How to Set Yourself Apart In The Sea Of Online Marketers

Do you feel odd when you write marketing material to publish online? Do you read over old marketing items and wonder why in the world it says what it does? Do you think, “I can’t believe I published that!”? Do you hire a copywriter and just accept whatever they come up with? After all, they are professionals!

If your online marketing material stimulates an image in your mind that is just not you, likely you’ve been trying to model your approach after someone else or you’ve been using work produced by someone else without giving them the benefit of knowing you, learning your approach, sharing your ideas and interjecting your personality into the material.

Let’s admit it. We all do it!

When we get ready to publish something online we surf the net. We look for articles, ezines, web pages or auto-responders that resemble what we are working on, usually those published by direct competitors or sometimes published by mentors that we admire – successful online marketers.

While everything is fresh in our minds, we start to work on our own online marketing materials, thesaurus at hand, and we sometimes use words we don’t even know the meaning of. We end up with something that sounds really good to us because it is comparable to something we’ve read. We publish it.

So what happens?

We end up with a hodge-podge of material on the internet, published in our name, that doesn’t sound a bit like us. What’s really interesting is the mixed image that results. Two articles on the same topic may even reflect different points of view or different personalities.

So, what’s the solution?

The solution to this dilemma is to be ourselves and let our personalities show through in our online marketing materials.

If you are a Texan and the word “ya’ll” is prevalent in your vocabulary, use it! If you are writing a blog entry in the midst of a snow storm and it is “a bit nippy outside” don’t hesitate to say so. When you let your personality shine your image will be your own, not one you have crafted that will change from day to day depending upon what you have read most recently.

There’s lots of talk about branding in regard to online marketing. The basic principles of branding are to decide on the image you wish to portray and what message you want to drive home.

While some people could write a book on how to brand your business, there are really only a handful of factors to consider – 1) your image; 2) your purpose; and 3) your marketing message. The purpose of a brand is to craft something that will stick in the minds of people and help them to remember your business.

Creating and building a strong brand does not have to compromise your personality. The only real decision is whether you want to be casual or professional. We all speak differently when we are in a business setting than we do when we are hanging out with friends, but either way, our whole personality doesn’t change when we walk from one setting to the other.

In the world of online marketing, retaining your personality and your identity will go far in branding your business. You’ll be much happier with the long-term effects of your online marketing if you don’t try to be someone you are not. Be yourself and have fun!

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Expanding Your Online Business By Building A Website

As business grows, it can be a good idea to support your eBay sales with a website.

The first step is building a web presence outside of eBay by creating your own website. Building a website is not a difficult task. These days you don’t necessarily need the know-how to do it all yourself – there are plenty of people who will do it for you.  Turnkey stores are an option, or you can have a designer create the basic design for a website and then purchase shopping cart software separately.

Either way, you need to think carefully about branding at this point. Branding is recognizable design features that are carried across your entire business from product to business cards, to your website and brochures.

A brand helps your customers associate your products with an over-riding concept and identify them as part of their lifestyle. For example, some brands are associated with natural and organic concepts while others are associated with fine quality or a particular lifestyle. When establishing your online business, take care to make sure the branding you have already established on eBay remains consistent across your new website.

There are thousands of stores on the web, so to be successful, you’ll need to do something to make people visit your site and stay there for longer. One of the most effective ways of doing this is by providing people with information about your products. For example, if you sell small kitchen appliances, why not add articles to your site on how to use each appliance, tasty recipes to make with each, how to fix problems, and so on? Not only are you giving your users a reason to come back to your site, you are also increasing your chances of being placed in the top search results for keyword searches relating to the items you sell. Search engines give higher priority to good quality, unique information, so this is an effective way of keeping rankings high and getting traffic from organic search results.

Another way of getting more traffic to your site is by carrying out link exchanges. Just remember to limit yourself to related sites, otherwise you may find that you end up with a lower rather than higher search engine ranking! Linking to sites not related to the content on your site can actually give you a lower search engine ranking, so stay away from sites that offer hundreds of links for a fixed price. The best idea is to link to other sites that relate to what you are selling. For instance, keeping with the appliance example above, a site such as this could exchange links with sites selling china, cutlery, linen or recipes.

Finally, you can drive traffic to your site through advertising. Your ebay listings are one way of advertising if you add your site URL to your About Me page. Google Adwords is another very effective way of getting traffic to your site. A targeted campaign can do wonders for your website.

Done well, a website should increase overall sales, increase traffic to your eBay listings, and increase your reputation as an expert in your area.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Building Your List with Give Away Ventures

With the awareness of the importance of list building, comes a recent Internet Marketing trend which was started just a couple of years ago for the mutual benefits of all Internet Marketers and mailing list owners.

This method is more recognized as a “starting a Give Away venture”.

In a real sense, a Give Away event is much like a big time version of ad swaps. In a nutshell, a group of mailing list owners partner together and pool in their individual gifts in one limited-time event.

Each participating partner contributes a gift to the event. The gift can be a free product, membership pass or a product he is already selling (if he is kind enough to offer into the event).

The participating partner prepares a Lead Capture Page where he gives the gift in exchange for the subscriber’s email address. In other words, in order for a visitor to download the digital gift, he must opt in and subscribe to your mailing list.

When the gifts are pooled together into one event (site), every partner will then endorse the Give Away event to their own mailing lists.

The result: lots of visitors to one event as a collective effort of several participating partners!

With so many visitors downloading gifts from one focused event, it is a true win-win situation. This is because the visitors get to download several free gifts for their own use and every partner gets to build their own mailing list!

You can easily get notified about a Give Away event in the making by communicating with other Internet Marketers often or participating in Internet Marketing discussion and Joint Venture boards.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

Tips for Small Business Costs

Many first-time business owners are completely overwhelmed or unprepared by the amount of small business costs associated with operating a business. Small business costs often lead to the failure of many businesses, especially during the first year, or they even prevent them from getting started in the first place. Through a wide array of government and private programs, however, many small business owners have helpful options to help them finance their mounting small business costs.

A business plan is a necessity for obtaining business startup loans and funding for your business. Without one, most banks and investors will not even consider providing you with business startup loans or other funding for your new business. But a business plan provides more than just the opportunity to receive funding. Properly done it is also a blueprint for you to map out your future success in a written plan that you can stick to.

A business plan for the sole purpose of receiving a small business startup loan must contain several components. The first few pages include the Executive Summary and the Table of Contents. After this is the company description. This is one of the most important sections of a business plan. Your company description will give potential investors a short history of your small business along with the future you are planning for it. It describes plans you might have to expand your business. For purposes of getting small business startup loans, this is one of the sections that loan providers and investors are most interested in.

In the company description, you will want to avoid mentioning that your business is a startup business. Startup businesses are considered very risky investments by most investors. As an alternative, outline details of what you have contributed to the industry that you are currently in or plan on entering. Without sounding arrogant, mention some details or things that you have changed or something you have done differently than others in your market that has proved to be successful. Also, discuss how your business has grown in recent months or years and don't be shy about your predicted growth. Your excitement and passion regarding your new business needs to be seen in the writing of your business plan to help increase your chances of getting a business startup loan.

One of the last parts of a well-written business plan, but certainly not the least important, is your marketing plan analysis. This is an explanation of your demographics using facts and figures and a study done about your new, potential customers and clients. This section also explains your advertising plans, especially your target market and how you intend to reach them. This section must show that you have done extensive research, appropriate with your market to ensure that your product or service has a large demand. In order to obtain small business startup loans, you will also need to include a sound financial plan, including pro-forma financial statements for your new business.

Small business costs can be a large concern for entrepreneurs and first-time business owners. Fortunately, small business owners have access to business startup loans as well as other forms of business startup funding to help them overcome their financial stress. A business plan is an ideal way to show investors that you are serious about your new venture and that you know how to make it a success. With a some extra financial help, most small businesses can pull through the tough times and remain a viable business.

Dr. Ande
SEO Tips for Small Business

6 Simple Search Engine Strategies

Perhaps the most important -- and inexpensive -- strategy is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in "organic" or "natural" searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot "spiders" to index the content of your webpage, so let's begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal indexing. The idea here is not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant clues as to what your webpage is about. This approach is called "search engine optimization," abbreviated as SEO.

1. Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title. Write a descriptive title for each page -- rich in keywords you want people to find you with -- using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many "filler" words from the title (such as "the," "and," etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist -- 37  Ways to Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your web browser.)

Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that's what people will be searching for, don't just use your company name "Acme Ammunition, Inc.," use "Silver and Platinum Bullets -- Acme Ammunition, Inc." The words people are most likely to search on should appear first in the title (called "keyword prominence"). Remember, this title is your identity on the search engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue hyperlinked words on the search engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.


2. Write a Description META Tag. Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and keyphrases on this page. Don't include keywords that don't appear on the webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:

<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links.">
The maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.

When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then develop a keyword-rich title (#1 above). Then I write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag.

Next, I strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty keywords and phrases and insert those into the keywords META tag. It's no longer used much for ranking, but I'm leaving it in anyway. I think it may have some minor value. So to summarize so far, every webpage in your site should have a distinct title and META description tag. If you implement these two points, you're well on your way to better search engine ranking. But there's more that will help your ranking....


3. Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3). Search engines consider keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don't expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines -- it won't. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a big mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)


4. Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text. Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document -- where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don't want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it.


5. Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags. This helps your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors (www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/) and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes do help get your images ranked higher for image search (see #12 below).


6. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks. Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and keyphrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as blue-widget.htm -- another clue for the search engine.

7. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. You want search engine robots to find all the pages in your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don't read JavaScript and Flash very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. Don't set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, out-dated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems.

Some content management systems and eCommerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages, often recognizable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go any further. If you find the search engines are't indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.

3 Tips to Easy Business SEO promotion

Many local businesses struggle to find ways to promote themselves, get links, rank in search engines, and ultimately drive traffic to their websites. Most small businesses also have limited budgets making the task more difficult. For those businesses here are some ways you can promote your business online for free and generate some SEO traffic organically.

1. Email Signatures: Be sure to add your business URL to all of your outgoing email. Want to catch the reader's attention? Try adding your mission statement, or a catchy phrase to help people understand what you do. Change the statement a several times a year so people notice it again.
2. Syndicate Your Content and Ideas: Take advantage of article distribution Services like EZineArticles, ISnare, and IdeaMarketers to spread your message and approach. Use them to bring leads to your site by offering things like free eBooks or PDF’s that they can download after entering their contact information.
   
   These create link backs to you because you will include your business URL in your resource box. When you do this try and be just as creative. Don't just point them to the first page of your website. You can either create specific landing pages to send them too based on the company you post the article with or by topic (keep in mind this can become a lot of landing pages unless you write about one or two categories or topics).
3. Get listed: This is one of the most basic methods of business promotion, both on and offline. List yourself in as many business directories as you can; yellow pages, and local business Websites as you can find. Many of these will list your company for free, though some might require you to pay a small fee.
   
   This type of promotion is well worth the time and investment, as most people consult these publications when looking for a designer, plumber, electrician etc. You see the point.

Getting your business name recognized in appropriate circles is one of the biggest hurdles a fledgling company is going to face, but with a little fore-thought and some shameless self-promotion it's not as hard to get noticed as you may think.

Using Seminars to Promote Your Business

Promote your business by giving a seminar or presentation. You have expertise that other people are interested in! (You couldn't be in business if you didn't, and if you are an employee the employer is in need of your skills as only you can do it.) Why not share that expertise and promote your business at the same time?

For example, a local carpet company advertises a free seminar on installation techniques for a type of laminate flooring. Participants not only learn how to install this type of flooring themselves, but are offered special discount prices if they wish to purchase laminate flooring. Another local retailer who sells goods made of stained glass offers courses on working with stained glass on-site.

If there's no direct tie-in to your product or service, you can still give a presentation on a related topic. Nursery people or horticulturalists, for instance, often give demonstrations on topics such as tree-pruning, or slide shows of famous gardens they've visited. In my case, most of my business involves providing specific writing or training services to businesses and SEO advice so I give presentations on general topics such as "Promoting Your Business on a Shoestring" or "Using SEO to Increase Your Target Audience".

If it's not feasible to present the seminar at your site, because you're a home-based business or just don't have the facilities you need, arrange to give the seminar elsewhere. Many government-sponsored organizations, such as Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Libraries and non-profit programs are always looking for experienced business people who are willing to give presentations. You may also be able to arrange to present your topic through the Continuing Education branch of your local college or university.

Scared? Start small and start building a name by making a presentation to one of your local groups such as your Home-Based Business Association or Business Women's network. If public speaking terrifies you, I can't recommend Toastmasters highly enough; this organization has helped a great many people get over this fear and be able to address groups of people.

So try using your voice to promote your business. It's actually one of the better low cost ways to do it.

How Article Writing Improves Your SEO and Small Business Marketing

Writing articles on topics related to your business expertise is an excellent business promotion technique. Well-written articles can provide free advertising and build positive word-of-mouth. If you're a realtor, for instance, you could write a piece on preparing your home to be shown. If you're a Web site designer, you might write a piece about assessing Web site usability. The more specific your topic, the better. Write a short biographical note, or "blurb" about you and your business to go with the article. Then send it out!

Where? As the goal is to promote your business, ideally you'd like it to appear in a publication that your target audience will be reading. Realistically, you may have to send it to a publication that accepts unsolicited work from unknown authors. Magazines generally have a long lead time, so I would focus my first efforts on the 'Net. There are an astronomical number of eZines and sites with newsletters that are hungry for content.

One place to look for eZines to send articles to is eZine Net Top 20 Directories. eZines also provide excellent advertising value; the trick is to find the right eZine for your target audience. Freelance writing sites also provide a great deal of information on all kinds of publications that might publish your efforts. Make your research easier by starting with a great site that provides all kinds of lists and information on markets such as About Freelance Writers, or FreelanceWriting.com.

Newspapers are also excellent places to place your business promotion article, as they too have a much shorter lead-time than magazines, and are always looking for material. Try contacting the Business editor of your local paper and pitching your article. If this approach fails, you might be able to get your piece into the paper by sending it in as a letter to the Editorial section.

Simple Small Business Marketing that Works

Here's a method that's sure to draw attention to your business.

Use every outgoing piece of paper, and every electronic document as business promotion. You have business cards, but you also put out a lot of other documents in the course of doing business. Check these to make sure you're using their promotional possibilities to full advantage.

For instance, business stationery is an ideal business promotion tool. Is your business name, logo, contact information (including URL if you have one), and slogan on your envelopes as well as on your letterhead? Or are your envelopes only printed with your business name and return address? What a waste! Your phone and fax numbers, your URL, and even a memorable slogan should be there, too. It's not just an envelope; it's a business promotion tool! You're sending it out anyway, so why not make it work for you?

The same goes for outgoing faxes, bill payments, receipts; whatever paper you send out should carry your full company message. And don't forget to make sure that your email has a complete signature that provides all your business information and a promotional tagline.

Electronic documents, such as email, are also easy to update with your latest business promotion information, whether it be a special price on your product or service, or letting people know that your company has won an award.

Articles and press releases are also excellent business promotion tools that you can use to promote your business inexpensively. Read on to learn what types of articles and press releases you should write and tips on where to send them to promote your business effectively.

3 Tips to Help You Cheaply Market Your Small Business

Okay you've heard the selling comment before, "you're not in business if you have no clients or customers." Well it's true, if no one knows you're there, how do you expect to make sales? No sales equals no business.

Try these 3 ideas out to help you market your business at a low cost.

1) Contact nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges, and even other businesses who have customers who may need your services. Ask for work or leads.

2) Get on the telephone and make "cold calls." These are calls to people who you would like to do business with. Briefly describe what you do and ask for an appointment to talk to them about ways you can help them meet a need or solve a problem.

3) Offer a free, no obligation consultation to people you think could use your services. During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas -- and before you leave ask for an "order" to implement the ideas.

The point is to get samples of your product or your work into as many hands as possible. You want to use other people to sell your product or service. Instead of (or in addition to) selling your products yourself, in other words, go viral.  Nothing makes sales like word of mouth endorsements made by friends. Think of how many times you've eaten at a restaurant or tried a new store because one of your friends, family, or co-workers recommended it.

These three business promotion ideas are just some of the ways you can promote your small business without spending a small fortune. With a little experimentation and time, you'll find out which of these ideas work best for you - and best get the word out about your small business.

LOW-COST PROMOTION

Promotion and advertising can be a heavy expense, especially for a new business that wants to make itself known in a community. A home-based business, however, more often than not, has a very limited budget when it comes to advertising. The home business owner needs to make the public aware of his or her product or service at the lowest possible cost. There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized "birth certificates" for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent. The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn't afford much advertising, so she began offering "home cleaning seminars" to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients. Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success or business failure.

Look at your business and decide what kind of complimentary fund gifts or give a ways can you do to help add and attraction to your clients. What quirky or offbeat things add a smile to your face when you see them and how can you apply them to your business?

Just look around or you can even ask your friends and family what ideas they have about what you could do to generate sales. There's always something you can do to help you stand out in an over saturated market place that will draw attention.

Think about it McDonald's had signs that said "Over a billion sold" long before we ever knew what "one billion" was. Nike, says, "Just Do It" and Walmart has "Rollbacks". Take a look at what you are offering and just make one tweak that will be catchy, evoke an emotional response or just get people talking about your business.

Low cost advertising is simply a matter of adding a little something extra to give your customers more perceived bang for their buck and you get more clients; without breaking your bank.