Posts Tagged ‘Internet Marketing Mississippi’
Top 5 Tips for Designing an Effective Website
May 24, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
You’ve built your shiny new business and now you need a shiny new website. You are not alone. More and more small businesses are seeing the need to establish their presence online. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 80 percent of American households have Internet access, and growing. While generating a generic website is not difficult, creating an effective website does require a lot of effort. Follow these five easy tips for building the best website for your business or personal needs.
1. Generate Exceptional Content
Perhaps you’ve heard the webmaster’s creed, “Content is king.” It’s true. To be effective, your website must have something to offer, and you must offer it well. Good spelling, good grammar and a means of coherently communicating your content wins every time. In general, most web readers prefer a casual, conversational style to the formal voice found in weighty textbooks or encyclopedias. How you publish content is important, as well. Web readers tend to shy away from 1,000-word text-heavy articles, preferring shorter content with brief paragraphs, lists or images and videos.
Additionally, stick with your niche. For examples, if you specialize in budget travel, write content that relates to budget travel, and skip the long dialogues on the current political climate or how to make money online. The more relevant content you publish to your niche website, the more clout and relevance you earn in the search engines and among readers.
2. Create a User-Friendly Site
You may publish the most scintillating stories in cyberspace, but if your website isn’t user-friendly, most readers will pass your content by in a matter of moments. Statistics show that website readers do not read — rather, they scan the page for interesting content for a few seconds before moving along. Create a website that invites visitors to linger. Incorporate navigation menus with succinct titles. Place anchors or fixed-point buttons or tabs to direct readers to special sections. Utilize “breadcrumbs,” a textual, linear navigation map that shows the trail the reader has taken throughout your website. Create a special site map page where readers can locate information quickly. Avoid popup windows, auto-play media and web pages that force readers to or from other web pages. Finally, include a biographical snippet, an “about us” page or a map with the physical location of your business. These tools connect your readers with you or your business and encourage reader input and recollection of your site.
3. Know Your Audience
Part of creating an effective website is building a rapport with your audience. Your website design and content should reflect the audience to whom you address. For example, big, bright, primary-colored buttons are very cute on a parenting website or elementary teacher’s journal but are ill-suited for a technology or auto business site. Your website should never patronize or insult your readers. Tailor your web design and all content—including photos and advertisements—to your audience.
4. Design With Style
If your website contains a lot of information, such as an educational or resource site, consider a magazine-style theme. This type of theme displays a great deal of content on the home page, giving your readers instant access to a variety of content. Beware, however, of over-stuffing your home page with too much content. Flooding your home page with hoards of articles, links, videos and images will confuse your readers and drive them away. A good rule of thumb is to maintain content in “threes.” Organize your content in neat categories, listing three at a time with a tantalizing link that leads visitors to additional content. On the other hand, if your website is more streamlined, such as a photo gallery or personal journal, consider a simpler, more creative theme.
Symmetry and balance are other important design features. As Aristotle once said, “Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry.” People are generally attracted to symmetrical, balanced designs. If your website isn’t precisely symmetrical, make the layout balanced. A large block of data on one side should be tempered with several smaller blocks on the other side.
For most websites, a simple design with light touches of creativity works best. Don’t be afraid of colors, but keep the color scheme classy. Select a color scheme that enhances your content, niche and audience. For example, your metal rock band website may look great in black and hot pink, but your medical reference website needs calmer colors. And you should always avoid the following things: crazy fonts, dark backgrounds, flashing banners or buttons and auto-generated music and video.
5. Call the Experts
For some businesses, their website can make or break their reputation. A hokey, aged Microsoft FrontPage website that hasn’t been updated since 1998 or a confused mass of borders and blinking buttons is not very appealing to visitors and may even repel customers. If you think you need some assistance building a website or producing sufficient content, consult a professional web designer or content supplier. Many professionals offer a free consultation and estimate, giving you valuable information and a glimpse into the web design world.
While these are only five of the best tips for building an effective website, additional advice abounds. What components do you look for and admire about the websites you visit? What tips can you offer for a start-up site?
By Ryan Avila-When not in the kitchen or training for triathlons, Ryan is a content writer for Your Local Security.
Posted in Internet Marketing Biloxi MS, Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Mississippi SEO, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Hattiesburg, Web Design in Biloxi MS, Web Design Jackson MS | 
Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Mississippi SEO, social media marketing in Biloxi MS, Social Media Marketing in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, web design biloxi ms, Web Design Hattiesburg MS, Web Design Jackson MS | 
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Guest Blog – Gimmicky Facebook Marketing that Doesn’t Work
May 21, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
The newest trend in business marketing is the ‘like’ system, provided by the social media giant, Facebook. What does a ‘like’ really get you? Using ‘like’ is similar to creating a mailing list. When someone clicks the button, their name is added to a fan grouping that you can use for advertising purposes. A ‘like’ will also increase the “word of mouth” potential for a company or website.
It is not hard to see why companies are trying to come up with new and improved mousetraps to get Facebook fans. Just like any advertising scheme, not all ideas work. Let’s take a look at a few of the less ingenious programs designed to get you ‘liked.’
Popup Messages
This campaign involves a message coded into the loading script of a website, blog or feature. When users go to open a site, the background goes darks and a small popup message appears asking them to ‘like’ the page on Facebook. Visitors must either click the button to ‘like’ the page or close the popup to continue on to the website. This trick is more annoying than it is effective. In general, the bullying approach to advertising will not get you liked.
Suggest to Friends
Facebook offers a marketing tool to increase your fan base. The ‘Suggest to Friends’ option allows you to send a notice to everyone on your friends list to like your page. This is annoying, as well, but much easier to ignore than popup messages. That in itself is a problem. This is passive-aggressive marketing. People with hundreds of friends on Facebook probably get one of these notices every day and they can’t ‘like’ them all. After a while, the alerts get ignored. People want to make choices for themselves and are not likely to join up with every notice.
Buying Fans
There is nothing wrong with budgeting for advertising but buying Facebook fans is not cost-effective. You may get more likes with a paid campaign but you don’t know who is doing the clicking. The company you are paying may have dummy accounts or you might be getting likes from users overseas that will never be anywhere near your business. The purpose of going viral on Facebook is to increase traffic for your company or website. Unless you are International, paying for likes is not going to help much.
Sweepstakes
It seems like a good idea, and at one point it probably was, but now sweepstakes are just overdone. It is the too much of a good thing rebound effect. Companies all over the Internet are having drawings for some tiny prize and all a user has to do is keep hitting the ‘like’ button. Distinctive is always better, and sweepstakes do not stand out enough to get noticed any longer.
Extended Permissions
This is anything that requires Facebook to allow permission for a user’s page, for example, a login tool. When the alert pops up to allow permissions, there is a knee jerk reaction to close it. Your customers will get nervous about giving you an open door to their personal information. You might get an automatic ‘like’ from this customer every time they log in using Facebook but many will feel uncomfortable with the process.
At this point, the smart reader is asking what will work to get more Facebook fans. Good old fashion patience, service and hard work. If you offer a memorable service, worthwhile product or compelling website eventually you will develop a following. In the beginning stages of Facebook promotions, some of the get fans quick schemes may have been effective, but not so much anymore. Facebook users are becoming more discerning about their ‘likes.’
Give-a-ways and promotions that require you to like a page can help. Most people will jump at the chance to get a free copy of a book or discount on an order. They might be willing to hit the like button if it gets them something.
Blogging regularly with the ‘like’ option is viable, as well. If you post to a blog about subjects the interest your readers, they will pay your back by liking each post. Combining a blog with a page feed will keep them focused on the fact that you maintain a presence on Facebook.
With any form of advertising, slow and persistent is going to get you lifelong customers and fans. Fast and dirty marketing may get a few initial clicks, but the interest will flame out. Take your time, set up an effective campaign and stick to it.
This guest post is by Edwin who regularly writes about celebrities, TV, and movies for the Celebutaunt blog on USDish.
Posted in Facebook for Small Business, Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Mississippi SEO, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Hattiesburg, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Mississippi SEO, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Comments Closed
Guest Blog-A Checklist to Get Your Website Ranking Highly In Search Engines
May 18, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
Over 100,000 new website domain names are registered daily but not all rank well on internet search engines. Websites that are Search Engine Optimized (SEO) upon launch and regularly optimized afterwards have a far greater upfront chance of success. The following checklist is designed to get websites off to a positive optimized start straight away.
Firstly a new website needs to be accessible and clearly visible on the internet. Users and search engines need to be able to easily find all the pages associated with the website and they should be error free and avoid content duplication. Webmaster Tools provided by Google is a fantastic free tool to help diagnose and correct website problems in regards to page visibility on Google prior to website launch.
Then target keywords to bring traffic to your website (the correct words make it easy for search engines to match your website content to queries). Choose words that people are actually searching for (have search volume) and that accurately relate to the content you want people to see on your website.
Next is quality website content. Having search engines find your pages through keywords and then not having relevant and useful content for users is not going to make your website successful. You need to look at what will be useful in answering their query. Do you need more statistics, images or information references? If you get this right, users will be pleased and return to your website; and you will receive more web traffic from search engines as they also look for quality and value for users.
Good website design and usability is critical. The services of an expert web designer will help greatly to get this right but you could also go with a simple design and test it out on friends and colleagues to get feedback on how easy it is to use and find content. Act on improvement suggestions to get the website right because if there are problems when launched you will not get return users.
Social networking and SEO go hand in hand. Search engines give priority to links and items shared on sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn (which all have hundreds of millions of users). Set up accounts and share website content consistently on social media to gain positive web traffic and get people talking about your site.
Finally link building without creating spam is critical to your websites success. Establish high quality links with reputable and relevant websites to ensure they appear on search engines and attract the web traffic you desire. Start with asking good customers and business contacts to link your site on their website, blog roll or social networking page. Look at relevant blogs that you may be able to submit a guest post on, or contact local news media and inform them of your site, perhaps request a review website to look at your site and so on. Build quality links and you will rank more highly on search engine results.
Bio – Ruth Rogers is an internet marketer that also enjoys writing custom assignments, social web marketing, and search for other fun methods to bring mega traffic to sites.
Posted in Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Mississippi SEO, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Small Business Marketing, Web Design Hattiesburg, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Social Media Marketing in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast, Web Development Hattiesburg | Comments Closed
Guest Blog – How to Sell to the Over 60s Online
May 3, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
E-Commerce has hit the mainstream. These days more and more people are flooding to bargains offered by the likes of Amazon or are looking to snap up amazing deals on the auction site eBay. But if there is one group that has proven less interested in going online for deals it’s the over 60s.
They haven’t grown up with computers like many people have, and on average will have had less use for them at work. And this lack of experience has brought with it a certain mistrust. This means that to sell to the over 60s you need to ensure that they can trust you.
With that in mind we have gathered together the best tips on how to sell to the over 60s. Because once you have overcome that mistrust it can be a lucrative market for you, and your products can benefit your customers in a whole new vertical.
E-Commerce Selling to the Over 60s
- Large product pictures: Ideally next to your own branded logo in the same shot. They may be worried you don’t actually have the products you are trying to sell, and are just trying to get them to pay for something they won’t receive. This can help put their minds at rest.
- A telephone number: One of the best ways of alleviating concern is to have a telephone number they can ring. Many will be reassured by it simply being there, but some will like to call and chat. If possible this can be a great way of establishing trust.
- Easy to navigate and easy to read: Consider how easy your site is to navigate for those that don’t use computers much. And while you’re at it make sure that the font is easy to read (and large) and that the contrast between background and foreground is sharp to help reading.
- SEO: You may not think it but SEO is vital for marketing to the over 60s. Research has found that the majority of people over 65 will use a search engine to find a product, rather than going to a specific site. So you need to ensure that your site is being found in the search engines if you wish to sell 60th birthday gifts and other products to the over-sixties demographic.
- Legal disclaimers and certificates: The over 60s are most likely to read through all the disclaimers and certificates. So make sure that you include them in your site and easily seen, so that they can be found and read.
There are three vital aspects of selling to the over 60s online. Develop trust, be easy to navigate and be found. Sort those out and you’ll be selling to the over 60s in no time.
About The Author:
Matt Greene works for Find Me A Gift, where you can find gift ideas for all ages, including 40th and 50th birthday gift ideas and more.
Posted in Internet Marketing Hattiesburg, Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Hattiesburg, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast, Web Development Hattiesburg | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Social Media Marketing in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Development Hattiesburg | Comments Closed
Guest Blog: Conversion Rate Optimization
March 23, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
Ways to increase your Conversion Rate
Some of the obvious points like site speed and usability aren’t mentioned in this post as you have probably read about them in other articles. My objective was to share some different methods that can work but aren’t usually found in other posts.
Driving visitors to your website is one thing, but getting them to convert is another. While we all concentrate on trying to get more visitors to our sites, we mustn’t forget the importance of conversion rate optimisation as this is a vital part of any online business. Increasing your conversion rate by just 1% can have a huge effect on your sites performance so you must always be looking for ways to improve it.
Conversion rate can be best described as ‘the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action’ so for example buying a product or signing up to a newsletter.
Whenever you think about conversion rate don’t just think about your website, try and think about the external source that brings you the visitor. Think about your search result that appears in Google or your product listing on a referrer’s site. Can you do anything on this external source that is going to benefit the visitor before they reach your site? A good tip is to provide the key factors about a product or your desired action to the external source. Below are a few ways that can help you achieve this.
Rich Snippets – Schema.org
Schema.org is a collection of shared vocabularies that you can use to mark up your web pages which help search engines such as Goolge, Bing and Yahoo understand what your page is about. Schema.org is used with micro format data, and can be implemented by marking up your html content with relevant tags.
Samsung have used the Aggregate Rating tag to display their rating reviews for the Samsung Galaxy S2. Other mark ups are available such as price and description. Checkout the schema.org website for the full documentation and a list of tags you can use.
By using rich snippets you are able to inform your visitor with key information which in turn could make their decision to purchase or complete the ‘desired action’ before they’ve even clicked on your site.
Google Adwords – Site links / Ad extensions
If you have a Goolge adwords account then site links and ad extension are great for providing key information to PPC campaigns. Like rich snippets, an ad extension allows you to have rating reviews on your brand and product terms.
Build Relationships
Your business will also receive traffic from referrers, so a good idea is to contact these sites and provide more information about your ‘desired action’. They will be grateful of this extra information and the attention you’re paying to them. By building relationships with these referrers, means they are more likely to corporate with you in the future and give you a bit more attention or allow you to have more in-depth product details.
As you have started to look at your external sources, you must also look at your existing site and find ways to improve it. A golden rule in optimisation is to test, test, test.
A/B and Multivariate Testing
A/B testing is where you create 2 different landings pages and send 50% of visitor to Page A and the other 50% to Page B. You would then analyse the results to find out which landing page converts better.
Multivariate testing is where you use different variations of content within sections of a webpage simultaneously, for example you could have three different headings and two different images.
Using both these types of experiments is a great way to test your pages but a word of caution, make sure you are testing the different variations with enough visitors to get accurate results.
Google offer a tool named website optimizer which many people use to carry out these two experiments so be sure to check it out.
Think about the visitor
What I mean by this,is trying to think about what questions the visitors may have and how you can answer them. Here are some questions a consumer may have for an ecommerce website.
How much does delivery cost?
How long does it take?
Does this price include VAT?
Is this site secure?
Is the site trust worthy?
Using tools such as live chat can really benefit your business as it provides a live contact with you and your visitor. Using things such as accreditations, reviews and guarantees can help you gain trust with the visitor. Make sure you place things like your guarantee, contact number and live chat above the fold so it’s the first thing that the visitor sees.
By putting yourself in the visitors shoes, will help you realise some key factors that you may be missing on your site. Think about when you visit a site, what things do you want to see or not want to see?
Express Checkout
Visitors don’t like to enter their credit card details or address details at the checkout anymore; they want a quick and easy solution. By introducing an ‘Amazon like checkout’ you will most certainly increase your conversion rate. If you don’t have an express checkout then take a look at some of your competitors and see how many do. You may just find that you can become one step ahead of them.
If you currently do have an express checkout, advertise the fact that you do. Don’t wait for the visitor to reach the checkout before they realise, show it on your landing pages.
New methods and techniques are always being introduced that can help your conversion rate optimisation so be sure to keep updated by researching and reading online. Always remember to keep optimising as it’s down to YOU, to improve your websites conversion rate.
Article written by Daniel Whittaker who is the website content administrator at Cartridge Monkey, one of the UK’s major suppliers of Ink Cartridges. Daniel is a keen writer on SEO, Data Analysis and Website Optimisation
Posted in Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast, Web Development Hattiesburg | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Mississippi SEO, social media marketing hattiesburg ms, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Comments Closed
Guest Post – Facebook or Google Adwords?
March 16, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
Google AdWords has been the prime choice of people looking for pay per click advertising on the web for many years. But now that Facebook, which offers its own advertising service, has become one of the most visited websites in the world, there is another very attractive option available.
Yet there’s a small problem: most of the people who are using social media and visiting Facebook won’t be looking to buy like they might be doing when carrying out a Google search.
AdWords targets people who are more likely to be looking to buy a product, while Facebook targets people according to their interests – thus you’d be forgiven for assuming the conversion rate offered by AdWords would be higher. However, some companies have reported that their Facebook campaign has been more lucrative than an equivalent campaign on AdWords.
Why could this be?
It’s more than likely all down to targeting. AdWords targets people based on what keywords they’re typing and what information it can gather from previous searches, whereas Facebook has much more information on the people using their service and can specifically target these individual people based on all their information.
So for hitting a target market, Facebook is going to be much more accurate, as you can choose to only go after the people that are going to be interested in your advert. Because of it being so specific, you’re less likely to be getting people clicking your ad that aren’t interested in your product or service which will keep the cost per click lower.
On Facebook, you can include pictures in your ad. You can’t do this on Adwords, so it’s a big advantage to Facebook as it can really attract people’s attention towards your ad while they’re browsing the site. An image can be seen and taken in in a second and is more likely to be noticed by someone casually scrolling through a site, but a well-written advert could easily go unnoticed by someone not wanting or bothering to read.
Two can be better than one
The main thing to remember is that you’re not just limited to one option when it comes down to advertising. You can easily choose to run a pay per click campaign on both Facebook and Google AdWords, and you might find that one is better than the other for your particular business or both are equally as good.
If you’re in the UK and uncertain you can run a pay per click campaign for whatever reason, it might be worth looking into an online marketing agency in the UK that can run pay per click management for you.
Article written by Amy Fowler of online marketing agency, Boom Online Marketing. Follow Boom on Twitter.
Posted in Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Mississippi SEO, Social Media Marketing in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast | Comments Closed
8 Great Link Building Tools
March 13, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
How on earth do I begin link building? That is often a question that we get from many clients who are seeking internet marketing consulting. One of the best places to start when beginning a link building campaign is the appropriate tools. A carpenter has his hammer, nails, skill saw, but we internet marketers have our own tool set. Today we are going to look at 8 great link building tools and would love for you to join in the conversation by leaving a comment below with your favorite link building tools.
1 ) SEOmoz-SEOmoz Pro is a paid tool that helps you manage all your SEO needs in one place. From link analysis to keyword difficulty SEOmoz is one of my favorite tools to use when building new links. SEOmoz also includes other cool benefits such as social media monitoring.
2 ) Raven-While very similar to SEOmoz Pro, Raven also offers great reporting tools and can help create Google Adwords campaigns. Raven tools will undoubtedly help make your link building process much easier and quicker.
3 ) Microsoft Excel-While some of you maybe scratching your heads on this one, you would be amazed at how much benefit you can get from analyzing data complied in Excel.
4 ) Open Site Explorer-Although OSE is a part of SEOmoz Pro, it can also be used as a stand alone tool for free.
5 ) Check My Links-Although a slightly more advanced tactic, Check My Links is a Chrome plugin that will crawl a web page and find broken links. Broken links present an opportunity for you to contact the web master and replace those broken links with new links to your site!
6 ) My Blog Guest-Guest post blogging can be a great way to build links to your website and provides fresh content for the blogger. My Blog Guest has a great community of bloggers and is definitely worth a try.
7 ) Mozbar-Another Chrome plugin and tool from SEOmoz that is great for SEO metrics “at a glance.” Mozbar will show you SEO metrics in SERP’s such as domain authority, # of links, and more.
8 ) Social Networks-We are all familiar with Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but have you been using these networks to build links? If your answer was no, then begin sharing your content on social networks and building beneficial relationships that can turn into more links down the road.
Did we leave off you favorite link building tool? Are you currently using these tools? Tell us what your favorite link building tools are by leaving a comment below!
At Shine Online Marketing we work with small businesses to develop internet marketing strategies that help your business Shine! If you would like to receive a free quote, email us at info@shineonlinemarketing.com, or call us at 601-336-3001. Also be sure to visit our site at shineonlinemarketing.com and subscribe to our RSS feed for all the latest updates.
Posted in Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, SEO in Jackson, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Hattiesburg, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Social Media Marketing in Mississippi, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | 2 Comments »
10 Great Web Design and Internet Marketing Resources
February 27, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” -Benjamin Franklin. Today we’re going to provide you with 10 great web design and internet marketing resources, so that you can increase your knowledge and ultimately grow your small business online. With the internet and social media evolving so rapidly, it is crucial to rely on reliable resources to gather information, which is exactly what these resources will help you do.
Web Design
1 ) Webdesignledger.com-The Web Design Ledger is a “publication by web designers for web designers.” Although this website is for web designers, it also provides some great resources for small businesses such as short tutorials, free fonts, free psds, and more.
2 ) Tripwiremagazine.com- Tripwire magazine is a design and web development blog dedicated to designers, web-developers, freelancers, and bloggers. Tripwire covers everything from blogging, social media, business, and more.
3 ) Smashingmagazine.com-Smashing Magazine is an online magazine for professional Web designers and developers, with a focus on useful techniques, best practices, and more. Smashing also has a dedicated WordPress design section which I absolutely love.
4 ) Sixrevisions.com-Six Revisions publishes web design articles, news, and tutorials on useful information for web designers and developers.
Internet Marketing
5 ) Mashable.com-Mashable is the social media news blog covering cool new websites and social networks: Facebook, Google, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. One of my favorite internet marketing “news” websites that also provides a lot of tutorials and guides.
6 ) Seomoz.com-SEOmoz is a wonderful resource for search engine optimization tips, although most are fairly advanced. If you already understand SEO and are looking to advance yourself more, I definitely recommend SEOmoz.com.
7 ) Searchengineland.com-Search Engine Land is a must read hub for news and information about search engine marketing, optimization and how search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing operate. Search Engine Land is a great resource for better understanding search engines and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and changes in search.
8 ) Socialmediaexaminer.com-Social Media Examiner helps businesses master social media marketing with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn to find leads, increase sales. I 100% recommend following this blog if you are trying to get more out of social media for your small business.
9 ) Sethgodin.typepad.com-Seth Godin’s riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread. If you haven’t heard of Seth Godin, he is one of the leading marketing experts on inbound marketing such as search, email, and social media marketing.
10 ) Marketingland.com-The sister site of Search Engine Land, Marketing Land provides internet marketing news and analysis, along with columns covering practical tips and strategiesto succeed with search engine marketing and more.
Did we leave off you favorite resource? Do you already read most of these websites on a regular basis? Tell us what you have learned by leaving a comment below.
At Shine Online Marketing we work with small businesses to develop internet marketing strategies that help your business Shine! If you would like to receive a free quote, email us at info@shineonlinemarketing.com, or call us at 601-336-3001. Also be sure to visit our site at shineonlinemarketing.com and subscribe to our RSS feed for all the latest updates.
Posted in Internet Marketing Hattiesburg, Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, SEO in Mississippi, Web Design Hattiesburg, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast, Web Development Hattiesburg | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Search Engine Marketing Hattiesburg, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Comments Closed
Web Analytics 102
February 13, 2012 | Author Michael Cornett
Last week we introduced our web analytics series with Web Analytics 101 where we talked about what web analytics are and why they are important for your website. If you didn’t get a chance to read Web Analytics 101 I encourage you to before diving into this week’s Web Analytics 102. Although I mentioned that in web analytics 102 we would learn how to install Google Analytics, after writing today’s blog I decided that we would focus on installing analytics next week in web analytics 103. Today we are going to look at 5 of the top web analytics tools in order to help you chose your favorite and start improving traffic to your website.
1 ) Google Analytics-The most popular web analytics and with good reason. Google Analytics is free, powerful, and can be connected with your Google Adwords campaigns. Google Analytics allows for segmentation, customization, and ecommerce tracking.
2 ) Piwik-An open source, downloadable, real time web analytics software. With over 200,000 websites already using Piwik, its goal is to be the free alternative to Google Analytics.
3 ) Crazy Egg-Utilizes heat maps to help you “visualize your visitors.” Crazy Egg will help you understand which aspects of your website could benefit from a redesign based upon where visitors click and how they use your website.
4 ) Clicky-Focuses on real time analytics with the added bonus of Twitter analytics as well. Clicky allows you to view almost any report with up to a year’s worth of data.
5 ) SiteCatalyst-Powers the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, SiteCatalyst gives you insight into organic search, paid search, mobile search, and social media insights including Facebook and Twitter.
Of these 5 web analytics tools, only Google Analytics and Piwik are free. If money plays a role in which web analytics you use, I would suggest starting with one of these two, and in the future if you have need you can always start using one of the other three. If you are a visual person, Crazy Egg maybe the right analytics for you. As I mentioned I love Google Analytics due to the fact that it is robust, free, and easily connects with Google Adwords. Be sure to check back next week when we will talk about how to install Google Analytics and what the next steps are after you have installed analytics on your website.
Posted in Internet Marketing Jackson MS, Internet Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Mississippi SEO, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Tags: Internet Marketing Mississippi, Mississippi SEO, Social Media Marketing Jackson MS, Social Media Marketing MS Gulf Coast, Web Design Jackson MS, Web Design MS Gulf Coast | Comments Closed
Local SEO or Bust
November 7, 2011 | Author Michael Cornett
Have you googled any products and services lately? If you have then undoubtedly you have noticed the increased emphasis on local businesses. In fact, in many searches local results consume the entire space “above the fold.”
New Google SERP
Google is now giving additional information and pictures on the right hand column for many local places. As an example if I was looking for somewhere to eat on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and a friend mentions a great place called Mary Mahoney’s. Since I’m not very familiar with too many restaurants on the coast I Google Mary Mahoney’s Biloxi and wham, I get a new look from Google. Now not only do I see many organic results, but to the right I see a map, photos, details about the restaurants, and reviews from several other websites such as yahoo, tripadvisor, urbanspoon, and more. See a picture of my SERP below:
So what does this mean for your local business?
If you’re the owner or manager of a local business you need to check to make sure your Google Places Page is owner verified and optimized. Last week we put together a Google Places Prezi presentation walking you through the steps of creating, verifying, and optimizing your Google Places Page. If your places page is already up to par, consider adding new photos showing off the best products and services that your business has to offer. Since Google is now displaying this information in the actual SERP, many more people may determine whether to use your business or your competition simply by what they see when they Google you.
What types of businesses will this change affect?
According to Google, the change will affect a wide range of real-world places from restaurants, hotels, local businesses, landmarks, museums, and more. If you read that the way I do, I would assume most everything you would want to find locally will be affected.
How can Shine Online Marketing Help?
We offer Local Search Engine Optimization and can help your business rank well for keywords that are vital to your business. Not only can we create a Google Places page for you, but we can optimize your business for local search to capture those customers searching for your products and services. Ex: You own a local plumbing company. Potential customers are searching for plumbers daily by typing in keywords related to your business such as “plumbers, plumbing, plumbing company, and local plumber.” We help to put your business right in front of those people searching for your products or services. Call us today at 601-336-3001 or email us at info@shineonlinemarketing.com.
Is your business performing well in Local Searches? Have you optimized your business listing? Do you want to gain leads from people searching for your products and services?
Shine Online Marketing | 72 N OF FLDS, Hattiesburg, MS 39402 | 601-336-3001 | info@shineonlinemarketing.com
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