis.com on every page of your site. This button invites your website visitors to bookmark your site on any of over 300 social bookmarking services, “Like” you on Facebook, or re-tweet your URL on their Twitter account. Each time they do, it creates an inbound link to your site that search engines value highly.
If you have products to sell, submit a data feed of your products to the good free comparison shopping engines on the web. This takes some time and effort to figure out and set up, but it is one of the best sources of free traffic out there. It’s also one of the fastest ways to get your products listed in the shopping results section of search engines. Here are a few such shopping engines.
There are hundreds of free Web directories to which you can submit your site for a free listing. These directories usually list your site with a link. The more of these back-links you can build, the higher search engines will rank your website. For a list of these directories, do a Google search using the phrase “list of web directories”. You’ll find sites that maintain lists of these free directories. Submitting to these directories takes about two minutes each and is a great way to build links to your site.
Set up social media accounts with links to your site. Here are some basics.
• Facebook – Create a fan page for your company, with links to your site in the Info tab, and
occasional links in wall posts.
• Twitter – Create a Twitter account with a link to your site in the profile. Include your URL
occasionally in relevant and useful tweets.
• YouTube – Create a YouTube channel with a link to your site in the profile. Link to your site in the
descriptions of videos you post.
• LinkedIn – Set up a LinkedIn page for your company with links to your site.
Work existing relationships to see if there are ways to get incoming links to your website. These can include trade associations (including the BBB, and Chamber of Commerce), partners, investors, vendors, sister companies, parent companies, friends, and more. You might even know board members or employees who run blogs and might be willing to drop a link to you.
Google and other search engines like to see websites that are thoroughly cross-linked internally. The more links you have from the front page to other pages in your site, the more authority Google will assign those pages. Look for more ways to put more links from page to page within your site. Especially focus this effort on the front page.
There are dozens of things you still need to do to promote your website properly. However, most of what remains takes specialized skills to execute well. If you have an interest in learning more about these additional strategies, please contact us using the request form at www.jax-works.com/contact-jax-works.html, email me at Yvonne@jax-works.com, or call 832-889-9242 for a free, no-obligation consultation on your website and a free website report.
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This post was originally posted on Crexendo.
