Internet Marketing

SEO Sticky Black And White Uppercase Words

J. Warholic

Questions asked:

Is it best to use the color black in creating the home page. . or is it alright to use gold or purple for the search engines?

Is it better to make a lot of uppercase words?

When making a site ‘sticky’ does that apply for the most part to the Home Page?

Let me answer your second question first about using all UPPERCASE words.

If you are going to use all uppercase words, do it in extreme moderation. All uppercase words looks like shouting to most people, and in my opinion the search algorithms tend to categorize all uppercase words as shouting too. What I am saying, is the engineers at Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Search are always tweaking the algorithms to get the best search results possible. They don’t want search results pages that look like they are shouting at people either. Now, that doesn’t mean that the search results pages are not going to pick up any (all uppercase) pages in the search results, it is just a guideline to think about when you are designing your website and performing SEO Best Practices.

Try to use good writing techniques in all your published writing on the Web. I am of a strong opinion, that the search algorithms are actually being engineered to analyze writing styles, proper writing syntax, and text semantics. If you write and publish on your website using good sentence structures, then the search algorithms will tend to give your website higher marks. It’s just like a writing rubric grading system at school, but this grading system is truly color blind to unjust prejudice.

Don’t fret if you are not a literary genius, or have a tendency to misspell words, or have other dyslexic writing tendencies. Use web browsers that have automatic spell checkers, like Firefox, or write using Microsoft Word or equivalent word processors, and have these programs do automatic spell checks and syntax checks for you. If you want additional writing help, there are automatic programs such as WhiteSmoke that will help analyze, proofread, spell check, and edit your text to make it much more palatable to your visitors and the search engines too. The WhiteSmoke writing program has various writing modules available for help with general, business, creative, Hi-Tech, Bio-Tech, and executive writing styles. In addition, it is wise to have others check your published works. Don’t take constructive criticism personally, and continue learning from mistakes. The best way to improve your writing skills is with practice; there is no other way.

What color should I make the home page for the search engines?

I’m convinced that color schemes in the website pages are not so much as an important factor for the search engines, as it is for your readers, and people that are likely to link to your website in the future. It you have body text, that is not hidden in the page, the search engines can read it regardless of what color your page is. An important point here is, don’t make your body text hidden by doing some form of Blackhat SEO tactics. The search engine algorithms are getting much more sophisticated, and will likely give your website a search ranking penalty if you use Blackhat SEO tactics. You however do need to make the page easy to read for your online readers. Typically white on black is harder to read than dark on light colors. Once again this is just a guideline. I have used both at various times. If I have a lot to say, and I expect my readers to be able to spend a lot of time on the website, then I would make the pages as easy to read as possible. If I have a little bit to say, and I want to use a little bit more creative license in my web designs, then experiment with other color schemes.

For example: My Backflag site that I use for Internet shorts, is light on dark backgrounds which in my opinion is harder to read. On the other hand, my According to Jim site is mostly dark on light backgrounds, for easier in-depth reading. See Marketing-101 for an overview.

Now, if you look closely, you will see that I actually use both, dark on light, and light on dark backgrounds, at www.jimwarholic.com. The header area is a dark background and the body is a light background.

Does making a site “sticky” apply, for the most part, to the Home Page?

The term “sticky” generally refers to the ability of a website to capture the attention of a reader in order to draw that reader back to your website, and the ability to empower your reader to interact with the site by having them explore the website pages and read more content. How well you do this through out the website will determine how sticky your website is. Different types of websites have different degrees of stickiness. As far as how sticky your Home Page should be is concerned, it all depends on what you intend to do with the site in the first place. In my opinion, the Home Page should be an overview guide about your website. If someone comes to your website the first time through the Home Page, and you have very little information, they will have no idea what it really is about.

The example you gave, about the “Company of Winners” books is an example of an overview Home Page. This one is a graphic, which generally speaking, an all graphic home page is not the best from a search engine optimization perspective to be search engine friendly, but it does however show the point I am trying to make about the home page being an overview guide.

Hope that helps you.

Best regards,

Jim

Set your business apart with creative online marketing results. Learn how Internet marketing can help your business get discovered on the Web. Contact us for a free website evaluation today.

Social Bookmarks Internet Marketing 101 Strategically Applied

Professional Solutions

Learn how to maximize Social Network Marketing “SMM” for your business today.Marketing Online marketing comes in all shapes and sizes.

Internet marketing information on how to use social bookmarking for businesses today. Find out how you can help yourself in your own marketing efforts, for free.

The Web is a web of links that cross back and forth from all corners of the globe. Businesses need to think in terms of having an online global presence that is continually on an outreach ministries mentality. The days of placing a website online and just sitting back, and thinking that since we have built it, they will come in the form of new customers, is long past. Years have gone by with millions of websites being created that are all competing with you and your business. Yes, I do mean millions of websites are competing with your website whether you realize it or not. These millions of websites believe it or not, are using your words, that are used thorough out the World Wide Web. You do not own the words used. OK, some words are owned in the form of trademarks, but even with that, there are proper usages for trademarks in all types of written works, as well as properly displayed online in websites, blogs, news releases, email messages, ezines, newsletters, online news articles, and online videos. The truth of the matter is that every time a word is used on the Internet, it dilutes the entire pool of search results.

Whether you use Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Microsoft Bing Search, or any of the other smaller search engines, the fact remains that information is being generated at a astronomical rate and the search engines continually increase their total pool of information, and must try to pull the best results possible from the data mix. Yes, our searches are getting smarter. Instead of looking for just the word “widgets,” people are starting to use more natural language identifiers for improving their search results. Now they are starting to type “red widgets” or “purchase red widgets” or “buy red widgets” or “sell red widgets”, or you get the point. But, even those identifier words which help in the world of search from both a website perspective of including them in the pages, and the searcher’s perspective of being able to help improve their search engine results pages, it is not the complete answer to getting a page to show up in the search engine results pages.

Business Must be Proactive in their Online Marketing Approach

Taking a proactive Internet marketing approach is absolutely necessary today for businesses to compete in their respective market places. Yes, building a quality website, with information that is useful, informative, and effectively optimized for both the reader and the search engines is a requirement for good search results, but is not the only key to online marketing success. Another area is quality link building from outside sources. Yes, businesses must target their horizontal and vertical markets in the form of getting listed in directories and other online sources (many of which might cost an annual fee for a business to be listed), but that is not the only source for link building.

Free Link Building For Your Business With Social Bookmark Network Marketing

Everyone today has heard the term social websites. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace fall into this category. FYI; LinkedIn is a great way to expand your business contacts, and even a link back to your website, through what many business professionals are using today. However, I want to go into the category of Social Bookmarking.

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.

Source from Wikipedia, online encyclopedia.

With social bookmarks you get an added power advantage from other users bookmarking your website online, and thus improving the Internet exposure of your website online and to a certain degree of improving the performance of the business website within the search engines themselves. Don’t think that just because social bookmarks reminds you of services that are personal in nature, that this doesn’t apply to B2B and B2C businesses on the Web.

So, how can you help yourself, with your own website, without having to go to your webmaster to do it? Simple to start by just signing up for a free social bookmark networking account, and bookmark your business website online. If you aren’t sure which one to use, try some of the more popular ones to begin with. Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon are some of the more popular ones. I suggest you get an account and try it out for yourself. Hey, what have you got to loose? There free. Share with your employees too. Have them get an account so you and your employees can collaborate on all your business bookmarks for your industry.

List of Social Bookmarks:

Favorites Google Bookmarks
Delicious Digg
MySpace Facebook
Furl Yahoo MyWeb
StumbleUpon Reddit
NewsvineWindows Live Favorites
Technorati Twitter
Yahoo Bookmarks myAOL
Ask Fark
Slashdot Propeller (Netscape)
Mixx Multiply
Simpy Blogmarks
Diigo Faves (Bluedot)
Spurl Link-a-Gogo
Mister Wong FeedMeLinks
Backflip Magnolia
Seganlo Netvouz
Tailrank Blinklist

Social bookmarks list above courtesy of AddThis.com

Another list of social bookmarking links widget for your website.

Social Bookmarks Creator

Make it easy for others to bookmark your website or blog.

As the Internet becomes more popular, if you can imagine that, online applications will continue to become much more pronounced. Make it easy on your users to bookmark your website or blog using some of the free online bookmarking services by including another free online service that provides a free application that can be embedded in a website to either popup or provide a drop down menu for adding a bookmark using the users’ favorite online bookmarking applications. For example, AddThis.com provides a small snippet of javascript code that can be inserted into the website, that will automatically take the title of the page viewed and prepare the online form for adding the specific page to your bookmark files online. Also, by having an AddThis account yourself, you can keep track of the number of people that actually bookmarked your page using that particular online bookmarking application. So, if you have a blog or a business website, include a social bookmark for your customers to add it to their favorite websites today.

Most of the bookmarking programs provide a means for cataloging and compartmentalizing the various different types of bookmarks that you might want to collect. The nice thing about online bookmarks is they can go with you where ever you go. So, don’t forget, start bookmarking for social marketing today.

Do you need help with your online marketing efforts? Professional Web Services can provide webmaster support for your business now. Contact us for a free Internet marketing analysis of your small business, mid size businesses, or large corporate websites.

What are you waiting for? Now is the time to get started with professional Internet marketing by Professional Web Services.

Proactive Internet Marketing for Your Business

Professional Solutions

SEO Marketing ServicesInternet Search

Almost all of us do it; with many doing it everyday. Many more do it several times a day. We are all searching the Internet for something. We use Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing Search, Ask, or any number of the other search engines available online.

Are you taking your business for granted online?

Many businesses are simply placing a website online and thinking that is all they need to do for their online presence. But, think about how everyone is using search today to find the things, information, products, services, locations, directions, videos, instructions, helps, tips, and other business related information all at the tips of our fingers. If you are forgetting these search points, then you are probably loosing market share in your business.

That is why, you need to be proactive in your B2B and B2C business approach to Internet marketing. There are a number of major on-site optimization items that can really help your business out online. Don’t just simply sit back and do nothing about improving the performance of your business website. Most businesses have some advertising budget, but devote very little in the way of funding their online marketing efforts. Advertising is viewed as something that can be turned on and off, with quick results. However, advertising is not the best answer for a good Internet marketing plan. Nor is advertising, without a top Internet marketing plan, going to provide you with the best return on investment, and provide the best sales and marketing conversions of turning web browsers in to web buyers.

Developing your Internet Marketing Plan

A good Internet marketing plan begins at the very foundation of the website design structure, information architecture, and Web branding architecture. Graphic designers are good at putting pictures and designing Flash websites that definitely show flashy to the eyes, but do very little in the way of promoting the business online, due to most designers having very little training in good marketing concepts. My personal opinion is most graphic designers probably use only the right side brain approach to designing their websites. Right Minded MarketingIn today’s online marketing landscape, you must use both left brain and right brain when promoting the website, and not always waiting to the end of the website design to do it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking a pretty website is going to be the ticket to your online sales and marketing success. Many B2B and B2C companies over the years have made that mistake with very little sales to show for it.

So take this right minded marketing tip to your business heart. Don’t sit on your online business laurels. Get more bang for your marketing dollars with Professional Web Services’ Internet marketing services.

Contact us today for an internet marketing evaluation of your business website. Find out what needs to be done to improve your online exposure. Learn how your business can become a bright Internet star.

Online Advertising For Today is a Good Marketing Strategy

J. Warholic

Creative AdvertisingGood advertising is a natural extension of marketing.

Marketing and advertising go hand in hand. Doing one without taking into account the other is like eating a steak without a good baked potato. Edgar Watson Howe, an American novelist and a newspaper and magazine editor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries put it this way, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does.”

When the internet was in its infancy, with only a few million pages of information, getting your message in front of the right audience was much easier, as compared to today. Why the difference? The bottom line is that it mainly has to do with the billions of new webpages online today. In fact, the number of websites going online is very difficult to calculate at any given moment. But, at the midpoint of 2007, the total base of domain name registrations worldwide was 138 million across all of the Top Level Domain Names. This represents a 31 percent increase over the same quarter last year. (VeriSign) Every country has its own top level domains, with over 840 domain name registrars worldwide. Keep in mind, that while the number of Domain Names for all Top Level Domains are able to be counted, this does not accurately reflect the true nature of the actual number of websites online today. With subdomain names being considered as separate websites, the true number of websites online is substantially greater. Many Second Level Domain names have thousands if not millions of subdomains, each having hundreds or thousands of webpages. Take for example, www.blogger.com. The .com represents the top level domain name, and Blogger represents the second-level domain (SLD) names, and the www and all others represent third or higher level domain names and are also known as subdomains. Here are two other examples of subdomains on top of second-level domains. See Advertising.pwebs.net and B2B.SalesAndMarketing.ws both of which are separate websites.

How Are Search Engines a Marketing Force Factor?

So, it really comes back to understanding search engines and how they will display the results for any particular search query. Imagine how many times your particular keywords of your business are used throughout all of the webpages online. Google gives an estimate as to the actual number of pages that have a particular keyword or keywords within the webpages themselves.

As you can see, to display any business online, within the natural search results takes quite a bit of webpage and website optimization to develop the keywords within the site, and the time and Web patience in developing quality links back to the pages of a website. Quality links back to webpages effectively provide a type of authority vote online that the page represents what it is talking about. During this period of time when the website is being optimized for its keywords, there is another way of quickly getting a business found online. This is through online advertising models.

Online advertising for today represents a viable solution to bringing in new customers and leads through the internet. Advertising online also is a great tool for testing and evaluating additional horizontal or vertical markets for any business today. Advertising campaigns can probe the market places quickly and help determine if there really is an additional horizontal or vertical market or markets in which to concentrate your company’s Internet marketing dollars and other forms of marketing efforts upon.

Professional Web Services is a company that has the experience for developing new markets through effective online advertising solutions and internet marketing know-how to bring in new customers via the Net. Contact Professional Web Services today for a free internet marketing evaluation of your business website.

Sales Oriented Internet Marketing for More Business Growth

J. Warholic

Internet Marketing Services

Is your online marketing and business website sales oriented?

With much online talk about having information for the search engines to find, and information from a marketing and advertising standpoint, many times the overlooked area for Internet marketing are the call to action items or lack thereof.

Information is certainly one of the prerequisites for any website to have today. But, it is important to consider that while a web page can be an information provider, it should also have a call to sales oriented action item.

Call to action items as the name implies requires something for the reader to do. For example, having a web page and not giving a link to provide more information is leaving your reader hanging. If a visitor reads a page and finds it interesting, then provide a call to action that is creative, engaging, and highlights the topic at hand. Simply saying contact us is not the best way to do it. Having a hyper link to a contact page is good, but an even better solution is to engage the reader to interact with the page topic itself. If you are talking about your product or service then provide a colorful means of enticement to click a link. Consider using the words of the product or service in the call to action item.

If you are offering a free consultation then hyperlink the words free consultation.

With billions of web pages on the Internet, a business needs to get a little more creative in their marketing approach to Internet marketing. Engineers, buyers, and consumers are tired of the same approach. Give them something different, something that is of perceived value, and the contact conversions will occur much more frequently.

This also factors into another topic of online advertising. Online advertising in the form of Pay-per-click (PPC) and Pay-per-thousand views (PPM) are two of the more common types today. Each of these forms of advertising require some form of landing pages. Even banner ads, when clicked on take a web surfer to a landing page. If your landing pages are not sales oriented, it is likely that your business will not have very good sales conversions. Each click of the mouse is a step in a potential customer becoming a true customer. Don’t leave them hanging on a page with them saying to themselves, “that’s nice but now what?” Don’t make them scroll to the top of the page in order to contact the sales department. This is especially true for the B2B Business to business buyer, because chances are they are ready to get more information if they clicked on your ad in the first place.

So, before you spend a ton of money on an online advertising campaign, make sure your website is properly set up with call to action items, with hyperlinks in the copy of the pages, and engaging text that is sales oriented.

For your B2B and B2C business solution, contact Professional Web Services for your free Internet marketing evaluation.

B2B Marketing Strategies – Teamwork Corporate Marketing

J. Warholic

Strategic marketing a business-to-business “B2B”  company involves teamwork from the president on down.

Getting everyone on the same page for B2B marketing strategies can sometimes be the toughest part of a president’s job. As Internet marketing specialists, Professional Web Services needs to get the feedback from our business customers, concerning their customers through the sales and marketing personnel of what is happening with online advertising campaigns, website landing pages, information requests, referral leads, and current and future products or services. In addition to this direct information from sales and marketing, there is a need from the engineering department to provide the nuts and bolts information of what is being designed, manufactured, or fabricated for their business customers. All of this information must be taken into account when maintaining a website.

As technology changes, or improvements are made in the manufacturing processes, it is important to share the information in a way that does not directly divulge intellectual property rights of either the business being served, nor of the company processes themselves. Simply staying quiet is no longer an option for businesses today. B2B Businesses jump ship as quickly as they can do a search online for the next manufacturer, fabricator, or the technology expert that can solve a problem with a (Wow I didn’t know I could do that!) new solution.

In addition to the competitive nature of just about every industry on the planet today, there is an international competitiveness, that the Internet has made our planet into a very small world indeed. China for one example has become a powerhouse. With their low overhead in labor rates, along with their relatively week adherence to pollution controls, companies in the developed sectors are having their products, OEM parts, and components built in China at a fraction of the cost of what any of the developed countries in the world can build them for.

Take for example, the PCB industry. As recently as ten years ago, the United States was king in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards. However, the Internet has made the United States a past performance item for PCB manufacturing. I have visited many printed circuit shops and can tell you that the United States can’t build a circuit board at the prices that are quoted from China. The raw materials, laminate prices, copper costs, and carbide drills alone are more than what many of the boards can be built here in the USA.

The Internet has also made it easy to transfer information at light speed from one end of the globe to the other. Computers process the data in a fraction of a second. Software programs are used in India to generate the circuit board data from Gerber files. Drill and rout programs can automatically be generated and then transferred to a Chinese manufacturing plant where labor rates are a fraction of anywhere else in the world.

Businesses have squeezed their suppliers so much, that many of them have simply gone out of business. Is there any doubt, in anyone’s mind that we are living in a very competitive landscape? For this reason alone, it is important to maximize a business’s exposure online.

The Online Landscape

But, that brings us back to the teamwork scenario. A B2B business has to work as a team from all facets, in order to maximize the marketing potential available through the online landscape. The online landscape is ripe for opportunities. To take advantage of the situation is like playing a baseball game. Everyone must work together in order for the team to be successful. Take for example of managing an online advertising campaign. Web metrics can only do so much. Sure a person can figure out the conversion from impressions to clicks, but can a person tell with Web metrics alone, how many of these clicks became actual customers? No way. Web metrics can give you an idea of what percentage of people that click on an online Ad go to a specific page, or sign up for a specific item, but Web metrics alone can not tell you for sure if they became a customer later on down the line. The only way to get exact details is to ask.

Why is the Concept of People Metrics so Foreign?

This goes to the first contact principal. When dealing with a customer for the first time, does anyone ask the simple question how they found your business? So, a person says they found your business on the Internet. Great, but did they click on an Ad, did they click on the website in the search results, did they come from an online directory, did they already know your name and search for your company using the search engines, or what was the keyword, keywords, or key phrases were typed into the search bar at Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft Live Search to find your company on the Internet?

The importance of feedback can not be overstated. Without feedback, a company has no way of knowing of how successful anything is. This requires the first or second contact person asking the simple question, and documenting that information for upper management, sales and marketing, and the person or group in charge of Internet marketing and online advertising campaigns.

With solid marketing information, the Internet marketing specialists can make adjustments to online advertising campaigns and improvements to the website design for better overall customer conversions.

Engineers Need To Tell Stories

Many of the businesses that are looking for solutions for manufacturing of their products, or technology solutions to a particular software or hardware issue, often converse with the resident engineers of many of the manufacturing, fabrication, or software technology companies in the world. How often are these stories being shared between what an engineer has talked about with a customer and the sales and marketing staff, or the Internet marketing team? If everyone is just doing their own job mode, your business is missing a wonderful sales and marketing opportunity.

Internet marketing experts do not magically know the inside scoop from each and every business in the world. Every market sector has its own unique set of keywords used. The only way online marketing personnel can learn about that information is for it to be shared with an individual or the Internet marketing team. Companies that supply technology services, or various OEM products to a wide variety of fields, will have a different communications language with the engineers from those market sectors. That is why, it is important to share that information with the team.

Internet Marketing Services

Teamwork is your B2B key to success.

Make Professional Web Services part of your marketing team and we will go above and beyond what your expectations are with Internet marketing services designed to produce results for your company. It’s all a matter of Results Oriented Internet Marketing Services.

Marketing Strategies for Business-to-Business – B2B Websites

J. Warholic

Website information is required to get found in the search engines.

The number one thing required in a business to business website is to provide pertinent information for customers and future customers to find via the search engines online.

While e-commerce B2B websites must be focused on providing an easy means of order taking and checkout, and also secure shopping carts, there are large numbers of businesses that sell to other businesses in which true e-commerce is not a factor. These business websites that are structured for information, marketing, and advertising purposes, are really about how well the information is marketed online.

Are you a good story teller?

Marketing a B2B business today, especially online, requires good story telling to bring a marketing message alive on the Internet. When marketing online, creativity is a must. Sure, it is wise to keep a message simple, but keeping a message simple from a search engine standpoint simply will not do. There are some things that can be done from a best practices approach for both the graphics presented and the website text copy that can help in this area.

Here is one question that is important to consider. How many businesses compete in your market sector; five, ten, fifteen, or more? How many of these businesses have websites that look like the others. Does your business website look like the competition? If the website looks like all the others, what will set it apart? More than likely, it will get lost in the search results.

Having a website online forces you to write down the key points about your business, and this is good. If you are going to have a web presence, then you should try to make it all it can be. Don’t skimp on what is said. Don’t dismiss the importance of a website either. The old ways of doing business with just advertising in the Yellow Pages, simply will not produce the same results that it did fifteen or twenty years ago. You must have a web presence to compete in most markets today.

Everyone is searching online. Businesses are no different than the rest of us. Engineers and buyers are using the Internet and specifically the search engines as the new B2B Exchanges. Tell me, why would any company want to be left out in the cold. Maybe you are thinking, “my business is such a specialty market, and everyone knows me throughout the whole market place, there is no need to have a web presence.” These types of thoughts are not very logical today. Even if you are correct in your analysis (which I highly doubt), don’t you think existing customers would want to find your phone number or email contact information online?

OK, now your thoughts say, “I am convinced that a website presence is required. Where do we start?” you might ask. Well, I’ll bet that you probably have brochures or something in writing that talks about what it is that your company does. That certainly can be a good starting point for prompting you into writing some items down. Once these thoughts are written out, a good copywriter can come up with the essence of what to say in a website. Writing something down in an idea form has been some of the toughest hurdles to overcome for many businesses. Years ago, where “word of mouth” was everything for many businesses to promote themselves, will not necessarily work the same way as before. There is too much competition, from the local markets and the international markets in which price seems to have more of an impact today than ever before in all lines of business.

Having a website published is not the end. Don’t make this mistake into thinking that you never have to update your website. Your competition will surely not sit idle with their websites, and more importantly their marketing efforts online. Evaluating the impact of every marketing strategy, will be important for the next move to be made. Just like in a chess game, where competitors are looking five or more moves ahead, so to must a business evaluate the next moves ahead.

It is important to note that many of the marketing moves online will not have an immediate impact on a businesses bottom-line. There are however a couple of things that can make an immediate impact. Search engine marketing, also known as online advertising is a quick way to get a business started. This is because keywords can be bid on through the search engines themselves. If you bid high enough for your keywords then you can get your ad to show up in the search results pages on the right or top side of many of the search engines. These results are paid for through this bidding action. The natural search results generally take more time and Internet marketing efforts to establish a website in the general population of search results. This is due to search algorithms making an automated calculation of the website’s importance through a multitude of variables which each search engine keeps tight lipped about.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO is another one of those words that has many meanings, depending on who you talk to. The basic idea is to fine tune a website, optimizing the pages, to have the website rank better in the natural search results. Many individuals will say this is a one time process. I don’t believe this to be correct. Search engine optimization must be ongoing. Much like an article written, there is usually more than one draft as time goes on. Even the simple things in a website much be updated annually. For example, copyright dates should be updated to reflect at least the attention to a website details. This can quite possibly make a bad first impression. A potential customer that comes to a website, with old copyright dates, tends to think that maybe the business does not pay particular attention to details. Even though they might not say it, the question is now in the back of their minds.

There are many other factors that also must be addressed for a business website on a regular basis. But, you need to take the initiative, and start today with a website presence if you do not have one, or develop and improve what you already have online.

Contact Professional Web Services today to find out how our Internet marketing services can make a difference in your business’s bottom-line.

Strategic Marketing From an Internet Perspective

J. Warholic

What is Strategic Marketing?

Internet Marketing StandoutStrategic Marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes or how it will compete against its competition in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competition. From Wikipedia.

Various marketing buzz words abound online. The above definition for strategic marketing is probably one of the most concise and defines it in a manner which can be easily grasped.

There are strategic marketing firms that will analyze the market place for the entire business structure and come up with a marketing strategy for their clients to compete on a global scale. While this type of service is needed to help determine a direction a company wants to go, there are however requirements for more specific strategic marketing evaluations that can have a major global marketing impact.

Understanding Internet Marketing

It is imperative for companies, as part of their strategic marketing, to understand the relationship the Internet has on a company’s market reach in both vertical and horizontal markets. The Internet provides a wealth of information, tools, and potential to expand a company’s sales through the use of the company website, online advertising, and Web 2.0 technology. Learning to use the Internet to fine tune (optimize the website) for various market segments are one of the keys to having more penetration both horizontally and vertically online.

Developing the penetration into these markets is what Internet marketing really is all about. A company can be all over the Internet, or not at all found online, but if it is not found in its industry specific area for engineers, buyers, and consumers searching for the products or services provided by the company, it will have little impact on the bottom-line sales generated.

Strategic Internet Marketing Evaluation

Marketing has what is known as a SWOT analysis tool. The acronym SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT analysis  is a way of evaluating the direction a company wishes to go. For example below is a SWOT Chart courtesy of businessballs.com

Subject of SWOT analysis:
(define the subject of the analysis here)

strengths

  • Advantages of proposition?
  • Capabilities?
  • Competitive advantages?
  • USP’s (unique selling points)?
  • Resources, Assets, People?
  • Experience, knowledge, data?
  • Financial reserves, likely returns?
  • Marketing – reach, distribution, awareness?
  • Innovative aspects?
  • Location and geographical?
  • Price, value, quality?
  • Accreditations, qualifications, certifications?
  • Processes, systems, IT, communications?
  • Cultural, attitudinal, behavioral?
  • Management cover, succession?

weaknesses

  • Disadvantages of proposition?
  • Gaps in capabilities?
  • Lack of competitive strength?
  • Reputation, presence and reach?
  • Financials?
  • Own known vulnerabilities?
  • Timescales, deadlines and pressures?
  • Cash flow, start-up cash-drain?
  • Continuity, supply chain robustness?
  • Effects on core activities, distraction?
  • Reliability of data, plan predictability?
  • Morale, commitment, leadership?
  • Accreditations, etc?
  • Processes and systems, etc?
  • Management cover, succession?

opportunities

  • Market developments?
  • Competitors’ vulnerabilities?
  • Industry or lifestyle trends?
  • Technology development and innovation?
  • Global influences?
  • New markets, vertical, horizontal?
  • Niche target markets?
  • Geographical, export, import?
  • New USP’s?
  • Tactics – surprise, major contracts, etc?
  • Business and product development?
  • Information and research?
  • Partnerships, agencies, distribution?
  • Volumes, production, economies?
  • Seasonal, weather, fashion influences?

threats

  • Political effects?
  • Legislative effects?
  • Environmental effects?
  • IT developments?
  • Competitor intentions – various?
  • Market demand?
  • New technologies, services, ideas?
  • Vital contracts and partners?
  • Sustaining internal capabilities?
  • Obstacles faced?
  • Insurmountable weaknesses?
  • Loss of key staff?
  • Sustainable financial backing?
  • Economy – home, abroad?
  • Seasonality, weather effects?

The table above can be used for all types of analysis. Using the four main keys and applying it to an Internet marketing plan is beneficial for helping visualize and evaluate what needs to be done.

While the particular example above is more general in nature, it can be applied to specifics. For example when determining how a website needs to be optimized and/or the Web presence, a person needs to look at the four keys. Some of the questions that can be asked are: What is the company’s online strengths in meeting their marketing goals? How well is the website designed? Does the website provide quality information for readers, visitors, and the search engines? What types of links point to the website? Are these links quality links? What opportunities exist in the types of niche markets that the business can expand online? What are the current weaknesses with the business’s Web efforts? How can the business improve their brand recognition online? Does the website provide a solid tool for the sales and marketing departments? What threats are faced from the competition and other market factors online? What other tools are available to take advantage of online opportunities? Is the company advertising online? Is the competition advertising online? All of these items and more can be written down or verbalized to help develop an Internet marketing plan to help grow and promote your company.

Once the market analysis is performed then a strategic plan needs to be developed, and then implemented. Certain items can be quickly changed or applied, while others on the list will need substantial time and effort to attend to. All of the items will factor into the viability of the company competing across the Internet.

Developing a quality web presence is one of the most important items a company can invest in. It is very shortsighted to think in terms of “the cost” of developing a website. It is a business investment, and it is an investment that has the potential to bring forth many returns.

Get the Business Solution today from Professional Web Services. Contact us today for a free Internet marketing evaluation or other Internet marketing services.

More Sales for Your Business

Professional Solutions

Most everyone wants a powerful online market presence for their business, don’t you want it too?

Using the power of the Internet can greatly expand your business presence in both B2B and B2C industries. Developing a good Internet marketing plan and online advertising strategies can provide a wealth of new customers for your business.

Everything is related to the Internet today. Internet marketing is not just to be used by the Fortune 500 companies. In fact, the Internet can be a big equalizer for small and medium size businesses to really target select groups of individuals, consumers, businesses, or industry sectors that previously were not attainable.

By selecting and expanding your business’s keywords and using various forms of online advertising strategies, both B2B and B2C companies can realize a market impact, both for the present and in the future.

Information can stay online forever. Publishing a website, blogs, or “target specific” websites for specific areas of your company, can help develop a brand image over time. Even the advertising spent online can have a lasting impact into the hearts and minds of the consumer or other businesses being targeted.

Remember, good Internet marketing strategies are key to online marketing success.

So, if you want more sales for your business, take a look at what Professional Web Services can do for you. We offer Internet marketing services, online advertising strategies, ethical search engine optimization, and Web branding solutions that will help your bottom line.

Contact Professional Web Services today for a no obligation Internet marketing evaluation.

The Most Important Question(s) on the Internet

J. Warholic

20/20 Business Glasses
Get 20/20 Marketing Vision

Are potential new customers seeing your website online or finding your global or local business with the search engines? Are you getting sales leads and customers from the Internet? Do you want more customers now?

By: Jim Warholic

Learn how Internet marketing and online advertising with Google, Yahoo!, and Bing Search (formerly named Microsoft MSN Search) engines can drive new customers to your online doorstep and even deliver them to the inside of your store, where they can shop and buy the products or services your business provides. Take the next step with Professional Web Services today.

In the competitive business world we live in, a business must be proactive with 20/20 business vision when it comes to marketing their company online. Any business that is selling products or services to other businesses in the case of B2B, or selling to consumers in the case of B2C would not dream of going without hiring some good sales people. Many times these businesses will be paying top dollar to get the best sales person they can. But, some businesses will neglect what I would consider the most important salesman for their company, their corporate website.

Presidents And CEOs

The buck stops here, with the president and CEO of a company. I am going straight to the top on this one. These are the people that are the ultimate decision makers. They provide the guiding force and direction for a company. While a president and CEO does not have to be a marketing genius, they do have to understand the marketing basics, at a fundamental level, for the health and well being of an organization. In essence a good president and CEO knows the importance of hiring the right people for the job. They know that good marketing is key for business success.

Many of the presidents and CEOs know hiring good people is key to corporate growth, but have not really grasped the importance of the Internet search engines, Internet marketing, and online advertising. They themselves use the Internet on a regular basis for searching all sorts of things but there is a disconnect between the searches they personally do and other people searching for what their business does. Small business company owners seem to be especially guilty of this Internet shortsightedness. Simply put, they are not seeing 20/20 business vision, and sadly they don’t even recognize their poor business vision and the need for good business glasses. They have the misplaced idea that a website is just something you are forced to have in business, instead of wrapping their arms around it, promoting it, and realizing that the website is, or should be, one of their most important assets a company can have. This business mentality is not strictly limited to small businesses. Corporate America has a certain segment group that is just as guilty as their small business counterparts. They have gotten fat and happy doing business the old way and have not adapted to the changes taking place online.

Embracing Internet Marketing

More Sales For Your Business: Internet Marketing ServicesGrasping the potential the Internet has for your business is absolutely paramount to focusing a fair amount of your marketing and advertising dollars online. A salesman can not be available 24×7 but the website can operate round-the-clock, and be accessible to customers that are looking for those frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the products or services your company provides. In addition, detailed information can be available to your customers at their browsing finger tips. Information such as application notes, drawings, manuals, material properties, and type specifications can be made available to customers.

The website is so powerful that it can do most of the work of all your sales force combined. This allows your sales force more time to concentrate on closing sales and building better customer relations. The fact of the matter is the website can help support the structure of the company and provide excellent tools for the sales department to use. Simply having the information at both the customer’s and your sales department’s fingertips will make everyone’s job much easier and will result in more sales. Email’s written can then be linked back to the specific information being requested. Customers will come to rely on your company’s website as being a good source of information. This helps promote your brand and keeps the customer’s focus on you, instead of the competition.

B2B, Business-to-business customers are becoming much more demanding in what they want from a source provider. They demand the information now. If you don’t provide that information, it is just a matter of time before they go somewhere else. Maybe you have worked hard to build up customer relationships in your business. But in today’s business climate, where the weather changes quickly, and customers are likely to get blown off course quickly by the competition, it is imperative to set aside a marketing and advertising budget and focus this toward providing a solid online presence.

Forget the smoke and mirrors approach with the website design. You must have substance, and that substance involves work, time, effort, and a fair amount of financial investment. To be sure, the website is really only the starting point from an Internet marketing perspective. The website must be promoted in the form of quality link building, continued website development in the form of new content and regular site maintenance updates, along with regular detailed evaluations and analysis. With billions of pages online, not to mention the online directories with sometimes hundreds of competitors lined up and down the pages there has to be marketing focus with ongoing keyword development and targeting of new market segments to really standout online.

The businesses that standout on the Internet, and standout first online with the search engines for their specific industries’ keywords, will be in a position to capture those early sales leads and new customers.

As the owner, president, or CEO of your organization, you can do only so much yourself. Start today, set aside an Internet marketing and online advertising budget to promote your business on the Internet.

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