BlogsData Wave, Specializing in opensource content management solutions, web design, and seo marketing solutionshttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs2010-09-07T14:30:08ZJoomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content ManagementSocial Media Marketing2009-09-04T18:53:55Z2009-09-04T18:53:55Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/88-social-media-marketingDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<div class="plaintext" style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: small">
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">With the growth of social media technologies on the Web, more and more companies are starting to think about their presence in the social media environment. For a startup company, getting listed on the front page of Digg.com can offer instant credibility and drive additional visitor traffic. It can also significantly increase an established company's brand recognition.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Rohit Bhargava was the first person to give a name to the phenomena of interacting with the online community and bringing online traffic from social media sources. Rohit outlined <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">5 Rules of Social Media Optimization</a>:</p>
<ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px">
<li>Increase your linkability</li>
<li>Make tagging and bookmarking easy</li>
<li>Reward inbound links</li>
<li>Help your content travel</li>
<li>Incourage the mashup</li>
</ol>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Further along the line, other blog activists complement these rules . The rules turned into a variety of methods referred to either as Social Media Optimization (SMO) or Social Media Marketing (SMM). Thus, writing quality content and distributing it on the Web is more about marketing than optimizing, so further investigation and improving the terminology is required.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Marketing</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px"><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing" style="COLOR: #999999">Wikipedia</a> defines Social media marketing as "the process of promoting a site, business, or brand through social media channels by engaging and interacting with existing consumers or potential consumers."<br />Social media channels may include blogging systems, social bookmarking sites, photo and video sharing sites and other technologies that support social interaction on the Web.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Being an Internet-based methodology, social media marketing is tied closely to non-Internet based methodologies such as offline word of mouth advertising. The commonality between the two lies in the viral marketing approach and establishing engaging relationships with the community. <br />The difference lies in the medium in which the methods are applied: with social media marketing, word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social networks and websites.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">SMM offers methods such as creating compelling content (aka linkbait) and publishing it on your blog or a blog syndication website, posting viral videos or pictures on content-sharing sites, posting details of your event on social events sites, etc.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">In fact, social media marketing turns out to be another solution for your website promotion, which is very different from search engine marketing. The difference between SEM and SMM is the vector of efforts taken for your website promotion - SMM is more community-targeted than search engine targeted. As a result, the sources that bring traffic to your site are different. If SEM is about search engine visibility and high SE rankings that result in massive search engine traffic, SMM focuses on building online interactions with customers and helps you bring traffic from social media websites.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">A pleasant "side effect" of SMM might be getting your link popularity and SE rankings improved as well: a good viral marketing campaign within the online community creates buzz around your brand and may result in new inbound links to your site appearing on the Web.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Social Media Channels</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The channels used for social media marketing are as follows:<br />- blogging systems, blog search engines and blog syndication websites (<a target="_blank" href="http://wordpress.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">WordPress</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blogger</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mybloglog.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">MyBlogLog</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Technorati</a>,<a target="_blank" href="http://activerain.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">ActiveRain</a>)<br />- RSS readers (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Bloglines</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsgator.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsgator</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.netvibes.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Netvibes</a>)<br />- social bookmarking sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://delicious.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Delicious</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://ma.gnolia.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Ma.gnolia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://furl.net/" style="COLOR: #006699">Furl</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://buddymarks.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buddymarks</a>)<br />- social news sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://digg.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Digg</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reddit.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Reddit</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsvine.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsvine</a>)<br />- social event sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Upcoming</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.socializr.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Socializr)</a><br />- social recommendation sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">StumbleUpon</a>)<br />- photo and video sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://flickr.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Flickr</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://photobucket.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Photobucket</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">YouTube</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blinkx.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blinkx</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzznet.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buzznet</a>).</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Be aware, however, that posting or sharing your content on such sites is not enough to conduct a successful SMM campaign. The main idea of social media marketing lies in offering interesting, valuable, or useful content that is viral by nature. Only in this case, your content will soon get widely distributed all over the Web and reap returns in high visitor traffic and brand recognition.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Optimization?</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Social media optimization refers to facilitating the process of finding established content, sharing it, and distributing it across numerous social media platforms.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Like search engine optimization, SMO offers on-page optimization techniques and focuses on a site or blog that already exists. In other words, you do not need to write additional content to make SMO for your site: you just optimize your pages for the social media phenomena to make them easily bookmarked, embedded on other sites, or accessed via third-party media.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">As <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">Rohit Bhargava</a> writes in his blog, "The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs."</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The methods of social media optimization may include, but are not limited to, adding links to providers of social bookmarking services so these pages can be easily submitted to these providers, integrating widgets from third party social media sites using APIs, adding RSS feeds to your site to make your content sharing easier, etc.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Examples of exploiting social media channels on the Web</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Digg.com. Digg is a user-driven content site where members can vote, bury, and comment on stories submitted by other members. Getting onto Digg's front page often results in thousands of visitors coming to your site and it can have lasting ranking effects.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Newsvine.com. This is another social news site where members can submit news stories, comment on other popular stories, or create connections with regular users. Your Newsvine user name becomes your own subdomain, so be sure to use keywords in your profile.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a Yahoo-owned social bookmarking site. Del.icio.us allows members to publicly save bookmarks using tags. Don't be afraid to tag your own content: create a public bookmark in there and use your keywords or keyword phrases when you assign tags.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">YouTube.com. YouTube is a popular video-sharing service owned by Google. Uploading a compelling video could bring you additional traffic from both YouTube.com and the Google search engine, because Google could soon index your video.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What you should remember from this lesson:</h3>
<ol type="1" style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px">
<li>Do not underestimate the power of Social Media Marketing, as it can be an effective source of visitor traffic to your site.</li>
<li>Participate in social media activities to increase your brand recognition.</li>
<li>Apply SMO methods for your site content so the online community can easily find, share and distribute it.</li>
</ol></div><div class="plaintext" style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #333333; FONT-SIZE: small">
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">With the growth of social media technologies on the Web, more and more companies are starting to think about their presence in the social media environment. For a startup company, getting listed on the front page of Digg.com can offer instant credibility and drive additional visitor traffic. It can also significantly increase an established company's brand recognition.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Rohit Bhargava was the first person to give a name to the phenomena of interacting with the online community and bringing online traffic from social media sources. Rohit outlined <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">5 Rules of Social Media Optimization</a>:</p>
<ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px">
<li>Increase your linkability</li>
<li>Make tagging and bookmarking easy</li>
<li>Reward inbound links</li>
<li>Help your content travel</li>
<li>Incourage the mashup</li>
</ol>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Further along the line, other blog activists complement these rules . The rules turned into a variety of methods referred to either as Social Media Optimization (SMO) or Social Media Marketing (SMM). Thus, writing quality content and distributing it on the Web is more about marketing than optimizing, so further investigation and improving the terminology is required.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Marketing</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px"><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing" style="COLOR: #999999">Wikipedia</a> defines Social media marketing as "the process of promoting a site, business, or brand through social media channels by engaging and interacting with existing consumers or potential consumers."<br />Social media channels may include blogging systems, social bookmarking sites, photo and video sharing sites and other technologies that support social interaction on the Web.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Being an Internet-based methodology, social media marketing is tied closely to non-Internet based methodologies such as offline word of mouth advertising. The commonality between the two lies in the viral marketing approach and establishing engaging relationships with the community. <br />The difference lies in the medium in which the methods are applied: with social media marketing, word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social networks and websites.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">SMM offers methods such as creating compelling content (aka linkbait) and publishing it on your blog or a blog syndication website, posting viral videos or pictures on content-sharing sites, posting details of your event on social events sites, etc.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">In fact, social media marketing turns out to be another solution for your website promotion, which is very different from search engine marketing. The difference between SEM and SMM is the vector of efforts taken for your website promotion - SMM is more community-targeted than search engine targeted. As a result, the sources that bring traffic to your site are different. If SEM is about search engine visibility and high SE rankings that result in massive search engine traffic, SMM focuses on building online interactions with customers and helps you bring traffic from social media websites.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">A pleasant "side effect" of SMM might be getting your link popularity and SE rankings improved as well: a good viral marketing campaign within the online community creates buzz around your brand and may result in new inbound links to your site appearing on the Web.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Social Media Channels</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The channels used for social media marketing are as follows:<br />- blogging systems, blog search engines and blog syndication websites (<a target="_blank" href="http://wordpress.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">WordPress</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blogger.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blogger</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mybloglog.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">MyBlogLog</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://technorati.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Technorati</a>,<a target="_blank" href="http://activerain.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">ActiveRain</a>)<br />- RSS readers (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.bloglines.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Bloglines</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsgator.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsgator</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.netvibes.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Netvibes</a>)<br />- social bookmarking sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://delicious.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Delicious</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://ma.gnolia.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Ma.gnolia</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://furl.net/" style="COLOR: #006699">Furl</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://buddymarks.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buddymarks</a>)<br />- social news sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://digg.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Digg</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.reddit.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Reddit</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newsvine.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Newsvine</a>)<br />- social event sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://upcoming.yahoo.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Upcoming</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.socializr.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Socializr)</a><br />- social recommendation sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">StumbleUpon</a>)<br />- photo and video sharing sites (<a target="_blank" href="http://flickr.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Flickr</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://photobucket.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">Photobucket</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="COLOR: #999999">YouTube</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.blinkx.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Blinkx</a>, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.buzznet.com/" style="COLOR: #006699">Buzznet</a>).</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Be aware, however, that posting or sharing your content on such sites is not enough to conduct a successful SMM campaign. The main idea of social media marketing lies in offering interesting, valuable, or useful content that is viral by nature. Only in this case, your content will soon get widely distributed all over the Web and reap returns in high visitor traffic and brand recognition.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What is Social Media Optimization?</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Social media optimization refers to facilitating the process of finding established content, sharing it, and distributing it across numerous social media platforms.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Like search engine optimization, SMO offers on-page optimization techniques and focuses on a site or blog that already exists. In other words, you do not need to write additional content to make SMO for your site: you just optimize your pages for the social media phenomena to make them easily bookmarked, embedded on other sites, or accessed via third-party media.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">As <a target="_blank" href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html" style="COLOR: #006699">Rohit Bhargava</a> writes in his blog, "The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs."</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">The methods of social media optimization may include, but are not limited to, adding links to providers of social bookmarking services so these pages can be easily submitted to these providers, integrating widgets from third party social media sites using APIs, adding RSS feeds to your site to make your content sharing easier, etc.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">Examples of exploiting social media channels on the Web</h3>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Digg.com. Digg is a user-driven content site where members can vote, bury, and comment on stories submitted by other members. Getting onto Digg's front page often results in thousands of visitors coming to your site and it can have lasting ranking effects.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Newsvine.com. This is another social news site where members can submit news stories, comment on other popular stories, or create connections with regular users. Your Newsvine user name becomes your own subdomain, so be sure to use keywords in your profile.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">Del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a Yahoo-owned social bookmarking site. Del.icio.us allows members to publicly save bookmarks using tags. Don't be afraid to tag your own content: create a public bookmark in there and use your keywords or keyword phrases when you assign tags.</p>
<p style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #666666; PADDING-TOP: 5px">YouTube.com. YouTube is a popular video-sharing service owned by Google. Uploading a compelling video could bring you additional traffic from both YouTube.com and the Google search engine, because Google could soon index your video.</p>
<h3 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; FONT: bold 14px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; COLOR: #006699; PADDING-TOP: 15px">What you should remember from this lesson:</h3>
<ol type="1" style="MARGIN-TOP: 5px; DISPLAY: block; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px">
<li>Do not underestimate the power of Social Media Marketing, as it can be an effective source of visitor traffic to your site.</li>
<li>Participate in social media activities to increase your brand recognition.</li>
<li>Apply SMO methods for your site content so the online community can easily find, share and distribute it.</li>
</ol></div>Broaden your brand recognition2009-08-26T21:58:36Z2009-08-26T21:58:36Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/87-broaden-your-brand-recognitionDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal">Admittedly, I burn the candle at both ends... and in the middle. As I get back to focusing on the book edits, I look back at my own marketing efforts and see some things I haven't discussed much in the past. As you know, I have been pushing my own <a href="http://www.maranaphotography.com" title="Wold Class Photography Services">commercial photography</a> business, and am trying to make it grow to the point where I can be extremely selective about which clients I accept. <br /><br />So... how to do this while growing all my other businesses and still feed the family? In my world, that has become a pretty easy solution. I have been working for the "Inside Tucson Business" weekly. I've done a number of business profiles over the past few months, meeting successful business owners that are in need of my marketing services. It's really a win/win/win situation for me -- I add to my portfolio, market my services in a service environment, and get paid while I'm broadening my market. The smartest part for the paper is that they don't have a predetermined number of photos they run for each article, and they pay per photo. This means that if they like the pictures they run more.... and I get more.... So, I'm willing to spend a bit of time with the business owner that gets to see me work, gets to ask me all the smart questions, and I'm being supplemented for this process! The paper is just glad to have me on board, and encourages this type of relationship. They know the more I get out of it, the more they will. Everyone wins.<br /><br />Now, how does this relate to your business? I'm not sure -- but you can probably figure something that works well for you. How about an ice cream shop sponsoring the little league championships, giving all the players in the final game a free cone? You look like a hero, sell to the parents, and get your name on some advertising... The point is that you can do this type of multi-benefit marketing if you put your mind to it! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Admittedly, I burn the candle at both ends... and in the middle. As I get back to focusing on the book edits, I look back at my own marketing efforts and see some things I haven't discussed much in the past. As you know, I have been pushing my own <a href="http://www.maranaphotography.com" title="Wold Class Photography Services">commercial photography</a> business, and am trying to make it grow to the point where I can be extremely selective about which clients I accept. <br /><br />So... how to do this while growing all my other businesses and still feed the family? In my world, that has become a pretty easy solution. I have been working for the "Inside Tucson Business" weekly. I've done a number of business profiles over the past few months, meeting successful business owners that are in need of my marketing services. It's really a win/win/win situation for me -- I add to my portfolio, market my services in a service environment, and get paid while I'm broadening my market. The smartest part for the paper is that they don't have a predetermined number of photos they run for each article, and they pay per photo. This means that if they like the pictures they run more.... and I get more.... So, I'm willing to spend a bit of time with the business owner that gets to see me work, gets to ask me all the smart questions, and I'm being supplemented for this process! The paper is just glad to have me on board, and encourages this type of relationship. They know the more I get out of it, the more they will. Everyone wins.<br /><br />Now, how does this relate to your business? I'm not sure -- but you can probably figure something that works well for you. How about an ice cream shop sponsoring the little league championships, giving all the players in the final game a free cone? You look like a hero, sell to the parents, and get your name on some advertising... The point is that you can do this type of multi-benefit marketing if you put your mind to it! <o:p></o:p></p>SEO Advice2009-08-26T21:58:01Z2009-08-26T21:58:01Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/86-seo-adviceDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.netThis article was copied from an old googlerankingsdotcom archive. I copied it in case the link changes. Though some of the details have changes slightly, this is excellent advice! <br />--snip--<br />While this document will not guarantee top placement for you in any search engines, it will increase your chances to be included in the relevant results. Consider the information below to be subjective advice, and advice only, which have been assembled based on both experience and research. Please note that all search engine technologies are constantly evolving, rendering only month-old tricks to deceive their methods useless. The only way to keep your website at a proper place of search results is - as general it sounds - providing content that people are both interested in and are looking for.<br /><br />In general, search engines have been designed by people who are skilled at gathering, storing and analyzing data, programmers, mathematicians and other talented people with innovative ideas. However in the age when nearly anyone in the free world can access the internet, the ratio of people used to handling raw information have rapidly decreased. In other words, most people do not think about information the way search engine designers would. <br /><br />Search engine optimization ( SEO ) is the bridge over the gap, it is to bring people with average computer skills, and the information they look for together. It overlaps the sometimes still too mathematics-based search engine technology, and takes you a step closer to your target audience. SEO should be about examining how people are looking up information on the web, and not how you may trick them into visiting your website. <br /><br />1.: Choosing your Keywords<br /> A research done by Entireweb 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word. <br /> Do not choose a keyword to optimize your site for that you don't have the slightest chance of ranking good with because of the fierce competition. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that nobody looks for. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that does not relate strongly enough to your content. <br /> Only use generally popular keywords if you do not need targeted traffic. <br /> Do not use words that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Do not use images with filenames or ALT tags ( Alt attributes of IMG tag ) that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Only use dynamic pages when the functionality demands it. <br /> Use lots of relevant content, well laid out into separate pages. <br /> For best results optimize one page for one keyword. <br /> Do not post half-finished sites. <br />2.: HTML Content<br />2.1.: <br /><.META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Books, Library, Author, Authors, Title, Titles, Out of print, Old Books, Rare Books, Online Library"><br /><.META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Online Library is a collection of rare or out of print books. Search by author, title, or content. "><br /><.META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><br /><br /><br /><.BODY><br /><br /><.H1> Welcome to the Online Library <./H1><br /><.H6>. Here you will find a collection of rare or out-of-print books in electronic format. We provide you with a comprehensive search, so you can look up any book by author, title, or its content <.H6><br /><br /><.P><.H5><.A HREF="main.html">Click here to proceed to the Online Library><./A><./H5><./P><br /><br /><./BODY><br /><./HTML> <br /><br /><br /><br />Advanced SEO Advice<br />For established websites, refer to the Website Diagnostics articles at Googlerankings.com Diagnostics<br />articles by Googlerankings.com, 11.2006. through 05.2007.<br />Since SEO may differ for each and every sector, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing trends shift on a near weekly basis, the DOs in search engine optimization are as vague as the ever-developing online supply and demand. Ethics, guidelines , written and unwritten rules of conduct are also vary for different areas, and while a less competitive sector may not require all that much effort in bringing a new website to the attention of the public, over populated areas produce new visions, methods and even spam on a daily basis.<br /><br />Hence, the faces of SEO range from opportunism to great new marketing innovation, and there is no definite rule in what to do to reach one's goal. On the other hand, and especially because of this, Search Engines have to keep up their proper indexing and categorization efforts in order to provide relevant result, in which process they filter out websites from their results that are ( or are sending false signals to be ) in any way below the quality, accessibility, trust or importance thresholds. Also should a website be, or show signals of guideline breaches or illegal content, Search Engines may penalize and/or ban their presence from the search results, temporarily or permanently.<br /><br />The DOs in SEO vary a lot, possibilities and combinations are infinite. One may experiment with any campaign freely, but only with a relative knowledge of the DONTs will a website be able to maintain a sustainable development plan.This article was copied from an old googlerankingsdotcom archive. I copied it in case the link changes. Though some of the details have changes slightly, this is excellent advice! <br />--snip--<br />While this document will not guarantee top placement for you in any search engines, it will increase your chances to be included in the relevant results. Consider the information below to be subjective advice, and advice only, which have been assembled based on both experience and research. Please note that all search engine technologies are constantly evolving, rendering only month-old tricks to deceive their methods useless. The only way to keep your website at a proper place of search results is - as general it sounds - providing content that people are both interested in and are looking for.<br /><br />In general, search engines have been designed by people who are skilled at gathering, storing and analyzing data, programmers, mathematicians and other talented people with innovative ideas. However in the age when nearly anyone in the free world can access the internet, the ratio of people used to handling raw information have rapidly decreased. In other words, most people do not think about information the way search engine designers would. <br /><br />Search engine optimization ( SEO ) is the bridge over the gap, it is to bring people with average computer skills, and the information they look for together. It overlaps the sometimes still too mathematics-based search engine technology, and takes you a step closer to your target audience. SEO should be about examining how people are looking up information on the web, and not how you may trick them into visiting your website. <br /><br />1.: Choosing your Keywords<br /> A research done by Entireweb 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word. <br /> Do not choose a keyword to optimize your site for that you don't have the slightest chance of ranking good with because of the fierce competition. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that nobody looks for. <br /> Do not choose a keyword that does not relate strongly enough to your content. <br /> Only use generally popular keywords if you do not need targeted traffic. <br /> Do not use words that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Do not use images with filenames or ALT tags ( Alt attributes of IMG tag ) that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines. <br /> Only use dynamic pages when the functionality demands it. <br /> Use lots of relevant content, well laid out into separate pages. <br /> For best results optimize one page for one keyword. <br /> Do not post half-finished sites. <br />2.: HTML Content<br />2.1.: <br /><.META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Books, Library, Author, Authors, Title, Titles, Out of print, Old Books, Rare Books, Online Library"><br /><.META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Online Library is a collection of rare or out of print books. Search by author, title, or content. "><br /><.META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><br /><br /><br /><.BODY><br /><br /><.H1> Welcome to the Online Library <./H1><br /><.H6>. Here you will find a collection of rare or out-of-print books in electronic format. We provide you with a comprehensive search, so you can look up any book by author, title, or its content <.H6><br /><br /><.P><.H5><.A HREF="main.html">Click here to proceed to the Online Library><./A><./H5><./P><br /><br /><./BODY><br /><./HTML> <br /><br /><br /><br />Advanced SEO Advice<br />For established websites, refer to the Website Diagnostics articles at Googlerankings.com Diagnostics<br />articles by Googlerankings.com, 11.2006. through 05.2007.<br />Since SEO may differ for each and every sector, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing trends shift on a near weekly basis, the DOs in search engine optimization are as vague as the ever-developing online supply and demand. Ethics, guidelines , written and unwritten rules of conduct are also vary for different areas, and while a less competitive sector may not require all that much effort in bringing a new website to the attention of the public, over populated areas produce new visions, methods and even spam on a daily basis.<br /><br />Hence, the faces of SEO range from opportunism to great new marketing innovation, and there is no definite rule in what to do to reach one's goal. On the other hand, and especially because of this, Search Engines have to keep up their proper indexing and categorization efforts in order to provide relevant result, in which process they filter out websites from their results that are ( or are sending false signals to be ) in any way below the quality, accessibility, trust or importance thresholds. Also should a website be, or show signals of guideline breaches or illegal content, Search Engines may penalize and/or ban their presence from the search results, temporarily or permanently.<br /><br />The DOs in SEO vary a lot, possibilities and combinations are infinite. One may experiment with any campaign freely, but only with a relative knowledge of the DONTs will a website be able to maintain a sustainable development plan.So you have a website... what next?2009-08-26T21:57:15Z2009-08-26T21:57:15Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/85-so-you-have-a-website-what-nextDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal">People often come to me and want to self-administer and manage their SEO process. There are a lot of details to understand, but let's take a case where someone already has a website and has access to their site through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Content Managment System">CMS</a> system or direct access to the web code.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />First thing you should do is search your exact domain name (www.websuccessbydesign.com for example) in all the major searches. If it comes up, you are being indexed. If not, we'll address that in a future post.<br /><br />We are now going to start with updating your site's META tags. <br /><br />There are three </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Meta elements provide information about a given webpage, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly">META</a> contents to each page that she should have access to change :<br />Title: (something like - “Custom cabinetry in Seminole County” would be a quality page title) -- each page should be different, and this will be what’s displayed in bold when you do a search.<br />Keywords: (list about 20 words separated by comma’s Both locations and products go in this list) – there should be slight variations between pages on the site.<br />Description: A marketing statement. Limit to 150 characters but try to go over 120. This should be different on each page of the site.<br /><br />Update every page on the site with relevant content in these three categories.<br /><br />Also, contact your provider/site host and renew your domain name for at least 5 years. The search companies use expiration date to determine who’s around to stay and who’s fly by night.<br /><br />Ok, once that's done, relax for a few days and then come back for some more self-help!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">People often come to me and want to self-administer and manage their SEO process. There are a lot of details to understand, but let's take a case where someone already has a website and has access to their site through a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Content Managment System">CMS</a> system or direct access to the web code.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br />First thing you should do is search your exact domain name (www.websuccessbydesign.com for example) in all the major searches. If it comes up, you are being indexed. If not, we'll address that in a future post.<br /><br />We are now going to start with updating your site's META tags. <br /><br />There are three </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system" title="Meta elements provide information about a given webpage, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly">META</a> contents to each page that she should have access to change :<br />Title: (something like - “Custom cabinetry in Seminole County” would be a quality page title) -- each page should be different, and this will be what’s displayed in bold when you do a search.<br />Keywords: (list about 20 words separated by comma’s Both locations and products go in this list) – there should be slight variations between pages on the site.<br />Description: A marketing statement. Limit to 150 characters but try to go over 120. This should be different on each page of the site.<br /><br />Update every page on the site with relevant content in these three categories.<br /><br />Also, contact your provider/site host and renew your domain name for at least 5 years. The search companies use expiration date to determine who’s around to stay and who’s fly by night.<br /><br />Ok, once that's done, relax for a few days and then come back for some more self-help!<o:p></o:p></p>Choosing a domain name2009-08-26T21:53:13Z2009-08-26T21:53:13Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/web-design/84-choosing-a-domain-nameDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Finding the best domain name can be a difficult task, and should not be taken lightly. In years past, the best way to gain search engine recognition was to use a key phrase in your domain name and separate by dashes because the spiders were unable to parse words in urls. This led us to see a lot of domain names like widgets-by-joe.com, which is very hard to say and easy to mistype. keep your domain name as simple as possible while retaining your branding. Some of the most powerful domain names make no sense outside of the internet world - amazon.com, google.com, etc. How much business does carparts.com or books.com or insurance.com get just because they have great, short, descriptive domain names? You aren't likely to find something quite as good, but make sure you take your time and find something you really like, it's going to be just as important as the name of your business - maybe moreso.<br /><br />A current client,</span> <a href="http://www.classydetail.com">Classy Automtive Detailing</a>, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">is a great example of a company that can't use it's full or even a reasonable shortened version of it's name. Spelling out Classy Automtive Detailing takes some people 45 minutes. We decided to go with a friendly nickname classydetail.com <br /><br />Domain names are cheap - ,make sure grab common misspellings of your chosen domain. You are going to advertise by word of mouth and some people aren't the greates spellers and typists. Visit www.jcpenny.com for an example. How much money do you think JC Penney would have lost if they didn't purchase the most common misspelling of their business name? <br /><strong><br /></strong></span><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Short, easy to spell, easy to type, looks good written, and easy to say. </span></strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Finding the best domain name can be a difficult task, and should not be taken lightly. In years past, the best way to gain search engine recognition was to use a key phrase in your domain name and separate by dashes because the spiders were unable to parse words in urls. This led us to see a lot of domain names like widgets-by-joe.com, which is very hard to say and easy to mistype. keep your domain name as simple as possible while retaining your branding. Some of the most powerful domain names make no sense outside of the internet world - amazon.com, google.com, etc. How much business does carparts.com or books.com or insurance.com get just because they have great, short, descriptive domain names? You aren't likely to find something quite as good, but make sure you take your time and find something you really like, it's going to be just as important as the name of your business - maybe moreso.<br /><br />A current client,</span> <a href="http://www.classydetail.com">Classy Automtive Detailing</a>, <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">is a great example of a company that can't use it's full or even a reasonable shortened version of it's name. Spelling out Classy Automtive Detailing takes some people 45 minutes. We decided to go with a friendly nickname classydetail.com <br /><br />Domain names are cheap - ,make sure grab common misspellings of your chosen domain. You are going to advertise by word of mouth and some people aren't the greates spellers and typists. Visit www.jcpenny.com for an example. How much money do you think JC Penney would have lost if they didn't purchase the most common misspelling of their business name? <br /><strong><br /></strong></span><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Short, easy to spell, easy to type, looks good written, and easy to say. </span></strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br /></span></p>The two types of "Busy"2009-08-26T21:52:09Z2009-08-26T21:52:09Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/83-the-two-types-of-qbusyqDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Ok, this is a bit of a diversion....<br /><br />Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a few potential clients. Since the actual 'sales call' part of running my own business has always been my nemesis, I look at these meetings as a potential for personal and professional growth. <br /><br />One of the themes that I realized I hadn't been covering in my marketing campaigns was the "Good Busy" vs. "Bad Busy" concept. It's very simple. If you are too busy to do the work you need to advance your business and you aren't happy with where the business is going, you are "Bad Busy" and need to make some changes in order to plan for success. If you are raking it in hand-over-fist and see no signs that it will change in the future, you are "Good Busy" and don't need to be reading this.<br /><br />I met with a doctor that had just signed a contract and was very receptive to my input on marketing his practice. When we discussed some low-cost options for marketing and some deliverables he had for me, he was a bit hesitant to commit his time. He explained that he is very busy and may have trouble meeting some of those deadlines.<br /><br />I also met with a small software company that is having some trouble and wants a better marketing engine. This time, the theme was a little more resistant to the self-marketing techniques I was suggesting. A flat "I'm too busy" was the stock response. <br /><br />We will discuss these cases over the next few months as the sites come together and the marketing engines roll out. <br /><br />This is just a reminder that you need to analyze your needs and what you are willing to invest in your own success. If you are too busy to make the investment, but aren't as profitable as you would like; you may want to consider making some changes to allow for long-term growth of your business. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Ok, this is a bit of a diversion....<br /><br />Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a few potential clients. Since the actual 'sales call' part of running my own business has always been my nemesis, I look at these meetings as a potential for personal and professional growth. <br /><br />One of the themes that I realized I hadn't been covering in my marketing campaigns was the "Good Busy" vs. "Bad Busy" concept. It's very simple. If you are too busy to do the work you need to advance your business and you aren't happy with where the business is going, you are "Bad Busy" and need to make some changes in order to plan for success. If you are raking it in hand-over-fist and see no signs that it will change in the future, you are "Good Busy" and don't need to be reading this.<br /><br />I met with a doctor that had just signed a contract and was very receptive to my input on marketing his practice. When we discussed some low-cost options for marketing and some deliverables he had for me, he was a bit hesitant to commit his time. He explained that he is very busy and may have trouble meeting some of those deadlines.<br /><br />I also met with a small software company that is having some trouble and wants a better marketing engine. This time, the theme was a little more resistant to the self-marketing techniques I was suggesting. A flat "I'm too busy" was the stock response. <br /><br />We will discuss these cases over the next few months as the sites come together and the marketing engines roll out. <br /><br />This is just a reminder that you need to analyze your needs and what you are willing to invest in your own success. If you are too busy to make the investment, but aren't as profitable as you would like; you may want to consider making some changes to allow for long-term growth of your business. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Encourage return visitors2009-08-26T21:50:57Z2009-08-26T21:50:57Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/seo-blog/82-encourage-return-visitorsDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The most important aspect of any website is that it encourages people to return. When people use a website as a resource, they start talking about it and your popularity will grow. People will share your site online with their friends, and over time that will build respect for your organization. It's a lot easier than it ever has been, but it's still quite a daunting task. For this to work, you truly need to be an expert, or at least have a great amount of infomration to aggregate and organize for your readership. We'll talk about news syndication soon.<br /><br />There is also the option of creating an online forum community. That will get users together that share interests common to your industry. You already need a fair amount of respect and notoriety to get this working successfully. Build a forum, stimulate great conversation, and watch it grow. To properly manage a forum, it is a lot of work. I've set many up for clients and at least half aren't successful because the subject matter experts aren't able to stimulate conversation well enough to encourage the return traffic. The communities that become popular are truly internet forces that can make your business a household name in the coming years. <br /><br />Ok, the easiest way to get teturn traffic -- update your customer-specific content regularly. Have a current schedule, offer coupons on the web only. Actively encourage people to view your website and return to it. That way, they will remember you when they talk to your friends. If you have a great domain name, your customers will drive your traffic. <br /><br />Maybe next time we will talk about how to choose a great domain name. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The most important aspect of any website is that it encourages people to return. When people use a website as a resource, they start talking about it and your popularity will grow. People will share your site online with their friends, and over time that will build respect for your organization. It's a lot easier than it ever has been, but it's still quite a daunting task. For this to work, you truly need to be an expert, or at least have a great amount of infomration to aggregate and organize for your readership. We'll talk about news syndication soon.<br /><br />There is also the option of creating an online forum community. That will get users together that share interests common to your industry. You already need a fair amount of respect and notoriety to get this working successfully. Build a forum, stimulate great conversation, and watch it grow. To properly manage a forum, it is a lot of work. I've set many up for clients and at least half aren't successful because the subject matter experts aren't able to stimulate conversation well enough to encourage the return traffic. The communities that become popular are truly internet forces that can make your business a household name in the coming years. <br /><br />Ok, the easiest way to get teturn traffic -- update your customer-specific content regularly. Have a current schedule, offer coupons on the web only. Actively encourage people to view your website and return to it. That way, they will remember you when they talk to your friends. If you have a great domain name, your customers will drive your traffic. <br /><br />Maybe next time we will talk about how to choose a great domain name. <o:p></o:p></span></p>30 Seconds to Success2009-08-26T21:50:05Z2009-08-26T21:50:05Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/web-design/81-30-seconds-to-successDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What is the most important aspect of my website?<br /><br />Such a simple question to answer when you are looking at someone else's website, but it can be a daunting task to attempt to understand and quantify this yourself.<br /><br />For an overwhelming majority of business sites, your goal is to impress the potential customer. To leave a lasting positive impression on your leads, you need to grab their attention quickly and keep it. <br /><br />To capture someone's attention, many websites in the past resorted to garish color schemes and cartoon-like graphics. As we mature as internet surfers, our tolerance for such presentations plummet. We now expect to visit a web page and have a good understanding of what the site is about within 30 seconds. The 'above-fold' part of a page must be clean, interesting, and contain as much information as appropriate for your business. That means the site must be clean with well-presented headings and concise design cues. Colors must complement eachother and portray the mood of the product or services offered by the company. <br /><br />Visit this </span><a href="http://www.salesautomationgroup.com" title="Sales Automation Group"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">CRM Software</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> retailer site for a great example of what I am describing. The site says "We are high-tech" while maintaining a classic look and feel with fonts and color choice. The information is laid out in a way that tells you this business is the place to go for a niche market of CRM products and expert consulting services. <br /><br />Once you have the web surfer's attention, you need to keep it. We will discuss a few great ways to keep your customers returning... next time. (Hey, I think I just mentioned the first way to encourage someone to return!) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What is the most important aspect of my website?<br /><br />Such a simple question to answer when you are looking at someone else's website, but it can be a daunting task to attempt to understand and quantify this yourself.<br /><br />For an overwhelming majority of business sites, your goal is to impress the potential customer. To leave a lasting positive impression on your leads, you need to grab their attention quickly and keep it. <br /><br />To capture someone's attention, many websites in the past resorted to garish color schemes and cartoon-like graphics. As we mature as internet surfers, our tolerance for such presentations plummet. We now expect to visit a web page and have a good understanding of what the site is about within 30 seconds. The 'above-fold' part of a page must be clean, interesting, and contain as much information as appropriate for your business. That means the site must be clean with well-presented headings and concise design cues. Colors must complement eachother and portray the mood of the product or services offered by the company. <br /><br />Visit this </span><a href="http://www.salesautomationgroup.com" title="Sales Automation Group"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">CRM Software</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> retailer site for a great example of what I am describing. The site says "We are high-tech" while maintaining a classic look and feel with fonts and color choice. The information is laid out in a way that tells you this business is the place to go for a niche market of CRM products and expert consulting services. <br /><br />Once you have the web surfer's attention, you need to keep it. We will discuss a few great ways to keep your customers returning... next time. (Hey, I think I just mentioned the first way to encourage someone to return!) <o:p></o:p></span></p>Is a website a sales tool?2009-08-26T21:48:20Z2009-08-26T21:48:20Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/web-design/79-is-a-website-a-sales-toolDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This might be the biggest misunderstanding in the .com world. Virtually all websites are marketing tools, very few focus on sales. Let's back up and discuss the differences between sales and marketing. These basic differences are often misunderstood.<br /><br />Marketing is about keeping your product fresh in the minds of consumers. It is about educating a consumer so he can make an educated decision in your favor. It is about branding your company, product, or service. Even if you offer items for sale on your website, only a small percentage of the visitors will consider spending money. Most will browse your site many times without purchasing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Personal Note:<br />In the early days of my </span><a href="http://www.daronshade.com" title="Daron Shade Commercial Photographer"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Professional Photography</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> site, I photographed auto racing and other events. I was totally focused on website sales, which were extremely low compared to the recognition I was gaining at these events. I wasn't hosting my own sites at that time and didn't have access to even basic analysis tools. My ISP called and told me that they were going to need to move my site to another server and raise my fees. They sent a report. My site was attracting over 100,000 visits per month from over 5000 unique visitors, but I was only converting about three sales. Learning that my average visitor came to the site multiple times per week, I used my basic traffic analysis to dertermine how to increase my profits. I decreased the size of the photo previews and increased the watermarking to deter sniping, and I used the data analysis to justify the decision to hire an on-site sales person for the events. My visitor count dropped by 60% and my profit skyrocketed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br />Sales is just that - sellling the product. Basically, it starts at that first one-on-one contact that hopefully ends in a financial exchange. Whether it starts with a quote or a cross-counter order, this is the sales process. Once the transaction is complete, all attempts to convert that visitor to a repeat customer fall back under the marketing heading. <br /><br />When you have your website built , you must keep in mind that this investment is going to be the hub of marketing activities, but like any wheel, it's going to need spokes to transfer the energy. These spokes are going to be your individual marketing efforts, such as advertising partherships with complementary local businesses, print media, event sponsorship, or any other efforts. <br /><br />Every business is different, but many studies show that it generally takes 8 marketing contacts to convert a prospect. What if you could reduce this number by 50% just by providing most of the information they need to them easily, via your website? Let's learn how to do this intelligently so we know what works and what doesn't -- as well as accurately predict who is ready to make a decision before we ever speak with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This might be the biggest misunderstanding in the .com world. Virtually all websites are marketing tools, very few focus on sales. Let's back up and discuss the differences between sales and marketing. These basic differences are often misunderstood.<br /><br />Marketing is about keeping your product fresh in the minds of consumers. It is about educating a consumer so he can make an educated decision in your favor. It is about branding your company, product, or service. Even if you offer items for sale on your website, only a small percentage of the visitors will consider spending money. Most will browse your site many times without purchasing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Personal Note:<br />In the early days of my </span><a href="http://www.daronshade.com" title="Daron Shade Commercial Photographer"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Professional Photography</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> site, I photographed auto racing and other events. I was totally focused on website sales, which were extremely low compared to the recognition I was gaining at these events. I wasn't hosting my own sites at that time and didn't have access to even basic analysis tools. My ISP called and told me that they were going to need to move my site to another server and raise my fees. They sent a report. My site was attracting over 100,000 visits per month from over 5000 unique visitors, but I was only converting about three sales. Learning that my average visitor came to the site multiple times per week, I used my basic traffic analysis to dertermine how to increase my profits. I decreased the size of the photo previews and increased the watermarking to deter sniping, and I used the data analysis to justify the decision to hire an on-site sales person for the events. My visitor count dropped by 60% and my profit skyrocketed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br />Sales is just that - sellling the product. Basically, it starts at that first one-on-one contact that hopefully ends in a financial exchange. Whether it starts with a quote or a cross-counter order, this is the sales process. Once the transaction is complete, all attempts to convert that visitor to a repeat customer fall back under the marketing heading. <br /><br />When you have your website built , you must keep in mind that this investment is going to be the hub of marketing activities, but like any wheel, it's going to need spokes to transfer the energy. These spokes are going to be your individual marketing efforts, such as advertising partherships with complementary local businesses, print media, event sponsorship, or any other efforts. <br /><br />Every business is different, but many studies show that it generally takes 8 marketing contacts to convert a prospect. What if you could reduce this number by 50% just by providing most of the information they need to them easily, via your website? Let's learn how to do this intelligently so we know what works and what doesn't -- as well as accurately predict who is ready to make a decision before we ever speak with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Is a website a sales tool?2009-08-26T21:48:20Z2009-08-26T21:48:20Zhttp://www.datawaveinc.com/blogs/web-design/80-is-a-website-a-sales-toolDaron Shade, Web Design and SEO Specialistsupport@datawaveinc.net<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This might be the biggest misunderstanding in the .com world. Virtually all websites are marketing tools, very few focus on sales. Let's back up and discuss the differences between sales and marketing. These basic differences are often misunderstood.<br /><br />Marketing is about keeping your product fresh in the minds of consumers. It is about educating a consumer so he can make an educated decision in your favor. It is about branding your company, product, or service. Even if you offer items for sale on your website, only a small percentage of the visitors will consider spending money. Most will browse your site many times without purchasing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Personal Note:<br />In the early days of my </span><a href="http://www.daronshade.com" title="Daron Shade Commercial Photographer"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Professional Photography</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> site, I photographed auto racing and other events. I was totally focused on website sales, which were extremely low compared to the recognition I was gaining at these events. I wasn't hosting my own sites at that time and didn't have access to even basic analysis tools. My ISP called and told me that they were going to need to move my site to another server and raise my fees. They sent a report. My site was attracting over 100,000 visits per month from over 5000 unique visitors, but I was only converting about three sales. Learning that my average visitor came to the site multiple times per week, I used my basic traffic analysis to dertermine how to increase my profits. I decreased the size of the photo previews and increased the watermarking to deter sniping, and I used the data analysis to justify the decision to hire an on-site sales person for the events. My visitor count dropped by 60% and my profit skyrocketed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br />Sales is just that - sellling the product. Basically, it starts at that first one-on-one contact that hopefully ends in a financial exchange. Whether it starts with a quote or a cross-counter order, this is the sales process. Once the transaction is complete, all attempts to convert that visitor to a repeat customer fall back under the marketing heading. <br /><br />When you have your website built , you must keep in mind that this investment is going to be the hub of marketing activities, but like any wheel, it's going to need spokes to transfer the energy. These spokes are going to be your individual marketing efforts, such as advertising partherships with complementary local businesses, print media, event sponsorship, or any other efforts. <br /><br />Every business is different, but many studies show that it generally takes 8 marketing contacts to convert a prospect. What if you could reduce this number by 50% just by providing most of the information they need to them easily, via your website? Let's learn how to do this intelligently so we know what works and what doesn't -- as well as accurately predict who is ready to make a decision before we ever speak with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">This might be the biggest misunderstanding in the .com world. Virtually all websites are marketing tools, very few focus on sales. Let's back up and discuss the differences between sales and marketing. These basic differences are often misunderstood.<br /><br />Marketing is about keeping your product fresh in the minds of consumers. It is about educating a consumer so he can make an educated decision in your favor. It is about branding your company, product, or service. Even if you offer items for sale on your website, only a small percentage of the visitors will consider spending money. Most will browse your site many times without purchasing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Personal Note:<br />In the early days of my </span><a href="http://www.daronshade.com" title="Daron Shade Commercial Photographer"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: #011a7c; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-underline: none;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Professional Photography</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> site, I photographed auto racing and other events. I was totally focused on website sales, which were extremely low compared to the recognition I was gaining at these events. I wasn't hosting my own sites at that time and didn't have access to even basic analysis tools. My ISP called and told me that they were going to need to move my site to another server and raise my fees. They sent a report. My site was attracting over 100,000 visits per month from over 5000 unique visitors, but I was only converting about three sales. Learning that my average visitor came to the site multiple times per week, I used my basic traffic analysis to dertermine how to increase my profits. I decreased the size of the photo previews and increased the watermarking to deter sniping, and I used the data analysis to justify the decision to hire an on-site sales person for the events. My visitor count dropped by 60% and my profit skyrocketed. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; background: #fcfcfc;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", "sans-serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /><br />Sales is just that - sellling the product. Basically, it starts at that first one-on-one contact that hopefully ends in a financial exchange. Whether it starts with a quote or a cross-counter order, this is the sales process. Once the transaction is complete, all attempts to convert that visitor to a repeat customer fall back under the marketing heading. <br /><br />When you have your website built , you must keep in mind that this investment is going to be the hub of marketing activities, but like any wheel, it's going to need spokes to transfer the energy. These spokes are going to be your individual marketing efforts, such as advertising partherships with complementary local businesses, print media, event sponsorship, or any other efforts. <br /><br />Every business is different, but many studies show that it generally takes 8 marketing contacts to convert a prospect. What if you could reduce this number by 50% just by providing most of the information they need to them easily, via your website? Let's learn how to do this intelligently so we know what works and what doesn't -- as well as accurately predict who is ready to make a decision before we ever speak with them. <o:p></o:p></span></p>