George Dubec Online Marketing

New Online Marketing Blog

2008-12-22T11:32:00.002-05:00

Securenet Systems now has an online marketing blog. This new blog will be updated with tips and techniques for a website owner on how to properly optimize a website to increase website traffic and conversion rates.

Small Business and Search Marketing

2008-12-18T09:06:00.003-05:00

If you are a small business, whether in a local or national market, you need to consider getting involved in search engine marketing. You may have not thought about it because you think it requires a big budget. Now you can compete with the “Big Boys.” Internet marketing is not just for major companies but it is now more than ever for every business!

SearchEngineLand states that Fortune 500 companies are "woefully unrepresented in natural search." Just 8% of those companies got high grades for their search rankings.

If the big companies aren't taking advantage of search marketing then who is? Well it is small to medium size companies. Pay Per Click or Paid Search is mostly the realm of companies that have the marketing dollars to run high budget campaigns. But the natural or organic belongs to those who are most relevant. If your business has the right search engine optimization factors then you can get high rankings. That makes for quite an even playing field.

It happens quite often that major companies get lower rankings than their own distributors, partners, competitors, and affiliates for their prominent keywords. Too bad for the company as they should be aware of their position in the rankings to maintain proper branding. A major company will pay a lot of money for brand recognition and it’s a shame when lesser companies get the more favorable listings. This shows that the major is not paying attention to details and placing little emphasis on using high rankings on search engines as a branding factor.

It seems large companies find focusing on search not being an important part of their marketing efforts. For organic search success, all the proper elements of optimization must be in place. If you fail to properly implement any one piece, your organic search results could be affected adversely. Usually large companies have so many people involved in marketing that they don’t have anyone soley responsible for search. In reverse, when a small company implements search marketing, they can get one staff person or an outside consultant to totally focus on what is necessary to do and work toward getting favorable results. Just as a side note: the more resources involved in doing the job it makes it that much harder to get good results, which is a great advantage for small business.

Big companies in general will always have some kind of edge in most things because of their budget. But budget has less of an edge in natural search as it does in more traditional marketing. If you’re a small business and haven’t started or thought about search marketing then it's time to realize that any small business can take advantage of a great marketing opportunity that can put you ahead of bigger companies and your competitors. Get started now with either local, regional, or national search marketing.

Contact me anytime for a online marketing consultation about search engine marketing and search engine optimization for small, medium, and large companies. I can help you structure and implement a program that will fit your budget and get you great search results. Contact me at gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Rankings are great but are you getting traffic and business?

2008-12-16T10:16:00.003-05:00

If you have worked on getting high search engine placement, you have come to the realization that they don’t necessarily last. Rankings can shift and change dramatically. Rankings are not cast in stone! In fact they fluctuate considerably. Sometimes you can have a favorable position for years, other times it’s a battle just to stay on the first page. That's the nature of search engine algorithms. You or anybody else has no control over them.

Rankings are important for getting exposure on the search engines, but there is another factor that is even more important than being number 2 or number 7 for your keyword listing.

Top positions without getting traffic is worthless. And getting traffic without conversions to leads or sales has little value. In fact, while rankings can be a an important factor in growing the number of visitors to your site, traffic itself does not rely on rankings alone. You can be in the number 1 spot and still get less traffic than your competitor in the number 8 spot. Also you can often get more targeted traffic (which gives you higher conversion rates) and not be in that top spot.

The question is how do you get the full advantage of your rankings, regardless of position, and turn that into the kind of traffic which will produce strong conversions?

If you want to find out how to increase website traffic and increase your conversion rates, no matter where your rankings are, then contact George Dubec (http://www.georgedubec.com/), Internet Marketing Specialist, at gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

E-commerce Points to Consider (to get your business ready for online holiday shoppers)

2008-12-08T11:03:00.004-05:00

* It’s very inexpensive to send e-mail offers to your customers. Plan and craft campaigns that target featured products and sales to generate orders

* Make sure the products or services you're offering online are recognizable to the prospect, has a USP (unique selling proposition) and make it easy to order

* "The prospect doesn't give a damn about you, your company or your product," says marketing guru Bob Hacker. "All that matters is: 'What's in it for me?'"

* In e-commerce, you want the response to be instantaneous so always offer incentives to buy and special offers

* When you make an online offer, don't send the prospect to your website homepage, but rather to a special page (landing page) that directly relates to the offer.

* "Two basic tenets of selling are that (1) people buy from other people more happily than from faceless corporations, and that (2) in the marketplace as in theater, there is indeed a factor at work called 'the willing suspension of disbelief.' Who stands behind our pancakes? Aunt Jemima. Our angel food cake? Betty Crocker. Our coffee? Juan Valdez. Anyone over the age of 3 knows that it's all myth. But like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, the myths are comforting."--Bill Jayme

* Find a spokesperson for your product or service or use a Site Greeter (check out standoutsalesman.com or http://www.ispeakvideo.com/). Also I recommend using testimonials (video testimonials especially are great)

* It is a good idea to check your competition as to what they are doing online for holiday shoppers and do a competitive analysis* "Always make it easy to order."--Elsworth Howell

Good luck on your online holiday sales and if you need help developing holiday campaigns contact online marketing expert, George Dubec at gdubec@securenetsystems.net or request a FREE 10 minute consultation with George at http://www.georgedubec.com/.

Latest Blog Statistics

2008-12-03T09:29:00.001-05:00

Everyone should consider starting a company blog. A blog is one of the easiest and quickest ways to become part of web 2.0 and can be part of any industry, product or topic. Originally “blog” or web log was a space or location on the web where regular internet users could publish their thoughts and ideas, record their day-to-day lives, give advice and opinions plus share their expertise to a virtual audience. Now, the blogosphere is a global phenomenon with 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users) and 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%) according to research by comScore MediaMetrix. Blogs are no longer just online diaries. A ready and willing audience is available to bloggers and is one important reason why blogging should be considered to be part of any businesses’ online marketing strategy.

If you would like to find out how to start your own blog or integrate it into your online marketing program contact Internet Marketing Specialist, George Dubec, at gdubec@securenetsytems.net and visit his website at http://www.georgedubec.com/.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T16:50:00.003-05:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I will be in Indianapolis this Thanksgiving visiting my family. If you need any professional marketing help, feel free to contact the online marketing experts at Securenet Systems while I am gone. I shall be returning Monday, December 1.

Turbo-charge Your LinkedIn Profile

2008-11-12T15:36:00.002-05:00

If you have a profile on LinkedIn, like every smart Publicity Hound should, you can really impress visitors by taking advantage of several new applications.

I haven't had time to experiment with them all, but I wanted to let you know about six that are particularly powerful for anyone who wants to promote their expertise or anything else on
LinkedIn:

--With just a few clicks, you can synch your Wordpress blog to your profile, great for pulling in traffic to your blog and letting visitors know which issues you think are important. Blog Link, a separate application, lets you synch blogs that are created on Typepad and other platforms.

--SlideShare lets you upload and display your own presentations, check out presentations from your colleagues, and find experts within your network. What a great way for consultants to share their expertise!

--With a similar application called Google Presentation, you can upload your PowerPoint presentation. Or use Google's online application to embed a presentation on your profile.

--My Travel allows you to see where your LinkedIn network is traveling and when you will be in the same city as your colleagues. Share your upcoming trips, current location and travel stats with your network. This is a super way for speakers to pick up one or two more speaking engagements, or perhaps even a consulting assignment, in a city where they're already booked.

--The Reading List from Amazon lets you share the books you're reading with other LinkedIn members--a handy way to find out what you should be reading by following updates from your connections or people in your field.

Try a few of the apps that appeal to you, then start incorporating them into your publicity campaign. Scott Allen, an expert on LinkedIn, explained step-by-step directions on how to use this site to promote any product, service, cause or issue. He was my guest during two teleseminars in June called "How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything--Ethically & Powerfully." The classes sold out quickly, but they're available as handy electronic transcripts and your choice of MP3 files or CDs.

From The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.com/
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)

If you would like to get “Linkedin” with George Dubec, online marketing expert, go to http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgedubec.

Internet Web Traffic Statistics for www.georgedubec.com

2008-11-10T10:14:00.004-05:00

I started my personal business website in December of 2007. As you can see by the statistics below that by working at SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) plus other online and offline marketing activities I have been able to increase the traffic to my site considerably over time. As I always say, “Online marketing is like paddling a boat upstream. Once you get started you can’t stop or you will go downstream real fast. You must go steady and forward to make significant progress.” It takes time, effort and money to get increased traffic to your site. There is no “magic bullet!” The next important issue is to not only get general traffic, but targeted website traffic to your site, in other words, those that want your products and services.

If you need help getting targeted traffic to your website contact George Dubec, Internet Marketing Professional, to help you at 954-481-9402 # 222 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Internet Users in the USA

2008-10-31T12:44:00.003-04:00

The Internet has long been a mass medium in the US, but it just got a little more massive.

eMarketer estimates that 63.4% of the US population uses the Web at least once per month, and that nearly seven out of 10 Americans will do so by 2013.

Are you taking full advantage of the Internet to get leads and sell your products and services? If you are not then your competition is! Contact an online marketing expert to help you get more targeted traffic to your website – George Dubec, online marketing consultant at 866-568-9402 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

September Search Market Share

2008-10-24T15:52:00.002-04:00

September Search Market Share: Query Volume Leaps on Back-to-School and Economic Concerns, Google Leads Growth

Written by Jeremy Crane - October 20th, 2008

Ah, September. When leaves begin to turn, school kids doff their backpacks, the economy tanks and Google sets a new record for search market share and hits the 2nd greatest month/month query volume growth in the past 13 months.Interestingly, most of the other search engines also grew query volume, demonstrating the magnitude of students and concerned investors returning to their web browsers. MSN/Live was the only search engine that lost query volume in September, and with Club Live factored in, that loss actually became a dive.

Google continued to impress, hitting 40.3% year/year query growth, same as last month, while most competitors took big hits compared to last year. Yahoo! slipped 6.1% versus September, 2007. MSN/Live fell 12.8% or, if you count Club Live, only 5.8%. And AOL lost a whopping 18.2% of queries versus 13 months ago.

The only bright spot, other than the Google sun, was Ask, which inched 1.2% compared to September, 2007. Perhaps that “The Algorithm killed Jeeves.” advertising campaign actually did help retain Ask searchers.

If you are not properly listed on Google with your most prominent keywords and keyword phrases, that relate to your business, then you need to contact George Dubec, online marketing consultant, and find out how to get there? Call 866-568-9402 # 222 or E-mail gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Networking Seminar with George Dubec and Mike Owen - Oct 18, 2008

2008-10-15T16:30:00.007-04:00

"How to Network Successfully for Business"

Presented By

Mike Owen
LearnBusinessNetworking.com

Special Guest

George Dubec
Senior VP Sales and Marketing of Securenet Systems
Radio Show Personality on "The Internet Business Hour"
Presenting "How to Use the Internet for Networking"

George Dubec & Mike Owen

Learn How to Network Successfully

Join South Florida’s top business networking professionals and get an education on how to be successful in networking to increase your business.

Mike Owen has been networking in South Florida for over 14 years, met thousands of people through networking, and has successfully built a network of contacts for his businesses. During this time, he has attended or orchestrated over 1,000 business events. He has successfully applied his networking system to getting more business. Come and learn the ins and outs of networking, avoid dreaded networking pitfalls, and what to say and do when meeting business people. Mike Owen will also invite up a few guest speakers who have successfully built their businesses through networking. Right after the seminar put your newly learned knowledge to use at our networking event!

George Dubec has been an Internet Marketing Consultant for over ten years. He is also a radio show personality, national speaker, past Director of the Nightingale-Conant Speaker’s Bureau and sometimes referred to as “The Voice of the Internet.” Learn how to use the Internet to find prospects, get leads, promote your business, brand your name, and refer business to others. Find out how to use the Internet as a virtual networking tool.

Date:
Saturday, October 18, 2008
9:00 am - 12:30 pm: Seminar with Mike Owen and George Dubec
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm: Networking

Location:
Sheraton Suites Plantation
311 N. University Dr.
Plantation, FL 33324

Special Price - $25
Register at http://www.learnbiznet.citymax.com/HTNS.html

For more info contact Securenet Systems at 866-568-9402, or email info@securenetsystems.net.

Budgeting for your Website Project Including Internet Marketing

2008-10-10T13:30:00.002-04:00

The following is a rule of thumb on how to distribute a budget for a web project (first year):
a) - Design, layout, and developing specifications (5%)
b) - Web development (40%)
c) - Adjustments, changes, additions and maintenance (10%)
c) - Web marketing and promoting (40%)
d) - Web hosting (5%)

Specifications:

1. You need to have your specifications developed with professionals and have a schematic design layout of the prominent pages with all the required elements displayed.

Web Development:

1. If you want a site built by a “Web Guy” who learned how to use Dreamweaver and Photoshop, expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $65 per hour and about $50 to $100 per page. Expect to have it finished whenever. They are also available to do any extra work, if you can get a hold of them, at your “beck and call.” There will also be additional cost for features, functions, backend programming and databases.

2. If you want a site built by a 5-10 person, *boutique-style agency, expect to pay anywhere from $65 to $100 per hour and about $100 to $200 per page based on elements required and optimization. There will also be additional cost for features, functions, backend programming and databases.

3. If you want your site built be a *top-notch agency, expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $300 per hour and about $200 to $400 per page based on elements required and optimization. There will also be additional cost for features, functions, backend programming and databases.

* These are experts and they deserve to be paid as experts. These companies require specifications and you will have to pay for additional work and ongoing maintenance. The work will be queued in their normal work schedules for completion.

Web Marketing and Promoting:

1. You will need to establish a budget for monthly SEO, SEM and online marketing work. That being said, much of the online marketing work can be done in house if you and your staff know what to do and how to do it? Anything you don’t want to do, know how to do or can’t do will have to be outsourced. Some companies use interns from local colleges to do a lot of the online marketing work.

If you need help in establishing a budget for your project contact George Dubec at 866-568-9402 #222 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

The Latest Online Marketing Trends for Business

2008-10-03T15:29:00.003-04:00

Come visit George Dubec and Securenet Systems' staff at the ITEC Conference and Expo!

Visit us at Booth #212 for two days.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
9:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Ft. Lauderdale Convention Center
1950 Eisenhower Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316

For more info contact Securenet Systems at 866-568-9402, or email info@securenetsystems.net

41 Percent of Adults Click Away From Problems

2008-09-29T08:48:00.006-04:00

emarketingandcommerce.com
September 18, 2008

When consumers run into transaction problems online, 41 percent say they switch to an online or offline competitor or abandon such transactions entirely.

This was a key finding from a recent survey commissioned by Tealeaf Technology, a San Francisco-based customer experience management software provider, and conducted by Harris Interactive.

The survey was conducted online between Aug. 5 and Aug. 7, polling 2,010 adults age 18 years and older, and focused on shopping, banking, travel and insurance Web transactions.

Results reveal that nearly nine out of 10 consumers (87 percent) conducting transactions online have experienced problems. Here are some other key findings:

- 84 percent feel an online transaction should be completed on the first try;

- 84 percent have conducted an online transaction in the past year and 35 percent prefer to conduct their business online;

- 22 percent of those who've conducted an online transaction in the past year expect better customer service online than when shopping in person;

- 87 percent of respondents who experience problems when conducting online transactions get frustrated, and 41 percent said they come away feeling angry;

- 47 percent of respondents have contacted call centers after encountering problems using Web sites. Among those, 64 percent felt that call center reps weren't knowledgeable about the Web sites, while 38 percent said their issues didn't get resolved over the phone;

- Among the 72 percent of those who said they've experienced poor customer service from call centers when calling about Web site issues, 45 percent stopped doing business with those companies entirely, 37 percent decreased the amount of business they were doing with the company and 13 percent said they lodged a complaint with the Better Business Bureau;

- 84 percent who said they had problems with online transactions share their experiences with others.

If your website is that is not properly e-commerce enabled and has an ineffective or poorly structured shopping cart you will lose business. The key to making money with your website is increasing your conversion rate. As you can see by the statistics above, if you have any glitches on your site you will lose customers and that directly affects your bottom line. Contact the e-commerce experts at Securenet Systems to get your website up to speed and working efficiently and effectively to get more business. Call 866-481-9402 or info@securenetsystems.net.

Free Online Marketing Seminar

2008-09-22T11:34:00.002-04:00

Strategic Business Institute

presents

George Dubec

"How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website"

6:00PM - 8:00PM: Presentation

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Securenet Systems Corporate Offices
356 SW 12th Ave.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

Find out:
*How to develop a twelve month online marketing plan
*How to design a website that is search engine friendly
*How to select effective keywords
*How to optimize your website for search engines
*How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
*How to develop a link building program
*How to use blogs, newsetters, press releases and RSS feeds
*How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
*How to get more targeted traffic to your website

Seating is limited, please RSVP
For more information, call Securenet Systems @ (866) 568-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net

Free Online Marketing Seminar

2008-09-15T09:58:00.009-04:00

iConsulting, Inc.

presents

George Dubec

"How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website"

5:30PM - 6:30PM: Networking
6:30PM - 8:00PM: Presentation

Wednesday September 17th, 2008

Ana G. Mendez University System
South Florida Campus
3520 Enterprise Way
Miramar, FL 33442

Seating is limited, please RSVP
For more information, call Securenet Systems @ (866) 568-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net

Link popularity is "page specific," NOT "site specific

2008-09-10T10:11:00.002-04:00

Link popularity is an important part of obtaining top rankings in major search engines. In fact it accounts for almost 60% of why the search engines rank your site highly or not. But don’t think that link popularity is only about your site.

Link popularity is "page specific," NOT "site specific."

Which of your pages are prominent and should be considered as part of your SEO (search engine optimization program)?

Create a plan to work on increasing link popularity, directly to those pages individually. Part of the problem with link building is that it sometimes seems overwhelming. Not only does the work seem too involved but there is a never ending stream of strategies, information and advice about link building.

I recommend that you start with some initial pages and do it in phases. Make a consistent effort over a period of time and you will start seeing results.

So what's your plan? If you don’t have one, call the experts at Securenet Systems and find out how they can help you with your link building program, either outsource it to them or let them educate you or your staff. If you would like to schedule a consultation about link building contact me, online marketing specialist, at 888-481-9402 # 222 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Get the Best Technical Advice Possible

2008-08-29T11:25:00.003-04:00

Want a sure-fire way to get the wrong advice? Ask the right technical question... to the wrong person.

Most of us are conditioned to be helpful. When someone asks advice or information from an expert, it's difficult for them to admit they don't know the answer. Because everything is so technical and detailed in today’s high tech world only those with in depth knowledge and actual work experience need apply to provide the correct answer.

An example would be asking someone who is an expert and works in PPC (Pay Per Click) a question about HTML programming. They will do their best to respond, but because they are used to working in PPC, not working in programming, they may not fully understand the implications of the question. So instead of providing a correct answer, they inadvertently offer misinformation and they reinforce incorrect ideas or outdated information.

Sometimes the answer given isn’t totally wrong. It's just that it isn’t exactly right, either. It’s just enough information to make the answer sound good to the questioner. It’s recommended that you ask experts for advice, but make sure they are the right experts!

Asking a PPC expert about HTML programming makes about as much sense as asking a graphic designer how to fix your car. You might get lucky and get a good answer, but wouldn't it make more sense to just ask a mechanic in the first place?

This happens all the time in my business. A business owner hires a web firm or web developer to create their website. The firm or developer mentions they also do SEO (search engine optimization) work. The site owner then pays additional monies to have a “web expert” optimize their site. Then after a period of time they are disappointed with the results. Then the business owner blames the fact that SEO doesn’t work! The problem isn't with SEO, it’s with the site owner relying on the wrong expert. Business owners need to do their homework and select the companies that have the experience, background and knowledge to do the right type of work in the proper way.

Just because someone's a superstar graphic designer, or an experienced PPC expert, or an excellent programmer doesn't make them an expert at SEO and vice versa.

The moral of the story is ask a graphic designer to get your car going and you will be left stranded! Someone knowledgeable in one aspect of Internet services or online marketing will not make them an Internet expert that has a answer to everything technical. Make sure you choose the right person to ask for advice or do business with.

If you want the right person to steer you in the right direction call George Dubec, Online Marketing Specialist. I can help share ten years of knowledge, background and experience with you. If I don’t know the answers or solutions I know who the experts are that can help you. To set-up a consultation to get the right answers for your project call 954-481-9402 # 222 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

WHY WEBSITES ARE NOT SUCCESSFUL

2008-08-25T11:16:00.003-04:00

80 % of websites are dysfunctional and are not effective!

1 – Poorly designed and not set up as a true sales and marketing tool.

2 – Visitors don’t understand what your site is about

3 – Contact information not frequently and properly displayed including “calls to action!”

4 – No budget for ongoing marketing, site maintenance and site updating.

5 – No “point person” within the organization responsible for the website. If they have someone assigned, it may not always be someone knowledgeable about the business or a high level staff member.

6 – No marketing elements designed into the site.

7 – No “stickiness,” meaning when visitors come to the site they must have a reason to stay on the site and then communicate their interests in your business and/or products and services.

8 – No online marketing plan (at least a twelve month plan should be in place) and no consistent, ongoing effort.

9 – No incentives, call to action, promotions or special offers.

10 – No “Unique Selling Proposition” displayed, in other words what separates you from the competition, and information about why anyone should do business with you.

11 – No adjustments and updates on the site after being launched. A site is dynamic and needs to be constantly worked on for ongoing improvements, changes and adding features and functions. Focus group studies plus surveying family, friends, associates and clients about site usability.

12 – Not analyzing the competitions’ online efforts.

13 – Site or marketing plan not designed to go after your target market.

If you want to know if your website is dysfunctional and get a FREE Web Traffic Report, contact Internet Marketing Specialist, George Dubec, at gdubec@securenetsystems.net and find out which of the above items you are lacking or not properly implementing.

Spend Online Marketing Dollars Wisely

2008-08-22T10:41:00.002-04:00

A recent study from the Corporate Executive Board said that the best thing a company can do in terms of its digital strategy is to master its own website. Despite the strategic importance of this finding, most companies are not committed to their websites and still spending the majority of their marketing dollars on offline activities.

Website conversions require an end-to-end process. Customers expect websites to speak WITH them, not AT them. It is recommended that businesses and organizations, both large and small should be spending 15% of their marketing budget on search engine optimization and another 15% for online marketing programs, such as affiliates, opt-in email, pay per click, blogs, etc. In other words at least 30% of your budget should be allocated to Internet marketing.

To find out how to spend your online marketing dollars wisely and effectively contact George Dubec, online marketing specialist, to help you develop a twelve month online marketing plan. gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Broward Business-to-Business Trade Show

2008-08-18T11:34:00.008-04:00

Sponsored by the Broward Chamber of Commerce

Come visit George Dubec, online marketing specialist, and other Securenet Systems representatives for a night of networking!

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Exhibitor Only Reception & Networking 1:00PM - 5:00PM
General Admission 5:00PM - 9:00PM

Hilton “Fort Lauderdale Airport” Hotel
1870 Griffin Road
Dania Beach, FL 33004
(I-95 & Griffin Road)

Demand more from your website!
Stop by and visit our booth!

OVER A THOUSAND ATTENDEES

Call Securenet Systems to get VIP passes and FREE ADMISSION tickets! (954) 481-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net

For More Information:
http://www.browardcountyexpo.com/
http://www.southfloridaexpo.com/
http://www.browardbiz.com/

Listen to our radio show "The Internet Business Hour"
Every Saturday in South Florida 10:00AM - 11:00AM WFTL 850 AM

What is a Blog?

2008-08-13T15:39:00.003-04:00

"A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction." From blogger.com

Why Should You Consider Starting a Blog?

A blog provides great online marketing potential. Here are some significant selling points for maintaining a company or personal blog:

1. Inexpensive Marketing - Setting up your own personal or business blog is totally free! No setup fees and no monthly fees are required. Utilizing some basic customization features you can have the system upload your posts to your own website. The basic version allows you to post your industry related news, acknowledge special events plus offer tips, advice and information on your site on a daily basis. This has two enormous benefits; daily fresh content, which the search engines reward websites for, and a reason for your visitors to go to your website more often.

2. Instant Information Distribution - Sending the quality content that you post on your blog along with automated syndication will transmit your information to multitudes of online viewers through the news portion of search engines as Google, AlltheWeb and Yahoo. The paid version of Blogger (being upgraded so it is offline) is offering automated RSS feeds, a significant online tool. RSS means "Really Simple Syndication," instant syndication of your content throughout the Internet. Content provided via an RSS feed is updated to the major search portals within one hour in most cases!

3. Branding You and Your Business - Building business and industry credibility! Blogs are your way of letting others know that you or your company is truly an expert in your field. Write articles about your latest events, news and even provide tutorials to help your readers.

4. Online Marketing - Blogs are great because you are constantly adding new and fresh content, which search engines love. Blogs are easily updated which is the key to blogs and blogging. Also your blog is designed to provide relevant content to your target market. If you can write an email, you can update and post to a blog. New, relevant content is key. Not just content, but relevant content.

Blogging is a simple and effective way of keeping your clients informed, building credibility for yourself and your business plus providing link backs to your websites, microsites and landing pages. If your content is considered valuable, useful and beneficial to others, you will build a healthy following of readers plus a loyal client base. The advantage of better search engine placements is a big plus!

If you want to know more about blogging or you would like Securenet Systems to help you setup an optimized blog contact George Dubec, online marketing specialist at 866-481-9402 # 222 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Online Ad Spend Growing at "Phenomenal Rate"

2008-08-05T10:18:00.005-04:00

The Internet continues to expand its role in our lives from social networking, online video watching, online TV and radio growth, businesses doing online marketing locally, regionally, nationally and globally. The hard-copy Yellow Pages is now being used for nothing more than a paperweight or doorstop! If your business is not positioned to take advantage of Internet marketing and advertising, to generate leads and more revenue, then you are living in the dark ages! Check out the latest BizReport research about online advertising growth.

BizReport: Ten percent of all advertising spending across all media will be on online ads according to recent forecasts released by IDC.

by Helen Leggatt

Global spending on Internet advertising is forecast to reach $65.2 billion this year. Compared to traditional advertising methods, Internet advertising is growing at a “phenomenal rate”. IDC forecasts that in 2011, online ad spending will reach $106.6 billion, accounting for nearly 14% of the total advertising market. However, online advertising still represents a relatively small proportion of the overall global advertising spend and trails television, print ads and direct mail by a huge margin. By 2011 the U.S. will lead the globe in terms of the amount spent on online advertising, but Western Europe will devote the largest portion of their ad budgets on the Internet. “Marketers already recognize that online advertising must be incorporated into any comprehensive ad strategy. This will continue to drive growth in online ad spending well beyond the forecast period,” said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment.

Feel free to contact me directly if you need an online marketing consultant to help you find out how you can increase your revenues and profits by marketing on the Internet. Call 866-481-9402 or gdubec@securenetsystems.net.

Securenet Systems' Affiliate Partner Presentation

2008-08-01T14:40:00.006-04:00

Last night Gary Lee, Executive VP of Securenet Systems, and I presented an Affiliate introduction and training program for Securenet System’s Internet services. There was an excellent turnout of new Affiliates as well as present Affiliates. The introduction was all about Securenet Systems' services which includes: website design, website hosting, programming, online marketing, SEO and radio streaming. There was a discussion on how to become an Internet Marketing Consultant using Securenet Systems as a resource to provide your customers with Internet services. Many consultants can earn substantial incomes including ongoing residual income to expand their revenue streams.

SECURENET AFFILIATE COMMISSION

You will receive a 15% monthly sales commission paid out for web hosting, design work and website promoting services on all accounts you bring to us, for the life of the account.

If you, as a first generation Affiliate, want to bring on another Affiliate, you will receive a 5% commission. The second generation Affiliate will earn 15%. Securenet Systems does not pay out more than two levels.

YOUR AFFILIATE BUSINESS SITE

Once you have signed up we will send you a URL to a Securenet Systems Affiliate site to run your business. There will be a link code to your account for all business that comes through your site.

See example site at http://www.securenetsystems.net/index.cfm?rscode=10061398

BANNERS

You can choose various Securenet Systems banners to place on your website(s) with a link code to track your customers. See http://www.securenetsystems.net/graphics/banners for banners.

REPORTS

Once you're up and running with Securenet Systems' banner links on your site or through your Securenet Systems Affiliate business site, we'll automatically track the sales you generate. You will be able to check your site's reports anytime on our extranet site.

If you would like more information call 866-568-9402 or email us at info@securenetsystems.net. If you are ready to sign-up as a Securenet Systems Affiliate go to http://www.securenetsystems.net/services/reseller_program/request_information to fill out our form and have an application emailed to you.

Securenet Systems' FREE Affiliate PartnerTraining

2008-07-28T09:21:00.011-04:00

Affiliate Partner (Reseller) Training

"HOW TO GENERATE ADDITIONAL STREAMS OF INCOME BY REFERRING SECURENET SYSTEMS' INTERNET SERVICES"

Presented by

George Dubec

Senior VP Marketing and Sales

Gary Lee

VP Sales

Thursday, July 31, 2008

6:00PM - 8:00PM

Securenet Systems

356 SW 12 Ave

Deerfield Beach FL 33442

From I-95, Exit Hillsboro Blvd West, Left turn on SW 12 ST, left turn behind La Quinta Inn to Bldg #7

Let George Dubec, Sr. VP of Marketing & Sales, provide valuable information to help you refer business to Securenet Systems and earn commissions for the life of the account. This could amount to substantial residual income for you or your business.

AFFITLIATE PROGRAM AND TRAINING:

*What services Securenet Systems has to offer

*How to refer business

*How to capitalize on the Internet explosion

*How to generate additional income for you or your business

*Proven marketing and advertising techniques

*Resource tools available

*How to offer incentives and promotions

*How to become an Internet consultant

Whether you are presently a Securenet Systems affiliate partner or you would like to sign up, RSVP for this informative presentation!

SEATING IS LIMITED - RSVP

For more information, call Securenet Systems @ 866-568-9402 or 954-481-9402 / info@securenetsystems.net

If you want to become an Internet consultant backed by a premier, ten year old, Internet service provider, then this is the event for you! Find out how to earn substantial commissions and ongoing residual income by referring business to Securenet Systems. Learn how to help other companies use the web to generate leads and more revenue and get paid for it. Presented by one of the most well-known and influential Internet specialists in South Florida, Mr. George Dubec (http://www.georgedubec.com)

2008-07-22T09:18:00.002-04:00

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 24 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Through your network you can:
-Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
-Be found for business opportunities
-Search for great jobs
-Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
-Post and distribute job listings
-Find high-quality passive candidates
-Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know

LinkedIn is free to join. [They] also offer paid accounts that give you more tools for finding and reaching the right people, whether or not they are in your network.

Above information from from Linkedin.com.

There are a multitude of Social Media Networking sites from Twitter to Plaxo to Facebook to MySpace, etc. They all have their own unique personalities and features and functions. But if you have limited time to invest in social media, like me, then how do you know which one or ones are worth your time? If I had to pick one, which I have, it would be Linkedin for business purposes.

LinkedIn is not one of the sexy, trendy programs in the shiny world of social media. Instead, LinkedIn is more than just another place to "add your friends." It's actually one of the world's best virtual networking tools. That it's "Six Degrees of Connectivity" translated into the business world. It's a great tool to build your business.

For years I received multitudes of requests from friends and colleagues to connect to them on LinkedIn. I never paid attention to these overtures until recently. I joined LinkedIn a few months back and initially starting adding all my friends from my contact list and exploring friend's contact lists to see who they were connected to. I updated my profile and started reviewing LinkedIn’s features. Now I have become an avid user. Presently I have 61 connections and 5,487 in my network since as of July 18th.

Once you join, forgetting to revisit and make use of LinkedIn is a big mistake if you run the type of business that relies on making contacts. LinkedIn's search feature isn’t about finding contacts you know, but finding contacts YOU NEED to know. The whole "degrees of contact" concept provides invaluable insight into how to make contact with new people and new companies.

For those new to LinkedIn, the site will track the connections between you and every other member of the site and will tell you how many "degrees" apart you are from any one contact. First Degree means you know them personally, Second Degree means you know someone who knows them, Third degree means they're a friend of a friend of a friend, etc.

Using LinkedIn’s search feature is a way to “daisy chain” your contacts and meet new people to expand your business. That means working your network to expand your network! You can ask your connections to introduce you to some of their connections that might turn into business for you. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes you never hear anything back. Either way, it's far more effective than sending blind emails or making cold calls. You get an added boost of credibility when you are introduced by someone who knows you. If you trust your contacts then you trust their referrals and recommendations. Give recommendations about your friends and associates which will be displayed and tabulated on LinkedIn and get them in return.

Those aren’t the only reasons to use LinkedIn of course. There are groups of like-minded people for a wide range of topics you can join and make contact with and you can send out questions and surveys to get feedback from your personal contacts. There's great value in those things. But for me, the real value of LinkedIn is in using it to discover the hidden connections among my network and the rest of the world. You never know who you almost know. Why not find out?

If you would like to get Linkedin with George Dubec go to http://www.linkedin.com/in/georgedubec.

Securenet Systems FREE Online Marketing Seminar!

2008-07-17T09:05:00.007-04:00

Securenet Systems

presents

George Dubec

"How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website"

Thursday, July 17, 2008

6:00 pm - 8:00pm

Securenet Systems Corporate Offices

356 SW 12th Ave.

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

From I-95, Exit Hillsboro Blvd West, Left turn on SW 12 ST, left turn behind La Quinta Inn to Bldg # 7

FIND OUT:
*How to develop a twelve month online marketing plan
*How to design a website that is search engine friendly
*How to select effective keywords
*How to optimize your website for search engines
*How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
*How to develop a link building program
*How to use blogs, newsetters, press releases and RSS feeds
*How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
*How to get more targeted traffic to your website

SEATING IS LIMITED - PLEASE RSVP

(954) 481-9402 or info@securenetsystems.net

Multi-Channel Retailing

2008-07-16T09:32:00.002-04:00

Today, online consumers think nothing of shopping across a retailer’s store(s), Web site and catalog. As a consequence, online product research is actually driving more land-store sales than online sales. Any retailer who isn’t using the online channel to promote offline sales—as well as online sales—is missing a huge opportunity.

In 2007, eMarketer estimated that store sales influenced by online research totaled $471 billion. Comparatively, retail e-commerce sales were $136 billion.

Another way to look at it is that for every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales. From 2007 to 2012, Web-influenced store sales are forecast to grow at a 19% average annual rate, compared with a 12% rate for retail e-commerce.

So if you have a “bricks and mortar” store, make sure you have a budget for an effective and easy-to-use website plus both online and offline advertising. You need an online sales and marketing tool because you will reap the benefits derived from customers doing online research which leads to offline sales. Contact George Dubec if you would like to set-up a consultation to create a website that works plus a twelve month online marketing plan.

E-Mail is The Most Effective Form of Direct Response

2008-07-14T16:20:00.002-04:00

In the following study it shows that opt-in e-mail is one of the most powerful online marketing tools on the Internet. If you don’t have an effective opt-in e-mail program in place or aren't using an opt-in e-mail management company, you should set-up a trial account with Constant Contact:

Constant Contact®, Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing® is the leading web-based email marketing service used by over 50,000 small businesses and associations. With Constant Contact, you can create email newsletters and announcements that get immediate and measurable results. Also you will be able to track the results of all your mailings.

To learn more about this service and set-up an account go to Constant Contact.

E-Mail is The Most Effective Form of Direct Response
By Steve Miller

E-mail is now the most popular form of direct response marketing, per a new survey of large U.S. corporations conducted by Direct Partners, New York. E-mail is used primarily by 35% of companies compared to 25% which use traditional direct mail and 21% who use package, statement stuffers or free standing inserts. The finding echoes a study from last fall from MarketingSherpa, where participants reported that "house e-mail marketing" delivered the best return-on-investment in terms of direct response. The results of the Direct Partners study were derived from 30,000 surveys sent in April to senior executives at companies with 2007 revenues exceeding $100 million. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said that e-mail works most effectively for them, with 24% reporting that direct mail does the best job. "The dramatic emphasis on e-mail as the primary direct marketing vehicle is significant," said Harry Haber, vp-Direct Partners, Marina del Ray, Calif. "And why not? It's fast to deploy, inexpensive to distribute versus other media, and the response is rapid. "Most companies (56%) reported spending less than $1 million on direct response media in the past year, while 37% said they spent between $1 million and $50 million. Half of respondents said they handle their direct response marketing internally, while 37% conducted it though a combination of agency and internally.

Also among the findings:
68% market to their prospect database
82% market to their customer database
57% said their direct response budget will remain the same this year compared to last, while 23% reported their budget would increase by 10% or higher
47% said that less than 10% of their marketing budget went to direct response media

Haber said that the study shows a broader embrace of direct marketing, putting it among the standard media mix for more companies. "For the largest of companies, change comes slowly," Haber said. "However, there seems to be more of an acceptance of direct marketing today than say versus five years ago."

Online ad spend growing at "phenomenal rate"

2008-07-08T10:41:00.000-04:00

BizReport : Research : June 30, 2008

Ten percent of all advertising spending across all media will be on online ads according to recent forecasts released by IDC.

by Helen Leggatt

Global spending on Internet advertising is forecast to reach $65.2 billion this year. Compared to traditional advertising methods, Internet advertising is growing at a “phenomenal rate”. IDC forecasts that in 2011, online ad spending will reach $106.6 billion, accounting for nearly 14% of the total advertising market.

However, online advertising still represents a relatively small proportion of the overall global advertising spend and trails television, print ads and direct mail by a huge margin.
By 2011 the U.S. will lead the globe in terms of the amount spent on online advertising, but Western Europe will devote the largest portion of their ad budgets on the Internet.

“Marketers already recognize that online advertising must be incorporated into any comprehensive ad strategy. This will continue to drive growth in online ad spending well beyond the forecast period,” said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment.

Google is Learning to Crawl Flash

2008-07-02T10:46:00.003-04:00

Until recently, webmasters were afraid to create flash sites because search engines weren't able to crawl and index them. But now, Google has announced that their bots are learning to crawl flash. They have been developing an algorithm that can read text embedded in flash, from "flash menus, buttons and banners, to self-contained Flash websites."

Here are some questions and answers from the announcement made by Google in Google Webmaster Central:

Q: Which Flash files can Google better index now?We've improved our ability to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash "gadgets" such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between.

Q: What content can Google better index from these Flash files?All of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. If your website contains Flash, the textual content in your Flash files can be used when Google generates a snippet for your website. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.

In addition to finding and indexing the textual content in Flash files, we're also discovering URLs that appear in Flash files, and feeding them into our crawling pipeline—just like we do with URLs that appear in non-Flash webpages. For example, if your Flash application contains links to pages inside your website, Google may now be better able to discover and crawl more of your website.

Q: What about non-textual content, such as images?At present, we are only discovering and indexing textual content in Flash files. If your Flash files only include images, we will not recognize or index any text that may appear in those images. Similarly, we do not generate any anchor text for Flash buttons which target some URL, but which have no associated text.

Also note that we do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.

Q: How does Google "see" the contents of a Flash file?We've developed an algorithm that explores Flash files in the same way that a person would, by clicking buttons, entering input, and so on. Our algorithm remembers all of the text that it encounters along the way, and that content is then available to be indexed. We can't tell you all of the proprietary details, but we can tell you that the algorithm's effectiveness was improved by utilizing Adobe's new Searchable SWF library.

This is truly an amazing accomplishment, considering how many website designs are still made with flash. Website owners, and visitors, can now enjoy flash while not worrying about whether or not search engines will be able to crawl them.

If you want to learn more about Google and Flash, you can read about it here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/improved-flash-indexing.html.

Update on Domain Names - New York Times Report

2008-06-30T09:07:00.001-04:00

Domain names have been expanding and evolving since the Internet began. Currently the domain system consists of more than twenty suffixes, which follow the last dot in web addresses. These are called top-level domains. Presently they are connected to countries such as “.de” for Germany or categories such as “.com” for commerce and “.org” for institutional organizations. Later ones have come out like “.biz” for businesses in 2001 and “.mobi” for mobile applications in 2005. Many individuals, businesses and organizations register many domain names and their derivatives all pointing to the same site. Also individuals have purchased domain names to buy and sell. Soon you will have an opportunity to purchase your own personal domain name extension category.

NEW YORK TIMES – 6/27/08

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved one of the most sweeping changes to the network’s address system since its inception. Any company, organization, city, state or country will soon be able to apply for a new Web address extension, called a top-level domain. Also these domains will be able to be registered in scripts other than Roman characters, like Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic. Countries can get their two-letter country code, like Bulgaria’s “.bg,” in their native alphabet.

All applications would have to go through an independent review process. Third parties will be able to challenge applications on the grounds that a particular suffix could threaten “morality and public order.” Companies will have first priority when it comes to claiming their brand names such as “.coke.” If multiple parties want the extension, then it will be settled through an auction process.

ICANN officials state that they will move slowly before the launch of this program while seeking to review all concerns and considerations. It will take approximately a year before it is ready for open market. The prices for the new domains will start in the low six figures.

To find out if you are using your domain name(s) effectively contact George Dubec for a marketing consultation. You will receive a report and analysis of your domain name, website design flow, and website traffic analysis.

The Largest South Florida Business Expo

2008-06-25T11:30:00.004-04:00

The Largest South Florida Business Expo
Sponsored by the Broward Chamber of Commerce

Come join George Dubec and Securenet Systems Representatives for an evening of networking at the largest South Florida Business Expo ever!

Thursday, June 26th, 2008
4:00PM - 9:00PM

Bank Atlantic Center
One Panther Parkway
Sunrise, Florida 33323
Near Sawgrass Mills Mall

Demand more from your website!
Stop by and visit our booth!

OVER A THOUSAND ATTENDEES

Call Securenet Systems to get VIP passes and FREE ADMISSION tickets

For More Information Go To www.browardcountyexpo.com or call Securenet Systems @ 954-481-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net

1 in 4 Internet Users Visit Social Networking Sites

2008-06-23T15:43:00.002-04:00

Until recently, social networking was a relatively niche Internet activity. Nowadays many Internet users have integrated them into their daily lives, and perhaps the business community will be the next to embrace it.

by Helen Leggatt (BizReport : Social Marketing : June 20, 2008)

The most recent Consumer Internet Barometer from the Conference Board and TNS, found that one in four Internet users visit social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
Serious social networkers can log on to their network of choice several times a day, around half do so at least once every day. These users don’t need to be in the comfort of home to surf a social network, many do so at work, in libraries, at school or via their mobile devices from pretty much anywhere.

"Online social networking is an integral part of many people's lives and a natural extension of our means of communication which the Internet has created,” said Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center.

“The next growth wave will be expanding and incorporating these networks into our business lives,” she added, which might not be too far distant with one in eight employed 30-somethings using social networks to conduct business.

If you would like to find out how to use Social Networking (Web 2.0) to promote your business, make new contacts, generate interest for your products and services plus keep up to date with new technology then contact George Dubec, the Online Marketing Consultant, to integrate this strategy into your online marketing program.

Average Search CPC Data by Category for May 2008

2008-06-17T15:36:00.003-04:00

A look at the average cost-per-click in search by vertical in the U.S. for April and May 2008. Data and research are provided by Efficient Frontier. "Total finance" includes auto finance, banking, credit, financial information, insurance, lending, and mortgage. Each vertical contains data from multiple advertisers.

If you’re considering a Pay Per Click campaign then it’s important that you use online marketing professionals to manage your program. It is very easy to spend a lot of money and not get traffic to your site that turns into conversions, which is more leads or sales for your business. Contact George Dubec to analyze your present situation and online marketing budget to see if PPC (Pay Per Click) is right for you.

5 REASONS WHY YOUR SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC MAY HAVE DROPPED

2008-06-11T16:43:00.003-04:00

Recently there have been many websites seeing a decrease in search traffic. Here is a quick list of possible reasons this might have happened with some notes of how to handle the situation and how to tell if that’s what actually happened:

1. You’ve been penalized. Most often this will also trigger the following:

- you have lost all your rankings for all your keywords
- your site has been dropped out of index

Solution: find out what you may have done wrong, clean up your site (and tactics) and ask for reconsideration. If you are sure that you are good enough for a human review by the search engine staff, you stand a good chance of being forgiven and relisted. If you don’t know how to analyze the situation contact Securenet Systems to help you review your situation.

2. Your site has been hacked. That’s a common scenario in today’s Internet world. Here are a few signs that you have been hacked:

- your site has been dropped out of the search engine index without any reason
- you get a rise of unusal traffic (especially for searches that have nothing to do with your site)
Google especially notifies you of unusual keywords in your site content. Prior to taking any actions Google does its best to notify a webmaster of possible problems:
--- they notify a webmaster via Google tools
--- they send an email alert to a webmaster to a most probable email address (admin@yourdomain.com, webmaster@yourdomain.com, contact@yourdomain.com, etc.

3. The search engine is tweaking or adjusting its algorithm. That’s a highly probable situation considering that last year alone Google launched more than 450 new adjustments, that’s about 9 per week on the average. Some more recent adjustments include:

- Google’s “special” attitude to .info domains
- Google deranking most directories; etc.

4. Overall (seasonal) change in searches. Sometimes your traffic drop has nothing to do with either you or the search engine. This is due to fashion trends, political and economical changes, etc. Check out Google trends to find such patterns.

5. Your competitors are doing better with their promotional efforts. SEO is about constant competition. You can’t achieve the top and rest assured you are going to be there for life. You are being watched by those who want to be in your place. So do what your competitors are doing:

- always review your competitors and do competitive analysis
- review your competitors’ link building and social media promotion efforts
- improve your own SEO techniques

NOTE: What initially got you top rankings will not allow you to remain there. It’s like paddling a boat upstream. You must continually paddle to make constant headway.

If you can’t understand why you have a drop in traffic, whether sudden or over a period of time, you need to seek expert help. SEO is much like rocket science. If you don’t keep up to date with the latest SEO strategies and techniques, you don’t have the tools to analyze your situation, you don’t have the knowledge to understand what is going on or the manpower, contact an SEO professional organization to assist you. Call Securenet Systems; doing online marketing work for over ten years or call me direct at 866-568-9402 # 222.

Best 3 SEO Tips of 2008

2008-06-04T09:10:00.003-04:00

By Scott Jason (c) 2008
Each year I spend the first three months looking for the best and most innovative SEO tips of the previous year's end. This year I have what I believe to be the best 3 SEO tips in a decade!

SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's biggest search engine be your personal online investigator. This takes search engine optimization insider info to a whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google....

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic."
Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams" As you probably guessed, it's the second one we care about most, "keeping current on a competitor or industry."

Here's how it works... Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online agent to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's the easiest way in the world to stop competitors' dirty tricks and identify trends that you can take instant advantage of.

It's fast, free and works every minute of every day. Let Google Alerts do your most time consuming legwork while you reap the rewards!

SEO Tip #2: Optimize Your 404 Page and Always Be Found

"Error 404: Page Not Found" is a blessing that most Webmasters curse. Why? Getting a visitor on any page of your site is fantastic! Don't blow the opportunity. Not only can you make your "404" page a valuable sales tool, you can use the following search engine optimization techniques to attract customers in droves.

A.) Use your main keyword in your title, add a "pipe" (usually above the Enter key) and then use your secondary keyword. Here's an example for an SEO site "SEO Search Engine Optimization Tips"

B.) Add some keyword rich content using one to two keywords for the page. If you have less than 250 words on the page, just use one keyword and use it no more than three times total. Bold the first use and italicize the second or third use. Keep in mind this is an "inactive" page so simply tell the visitor what your site is about and whet their appetite with a good description. Something like this works well... "Thank you for visiting SEO (bold) Group, Inc. We're sorry you seem to have found a missing page but rest assured, if you are looking for the world's best search engine optimization tips (bold or italic), you are at the right place..." This will go on for a couple paragraphs or as long as you'd like then end it with something to the effect of "Please Click Here (link) to visit our site map or click any link to the left."

C.) Add your site's standard navigation system (bar, column, etc.) as mentioned above.

D.) Make the look and feel of the customized 404 page match your main site as closely as possible with a template, matched palette, cascading style sheets, etc.

E.) Create a link to the site map page if available, and make the link easy to find. You want your visitor off the 404 page and into your main content as quickly as possible.

Setting up a custom 404 page link usually takes less than five minutes on most major Web hosting companies like Godaddy.com. But whatever it takes, it's worth the effort.

SEO Tip #3: Get (Even More) Serious about Linking

I saved the most important for last. If you want to do well on any search engine, especially Google, linking is THE single MOST important thing you can do. It's that simple.

Here are the five things you MUST do to make your site #1 on Google:

A.) Find the highest page rank sites linking to your site AND your competitors' sites.

B.) Run monthly link campaigns and snatch up the best of the above identified Web sites.

C.) Run regular checks on what pages are still linking back to your site. Also make sure they did not move you from a high page rank page to a lower one (don't get cheated!)

D.) Eliminate any penalized sites you link to; ASAP!

E.) Check your search engine ranking AND your competitor's for each of your keywords every week. Do this for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista at the minimum.

Inside Tip: Keeping up can be a lot of work, and is extremely important, so a lot of SEO Consultants (myself included) use SEO Elite to do all the most difficult and time consuming work.

One last thing to know is that Google was originally a college student's project created for the sole purpose of defining a Web site's value by the sites that link to it. Twelve years later this is still its main job. Linking is EVERYTHING to Google.

These three SEO tips are the best of the best so use them wisely. Best of luck!

Local Web Ad Spending to Hit $13 Billion in 2008, up 50 Percent

2008-05-30T14:49:00.001-04:00

If you are not taking advantage of the Internet for generating leads or selling your products and services then read the information in the following article from ClickZ Network. Every savvy business owner must realize that it is important to establish a budget for online marketing. If you don’t know what to do or how to do it, you need to contact a marketing specialist to help you develop an online marketing plan based on your objectives, target market plus money and resources available.

Local Web Ad Spending to Hit $13 Billion in 2008, up 50 Percent
By Kate Kaye, The ClickZ Network, May 30, 2008

As has been forecast for all of online advertising, local Web ad revenues are poised for growth. A new report shows local online ad spending is rising at a 50 percent clip, and will hit $13 billion this year.

Borrell Associates pegs 2007 local online ad revenues at $8.7 billion in its new "What Local Media Web Sites Earn: 2008 Survey" report. Double-digit growth over the next year and a half is projected, based on a survey of over 3,000 local media properties. Following that 18-month upswing, however, Borrell expects growth rates to taper into the single digits by 2012.

Among the reasons for the expected increase is the sluggish economy, suggests Borrell. In short, local advertisers want more cost efficient alternatives to traditional media buys, and they're finding them online.

The report suggests newspaper publishers have a head start on other online media entries, though the others will continue to nip at their heels. Newspaper sites grabbed over $2 billion in local Web ad revenue in 2007, more than all other local online media companies combined, according to the report. One thing benefiting online paper publishers is expansion of their ad client base. Nearly 60 percent of those dollars came from Web-only advertisers, the report shows. Some sectors paper publishers are reaching out to include financial services and smaller local retailers, said Borrell Associates VP Peter Conti.

"In the past they had overlooked a lot of the categories," he continued.

Other positive moves include creating standalone sites and new ad and content products.

They're offering more products and more information, and in some cases, even developing new sites that have nothing to do with the old media," said Conti.
Still, ad revenue collected by paper sites represents about 25 percent of total local online ad market share, compared to 44 percent four years ago. Conti chalks this up to a lingering fixation on maintaining dwindling classified ad revenues. Referring to classifieds as an "Achilles heel" for paper sites, the report notes 63 percent of total classifieds in 2007 were online classifieds.

Though newspaper publishers have their own set of problems to contend with, they could have a leg up in the ad sales department, according to the report. It notes newspaper publishers in total have an estimated 3,800 sales reps dedicated to selling online offerings, and larger outfits may have up to three dozen dedicated online ad salespeople.

"Most financially successful sites are the ones that have their own independent [online] sales force," said Conti. "They can put together the kinds of packages and the advertising that's necessary to sell online without worrying about cannibalization or lack of focus."

Local radio sellers could learn something from this approach. The report suggests online radio revenues are hindered by the common use of terrestrial radio salespeople for online ad sales. Although the firm found online radio revenues rose about 50 percent from $125 million in '06 to $189 million in '07, Borrell anticipates growth to slow to about 35 percent this year.

According to the firm, TV stations it surveyed "nearly doubled their Web sales forces in 2007 and are expecting to do the same in 2008 -- though 'doubling' often means going from one rep to two."

In conjunction with the proliferation of broadband access, television's video prowess gives it a boost as Web video consumption grows. "Their traditional background is bringing audio and video to the table," said Conti, noting video content and offerings such as directories with video ad offerings "bring in a lot higher CPMs."

Borrell expects ad spending on local TV sites to go beyond $1 billion this year. In 2007, total online television revenues grew to $772 million, a 72 percent leap over the previous year.
Like other traditional local media moving online, yellow pages publishers are dealing with falling print revenues. Battling the drop in usage of print directories and related ad revenue declines, they have worked towards righting the ship online by providing interactive ad offerings such as search ad services. According to Borrell, Internet revenues for directories publishers will reach $1.2 billion in 2008, up from $993 million this year.

City-specific resource and community sites some owned by newspaper firms and others independent, have also collected local ad dollars from traditional players. "They're' sucking out online ad dollars from local markets, too," said Conti. "They have a higher rate of return," he added. "They seem to be a lot lighter-weight operations, more unencumbered by traditional [operations]."

The Best Design is the One that Sells

2008-05-23T09:23:00.000-04:00

I have always said, “a website is an online sales and marketing tool!” The following excerpt highlights this fact. It is important to get targeted visitors to your site, those that want your products and services. That will create higher conversions rates and more leads for your business and sales for you bottom-line. Demand more from your website. Make sure your website is not costing you money but making you money $$$$. You need to apply online marketing tactics to your website in order for you to succeed.

by Scott Miller, CEO, Vertster
http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/miller-design-sell.htm

Bringing testing into the web design process presents some interesting challenges. Traditionally, website designs are selected using the "beauty is best" approach, with the one that your team decides "looks the best" winning out. Unfortunately this system is flawed. In the thousands of conversion projects I have overseen, at least half the time the "most beautiful" page did not turn out to be best for the business.

The saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," should be modified to, "Beauty is in the eye of the customer." A winning design should consider sales, not beauty. The customer's response, not the CEO's preference should prevail. The customers view may be revealed only through testing.The problem is that creativity engenders a strong emotional attachment, kind of like a proud parent has for a new baby. It's no use saying, "Your baby is ugly," since these emotions arise independent of how good or bad the design might be.

When initially confronted with the idea of "testing" as part of the process, website designers often grow uneasy. The best way to circumvent their concerns is to be crystal clear: the goal is to produce multiple designs. Then each will be evaluated on the basis of whether it produces the most sales. This way everyone wins. Designers get to be "extra" creative and the business ends up with an awesome design that doesn't just look great, it sells great, too.

Only Two Weeks Before the 2008 WebAwards Entry Deadline

2008-05-22T09:55:00.000-04:00

With only two weeks to go until the entry deadline, we thought we would give you our 10 reasons you should enter the Web Marketing Association's 12th annual WebAward Competition for Website development. If you have already completed your entries, congratulations. If you have not yet entered, stop waiting and get your Websites entered so you can receive the recognition you deserve.

Using data from award winning Websites of the 2007 WebAward competition, the Web Marketing Association has put together these interesting statistics:

• In-House vs. Agencies - 51% of websites which won a WebAward were designed by an in-house team alone while the other half were developed with the input of an agency or agencies. So both agencies and corporate marketing departments have been successful in entering the WebAwards.

• Large vs Small Sites - More than half (51%) of websites which won a WebAward were reportedly created on a budget of less than $50,000. So the WebAwards is not like some other Web site award programs that look to big name winners and celebrities to name as winners.

• Computer Platform - 58% of websites which won a WebAward were designed on a Windows-based PC compared to 42% of award-winning sites which used a Macintosh-based computer. When you look at which computer was used in the programming of the award-winning Websites, PC were used in 81% of the winning entries verses only 19% that used Macs. So sites developed on both systems can and will win.

• Of the participants who provided data, 74.3% of the winning entries last year used Flash to enhance the user experience.

• Almost 70% offered the ability to join a mailing list and only 29% offered RSS feeds. More winning sites are looking to add RSS (27.3%) than any other technology.

• 43% of winning entries used streaming video and 35.5% used streaming audio on their winning site.

• Only 10% of the winning sites currently offer live chat on their site.

• Finally, 21% offer their site in multiple languages. (and the WebAwards can judge sites in 7 languages)

Award winning Web development is what the WebAwards are all about. Winning accolades in the 2008 WebAwards - the Internet's premier award recognition program, is a great way to stand out from others in your industry. It creates a great marketing opportunity for your award winning site and it can't hurt your reputation in the industry to be winning awards! You will also receive valuable feedback from our judges and benchmarks for your industry. But you won't get anything if you don't enter!

To enter, log in to your Nominator account here. Entering is easy and re-entering a site from last year can be done with a single click! Just don't wait - the deadline is May 31st! www.webaward.org

Linking With Integrity

2008-05-19T09:49:00.002-04:00

Here is an important article that a friend of mine sent me regarding link building. This is a good tool for online marketing. It is important to make sure you aren't submitting your links to "Link Farms" or "Non-relevant Websites." Search engines know what type of links you are linking to and what types of links are linking to you. So be careful!

By Jerret Turner

It's just as important to know what not to do when executing a website linking strategy as it is to know what to do. With inexpensive linking software and services so readily available, there's a strong temptation to take shortcuts when it comes to getting quality links.

Avoiding these traps will help your search engine placements rise naturally and stay that way for a long time. In this article, I describe two ways that you can help yourself avoid being labeled a link sp@mmer.

Link Farms

What is a link farm? A link farm is any website designed and set up for the sole purpose of getting search engine spiders to crawl and index web pages. These websites provide absolutely no end user utility or benefit.

So how do you recognize a link farm? First, you need to ask yourself, is this site heavy laden with links? Most link farms will have a "farm" of links with little to no content. As for an explanation of the site's existence, it's usually missing too.

The next question you need to ask is, what does the URL of the site itself look like? Most of the time, link farms will have long, hyphenated URLs (i.e. our-great-linking- directory dot com). This is a generalization so not all link farms will have these types of URLs. Many of these link farms are generated using software. The software will go out and find a domain name that contains specific keywords even if it settles on something with several hyphens and numbers. You may still consider a long, hyphenated site for linking purposes but make certain you conduct more research before you submit a link.

Next, look at the domain name extension and note if it's .info or .biz. In order to sell these extensions, many domain name registrars provide a one-time, deep discount. I know of several registrars that sell .info domains for 89 cents per year. These cheap domain names allow sp@mmers to generate thousands of sites at a huge discount.

The next criteria I use to help identify a link farm is what I call the "cheese factor". Although some link farms will look professionally designed, most are either 1) generated with software or 2) are designed with the same cookie-cutter, non-altered templates that fill search engine results. This is especially true with blogs. Sp@mmers and Internet newbies will not take the time to brand their websites or blogs. These are commonly referred to as "pump and dump" websites.

Another question you should ask is, does it look human? That is, does it look like someone hangs around and takes care of things? You should also be able to contact the webmaster either via web form or e-mail. If there's no contact information available anywhere on the website, be very afraid.

If it's a directory site, check out the links in a few of the main directory headings. Are the URLs hyphenated just like the main URL? If you visit one of these sites, does it look the same as the site you just came from? Are there more URLs crammed onto one page than anyone could possibly visit in a lifetime?

Last but not least, if you have your suspicions that a site might be a link farm, for any reason, stay away. It's better to miss a great linking opportunity than to post your link and get downgraded in your search engine placements.

Non-relevant Links

When you're placing your links, you want to make sure that the site you're linking to has something to do with your site and, vice versa.

A non-relevant link is defined as a hypertext link placed on a website, or in a directory, that has little to no relevance to the linking site or directory. These links are placed for the sole purpose of 1) increasing page rank or 2) getting a website crawled and indexed or a combination of the two.

The most obvious way to combat not-relevant links, over which you have complete control, is the placement of links on your site. Avoid placing links on your site to another that has no relevance to your content; even if it's legitimate. Why? The link doesn't do anything for you or the person whose link you placed. On the other hand, don't ask someone to place a link on their site which doesn't relate to yours.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN all look closely at whom you're linking to and who's linking to you. In fact, Google's PageRank definition specifically states that link relevance (quality) is looked at more than just the link itself.

So what's the solution? As in researching a potential link farm, you need to check out the sites that you're linking to. If you're submitting your site to directories or article directories, make sure that you're submitting your content and links to the most relevant topics and sections.

Don't worry about getting an exact match in terms of relevance between your site and the linking site; just make sure that each site complements the other.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Enter Your Website into the 2008 WebAwards

2008-05-02T14:04:00.011-04:00

George Dubec, Securenet Systems Sr. VP of Marketing and Sales, will be a judge for the WebAwards for the third straight year. With his experience, background and knowledge, George has become a nationally recognized presenter, speaking at corporate events, trade shows and seminars. He also co-hosts a radio show, “The Internet Business Hour,” which has been on broadcast radio since 1999.

Recognition and feedback is what you will receive when you enter the 2008 WebAward Competition for Website development. Winning accolades in the 2008 WebAwards - the Internet's premier award recognition program, is a great way to stand out from others in your industry. You will also receive valuable feedback from our judges and benchmarks for your industry. But you won't get anything if you don't enter!

With only one month to go until the entry deadline, there are 10 reasons you should enter the Web Marketing Association's 12th annual WebAward Competition for Website development.

10) If you wait until after the May 31st deadline, you'll have to pay a late fee.

9) Your mom would be proud of you.

8) You will receive important benchmark data for your entire industry and where your site ranks in each of the seven judging criteria.

7) Think of the PR opportunities - industry publications, blogs, websites, by-lined articles, podcasts, press releases, interviews - the sky is the limit.

6) A best of industry plaque containing your award winning site will look great in your office.

5) The WebAward logo on your site is like receiving the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for Web development.

4) Your clients and customers will be impressed at your industry recognition and so will your potential clients.

3) A link to webaward.org will help your site's search engine rankings because you will be linked to an 12-year old .org authoritative site with a high Google PageRank.

2) A Best of Industry award means you're the best and you can prove it!

1) If you don't win, we won't tell anyone - and you still get the feedback.

The 12th Annual WebAward competition deadline for entry is May 31st, only a month away, and you can submit your site for review at www.webaward.org. Avoid a late fee by completing your Web site entries before the deadline.

Enter the 2008 WebAwards today and receive the recognition you deserve! www.webaward.org
WebAwards - The Award in an Award-Winning Web site.

If you don’t have an award winning website, then contact Securenet Systems' team of experts and let them evaluate your site and help you take it to the next level. Call 866-568-9402 or info@securenetsystems.net.

Latest from Google - Tools and Updates

2008-04-28T09:01:00.008-04:00

GOOGLE WEBSITE OPTIMIZER

Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics (or Urchin) have both dropped the Beta label as both offerings from Google have graduated their initial ‘testing’ phases (umm… just how many business models are dependent on an analytics program in Beta testing).

Google’s announcement on Google Website Optimizer:

Today at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, Google Website Optimizer™ launched out of beta as an independent product. Formerly a feature within the Google AdWords™ advertising service only, this free website-testing tool is now accessible through its own website (http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer) as well. In addition, Google's Website Optimizer has introduced its own blog (http://websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com/).
Google Website Optimizer helps improve user experience on the Web by showing its users what their visitors want to see. Rather than debating or guessing how a webpage might look best, users can continually test different combinations of website content, such as images and text, to see which one yields the most sales, sign-ups, leads or other goals.

Google Website Optimizer provides value "beyond the click" as part of Google's suite of advertising tools offering heightened precision, accountability and scale. Together with Google AdWords, which drives traffic to your website, and Google Analytics™, which measures that traffic, Google Website Optimizer further helps you convert your traffic into customers.

In addition to the new website, the Google Website Optimizer blog is now live. The blog will feature up-to-date product news, industry insights, testing strategies, and other educational information from the Google Website Optimizer team and our partners.

The product is available in 27 languages worldwide: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (Australia, UK & U.S.), Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil & Portugal), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai and Turkish.

The Google Analytics and Urchin software announcement was made on the Google Analytics blog.

GOOGLE ALERTS

Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's largest search engine become your personal online investigator. Search engine optimization has now reached a whole whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google....

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic."
Some uses of Google Alerts include:

- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

The second item above is an important one; "keeping current on a competitor or industry."

The way it works is that each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic requested an email will be sent with the details. This is like having an online agent to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.). It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's a great way to stop competitors' underhanded tricks and identify trends to take immediate advantage of.

It's fast, free and works 24/7. Let Google Alerts do time consuming grunt work while you get the benefits!

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics (http://www.googleanalytics.com/) has become one of the most popular analytics software available. There are now numerous resources available which deal with configuration, implementation, analysis, and reporting. See below a list of the most useful resources for Google Analytics related strategies.

EpikOne: Improving the quality of your report's data
EpikOne: Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 1: How It Works
EpikOne: Google Analytics E-Commerce Tracking Pt. 2: Installation & Setup
ROI Revolution: Google Analytics ROI Calculation Macro
ROI Revolution: Should You Join the Migration? urchin.js Migrates to ga.js
ROI Revolution: Tracking Secondary Sources and Autoresponders Using Site Search
Google Analytics Blog: Where Did My Paid Search Traffic Go?
Google Analytics Blog: Site Search Now Available
YouTube - Alex Ortiz: Advanced Techniques in Google Analytics
YouTube - Avinash Kaushik: Google Analytics -Context and actionability in web analytics
YouTube - Nick Mahailovski: Tracking Offline to Online Campaigns
YouTube - Google Analytics Interface Tutorial
Wilson Web: 10 Tips for Getting Better Data from Google Analytics
Top Rank Blog: Google Analytics Tips - 5 Analytics Features You May Not Know ...
Daily Tips: Top 5 Google Analytics Reports for Bloggers
Marketing Power: Landing Page Optimization: A Process using Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer
A-SFUG: Flash website tracking with Google Analytics
LisTrak: Using Google Analytics to Increase Reporting Capabilities of Email ...
BtoB Online: Can Google Analytics help my e-mail marketing?
SEO 24: Lead Generation Form Optimization Tips and Tricks - Google Analytics

Biz to Biz Expo FREE Seminar

2008-04-23T10:58:00.005-04:00

Biz to Biz Expo
Presents:
George Dubec

“How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website” Monday, April 28th, 2008
Expo: 5:00PM - 8:00PM
Seminar with George Dubec: 6:00PM - 7:00PM
Embassy Suites661 NW 53rd StBoca Raton, FL 33487(NW Corner of I-95 and Yamato Rd)

Demand more from your website!

*Free Admission
*Plenty of Parking
*Everyone is Welcome to Attend
*Showcase your Business to Hundreds
*100+ Business Exhibitors
*Business Card Exchange

OVER A THOUSAND ATTENDEES

Reservations for table space still available

For More Information Go To http://www.biztobiznetworking.com/ Or Call Securenet Systems @ 954-481-9402 / info@securenetsystems.net

Advertising and Marketing Myth

2008-04-18T14:49:00.004-04:00

“You've just got to run ads, get top placement in search engines, and get your name out in the marketplace!”

This has cost companies thousands and thousands of dollars. Advertising and marketing are crucial ingredients, yet they actually work against many companies. But when they work in your favor, amazing things can happen.

All advertising and marketing MUST do one or both of the following: generate sales or generate sales leads.

It must be done in a measurable, quantifiable way. If either of the above things happen, your name will be out there and you'll also make be making money in the process.

Just to get your name out there will not generate sales OR sales leads.

Worse yet, if you hire an agency, your advertising copy will usually be written by some assistant or recent grad whose never had a sales job in their lives. Remember, advertising and selling are two different sides of the same coin. Don’t be fooled when the agency account rep will try to win you over with the fact they have won many awards.

Here's an ugly truth: Advertising that wins awards or are creative rarely generate sales. In contrast, ads that sell rarely win awards.

Business people don't tend to expect nearly enough from their advertising, and worst of all they don't hold it accountable for results. Thus, thousands of dollars are wasted on untracked and monitored online and offline ad spending!

Most companies also try to make their advertising do too much. You must remember that all you're really trying to do is find people who have problems and need help, and then identify themselves. Anything beyond that dilutes the effectiveness of your advertising and marketing efforts. Don't make the mistake of telling too much. The purpose of pure lead generation advertising is NOT for you to tell them everything you can about your product or service. The main goal is for them to tell you who they are and what they need.

When advertising and marketing are done correctly, it's simple and very effective. Everything you say in your copy should be very, very specific, including what you do, who you do it for and what separates you from the competition. Then target your market by not being all things to all people--if you've got a huge list of things that you can do, you're probably not going to sell anything to anybody. Define a niche for yourself that's reasonably unique. Even if you don't have a niche, you need to invent one where it did not exist before. Create a unique selling proposition. Most importantly, don’t make your prospective customers feel like you're chasing them.

What is RSS?

2008-04-16T15:38:00.002-04:00

I have received many questions about RSS: "What is RSS?" "What does RSS stand for?" Where do you put RSS?" So, I want to share an article with you that will explain what RSS is (by Jennifer Kyrnin)

RSS - Really Simple Syndication - What is it and How Do You Use It?

If you frequent Weblogs, you've seen the little XML icons inviting you to "syndicate this site", but what does that really mean? A long time ago, newspaper managers realized that if they could use articles and stories from other newspapers in their paper, they could garner more readers because they could cover a wider area than they could with just their own reporters. This is an example of how syndication can work in print.

Online, there are potentially millions of authors writing about millions of topics each day. It can be very difficult to keep track of without some type of automated system. And that's where RSS comes in. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way for Web sites to share headlines and stories from other sites. Web surfers can use sophisticated news readers to surf these headlines using RSS aggregators.

A Brief History of RSS

RSS was first invented by Netscape, when they were trying to get into the portal business. They wanted an XML format (RSS .90) that would be easy for them to get news stories and information from other sites and have them automatically added to their site. They then came out with RSS .91 and dropped it when they decided to get out of the portal business.

UserLand Software picked up RSS .91 and continued to develop it, coming out with .92, .93, and .94. At the same time as UserLand, a non-commercial group picked up RSS and developed RSS 1.0 based on their interpretation of the original principles of RSS. They based RSS 1.0 on RDF and re-named it RDF Site Summary. UserLand was not happy with RSS 1.0, and continued development of their version of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), eventually releasing RSS 2.0.

Which Version of RSS to Use and Does It Matter?

For the purposes of this article, no it doesn't. If you were going to build your own aggregator or a program to read RSS feeds, you would care, but that's not the point of this article.

Here are the basics of RSS (no matter what the version) (view sample RSS - right click or click and hold to open in a new window):

1. It is XML. This means it must be well-formed, include a prolog and DTD, and all elements must be closed.
2. The first element in the document is the element. This includes a mandatory version attribute.
3. The next element is the element. This is the main container for all RSS data.
4. The < title > element is the title, either of the entire site (if it's at the top) or of the current item (if it's within an < item >).
5. The < link > element indicates the URL of the Web page that corresponds to the RSS feed, or if it's within an < item >, the URL to that item.
6. The element describes the RSS feed or the item.
7. The < item > element is the meat of the feed. These are all the headlines (< title >), URLs (< link >) and descriptions that will be in your feed.

Using those basic elements, you can create an RSS feed of your site. But it can get very tedious to create that feed manually every time you update your site. The best way to create an RSS feed is to use a tool, such as a Weblog, to create the headlines, links and descriptions for you automatically.

What is Google Page Rank?

2008-04-07T10:49:00.005-04:00

Time to time I am asked how Google's Page Rank works. Here is a little insight as to what Google Page Rank is, and how Google Page Rank works from Entireweb.com.

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Page Rank is based on links between your site and other sites, in fact specifically between web pages, since it is links between individual pages rather than complete websites that interests Google. That is because Google lists individual pages and not domains. There is a formula that Google uses to determine the value of each link to your site, which is based on the PageRank of the web page providing the link and also the number of other links leaving that page.

You can see the Page Rank in the Google PageRank bar on the Google Toolbar - it is the green bar that shows a numerical value of 0 to 10 when you hover your cursor over it. This value is logarithmic, which means that if it takes 10 links to reach PR 1, then it takes a lot more to reach 2. If Google uses a logarithmic factor of 8, as it might do (nobody knows), then it will take 8 links to your site to get to PR 1, 64 to reach PR 2, 512 to PR 3 and so on. This is very basic, since, as I have stated, it also depends on the PR of the page providing the link and the number of other links leaving that page.

Here are the top 4 reasons that in my opinion help most to generate traffic and make you money:

1. The higher your Google PageRank, then the higher Google is likely to list you in the search engine results pages. Google take the view than the more other websites link to yours, then the more relevant your web page must be to the topic in hand, otherwise they wouldn't link to you. In fact, the links are to specific pages in your site, not to the site as a whole, which is why it is called 'Page Rank' and not Site Rank.

2. The higher the Page Rank, then the more relevant other people will consider any particular page on your website to be. They will feel more confident that if they visit your site they will have their questions answered and find the information they are looking for.

3. A high Page Rank shows that you have a high number of links on the pages of other websites. There is then the possibility of others clicking on these links to get to your website.

4. The higher your Page Rank, then the more people will want you to link to their website. That means that they too will be likely to visit your site. They will also offer you a reciprocal link if you want one, and that too will provide you with more exposure online.

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I hope this helps you understand a little bit more about Google's Page Rank. As you can see, it is important in determining website traffic to your site!

If you would like further information regarding Google Page Rank, or any other Google tools, don't hesitate to contact me at (866) 568-9402 #222. Or you can visit my website at www.georgedubec.com and check out "Marketing Information."

Can You Stay Disconnected?

2008-04-04T14:54:00.001-04:00

I recently visited my family in Indianapolis over the Easter holiday. I decided to go completely wireless for four days. I didn’t take my laptop, iPod or Palm Pilot. I did take my cell phone for emergencies. Even though my son has a computer I made up my mind not to use it. I had no connection with my office as I said except for an emergency! No day-to-day checking up on the progress of certain projects, answering E-mails, writing material for my blog or doing any work on Proposals. This concept has a tendency to freak many people out! Digital isolation makes one feel uneasy, disconnected. It is the very opposite of what you are supposed to be doing and that is relaxing!

The computer age has actually changed my brain and the way I process information. I used to read books, but not anymore! I scan everything (a form of speed reading). My brain is actually working like a search engine: looking for keywords and targeted content that has relevant meaning to me at the present time. I look at indexes in books and table of contents (similar to a Site Map on a website). I am not able to sit down and read a book or story. That function has been replaced. My synapses are firing at a much faster pace and this keeps me constantly looking to feed my brain with more information. The amount of information I am getting never seems to be enough! Is that information overload? I simply cannot stop using my brain! I feel panicky when my brain has nothing to stimulate it.

It seems that the majority of Americans are fixated or obsessed with being connected at all times. Sitting at the airport everyone seemed to be on a laptop, listening to their Ipod or talking to someone on their cell phone. Nobody talks to each other anymore. I can’t remember the last time I had a nice conversation with someone sitting next to me on a plane flight. Everybody is plugged in somewhere else!

Research by the Solutions Research Group shows that over sixty percent of Americans feel anxious when they’re not connected one way or another. They have labeled this feeling as “disconnect anxiety.” There are feelings of disorientation or “something is wrong” when deprived of being connected. This seems to affect all age groups. The study also showed some disturbing information such as 63% of Blackberry users have sent a message from the bathroom and 37% of laptop users said they frequently used their mobile systems in the bedroom. Now we have the TV, computer and handhelds all being integrated into each other. We are going to be even more connected and a slave to being online. Is this good or bad? Let’s wait and see! In the meantime stay “Wired for Success!”

High-Speed Web Access Blanketing US

2008-03-31T14:23:00.000-04:00

By Kara Rowland, The Washington Times

The number of U.S. high-speed Internet connections topped 100 million last year, according to a Federal Communications Commission report that said broadband access is available to subscribers in 99 percent of the nation's ZIP codes.

High-speed access climbed 55 percent from 65.3 million connections in mid-2006, according to the assessment, which measured access data as of June 30, 2007. Nearly 66 million of the total 100.9 million broadband connections serve consumers. Of those connections, 51 percent are through cable, 37 percent are DSL, 2 percent are fiber and the remaining 10 percent are either satellite, fixed or mobile wireless and power line.

The report concluded that high-speed services are being deployed across the country in a "reasonable and timely fashion."

"Since becoming chairman, I have made broadband deployment the commission's top priority," said FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin at the agency's monthly public meeting yesterday.
"The United States is the largest broadband market in the world and our newest report finds continued growth."

But the Republican-led agency's two Democratic commissioners had significant criticisms of the report's methodology, noting that the FCC's definition of "high-speed" -- anything higher than 200 kilobits per second -- is lower than standards used in other countries.

"We can write reports that conclude that Americans are receiving broadband in a reasonable and timely fashion. But the facts are always there, glaring and staring us in the face, showing us where we really stand," said Commissioner Michael J. Copps, citing findings that the United Statesis ranked 15th in the world in terms of broadband penetration.

Copps and his Democratic colleague, Jonathan S. Adelstein, criticized the report for not measuring U.S. progress against other nations and for not including discussions of price. They also bemoaned what they said is a lack of a national broadband strategy.

"It is increasingly apparent that an issue of this importance to the economy and the success of our communities warrants a coherent, cohesive and comprehensive national strategy. The first step in addressing this challenge is to collect better data about the state of the marketplace and to perform a realistic assessment of our success and failures," Mr. Adelstein said.

The commission yesterday invited public comment on broadband prices and service availability.
It also voted to change its data-gathering methodology, expanding the number of high- speed tiers to include faster services, despite a warning from Republican Commissioner Robert M. McDowell that using a rubric of certain speeds to define "broadband" might have unintended consequences.

"Instead of allowing consumers to determine what is a sufficient speed for their desired purposes, the government is drawing an arbitrary line that may favor some technologies that are currently considered 'broadband.' While the concept of what is 'broadband' should constantly improve and evolve, these decisions are best left to consumers and the marketplace, not unelected bureaucrats," McDowell said.

The agency earlier this week announced the end of a two-month- long auction of wireless spectrum that netted $19.6 billion in bids.

The airwaves, which will be surrendered by broadcasters in next February's transition to digital television, are prime for broadband services because they can penetrate walls and travel far distances.

Latest Internet User Information

2008-03-24T09:31:00.001-04:00

INTERNET USAGE IN USA
Reports from Emaketer.com (http://www.emarketer.com)

Internet usage is becoming a daily habit in the US. Almost everybody is online.

Although growth has slowed to the low single digits in recent years—projected to be just 3.1% in 2008 — US Internet users can be counted in the hundreds of millions. eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com) projects that this year there will be 193.9 million US Internet users—about two-thirds of the population. By 2012, nearly 217 million Americans will be online, or about 71% of the population.

Not only are Americans online, they are spending a lot of time online. According to the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, on average US Internet users spent 15.3 hours a week online last year, and that is up from 8.9 hours in 2006. Furthermore, the study found that children ages 8 to 14 are online nearly two hours a day, and 45% of young adults ages 18 to 24 spend three or more hours a day online.

”The thing marketers have to remember when looking at online users, however,” says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, US Online Population, “is that the US Internet population differs from the general population in age, race/ethnicity, income and education levels.” Gender is the only measure that closely matches the general population, with slightly more females than males online.

“eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com) estimates that on the Internet, females consistently make up almost 52% of the population versus 48% males,” says Ms. Phillips. “And we foresee that ratio remaining constant at least through 2011.”

”On the other hand, the racial make-up of the US Internet population does differ slightly from the general population,” says Ms. Phillips.

Non-Hispanic whites, for example, comprise about 66% of the US population in 2008, but are 72.4% of the online population. Likewise, Asian Americans account for about 4.5% of the general population, but are 6% of all US Internet users.

By contrast, African Americans represent nearly 13% of the general population, but make up just 11.2% of the online population, and Hispanics (who can be of any race) are about 15% of the general population compared to just 10.4% of the online one.

”Marketers looking to create effective online ads need to focus on the demographic features of the US Internet population,” says Ms. Phillips. “Knowing the market specifics of size, gender, age, race and ethnicity, income and education is the only way to make smart targeting decisions.”

Find specifics you need to know, download the new eMarketer report, US Online Population, today.

INTERNET USAGE USA VS CHINA
There are now more Internet users in China than the U.S. Continued economic growth and improved broadband infrastructure have driven the number of Internet users in China to new heights. In January this year China was on track to becoming the largest online community in the world. It’s now happened - China has more Internet users than the United States, according to Beijing research firm BDA. BDA’s estimate was based on February’s data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) that put the country’s online population at 220 million. The United States’ Internet population was estimated to be 217 million during the same period, putting it behind China for the first time. Based on these sources and the assumption that these markets have continued to grow in 2008 to date at the same rates that they grew in 2007, the conclusion is that China has surpassed the United States as the world's largest Internet population.

NEWSPAPER READER USAGE
Younger news readers aren’t reading newspapers. The generation gap for newspapers continues to grow, and that is not good news for marketers focused on print publications. According to a recent comScore report, younger news readers are not getting their news fixes from newspapers. They are reading news online.

This is another indication that newspapers need to do something innovative to draw in new readers; it is also an indicator that marketers may want to focus their budgets into two distinct groups: one focused to young, online readers and one focused to older, print readers.

Researchers surveyed 400 news readers; they found that about half of those aged 18 through 44 were heavy news consumers but very few were newspaper readers. Instead, these readers are getting their news, for free, from online sources. They read online versions of their local papers and national papers as well as news and political blogs. Television news websites are also popular destination points.

The older generation, aged 45 through 65+ are also heavy news consumers but most of this group gets their news from the local paper.

For newspapers the news is discouraging and clearly points to a need to revamp what newspapers provide or offer their readership. For marketers this indicates that ad buying needs to change. Making a single across-the-board buy for a local paper is not going to cut it. Instead, ads should be purchased according to the readership. Ads placed in the paper should be targeted to older readers. Different ads should be created and placed in online venues.

Improve Landing Page Performance

2008-03-17T09:53:00.008-04:00

I found an interesting article on how to improve landing page performance (by Matt Jackson, of WebWiseWords) and I felt it necessary to share! Landing pages are important when trying to increase conversion rates. If you don't have the right elements, your landing page won't work.

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Undertaking any new advertising campaign should also entail the optimization of your landing pages. These pages need to be set up primarily to convert the visitors that your advertising generates. No matter the method of marketing or advertising you use, even offline advertising, you should have a clear understanding of the visitors that it will produce.

- What keywords, if any, led a visitor to your page?
- Are your visitors looking for information or products?
- Where are your visitors likely to be from?

The first step to landing page optimization is getting to know the resulting visitors. With paid search and even organic search you should have a good level of knowledge of the keywords that those visitors have used to visit your site. Consider whether the keywords and your campaign in general is geographically targeted, whether it will lead to visitors that want more information or are ready to start the buying process, and their general demographics. The more information you can determine about your new visitors, the more effective your landing page can be.

- Have you included the most relevant keywords in your page?
- Are the images relevant to the topic your visitors want?
- Are ALL of your page elements relevant?

The landing page should be optimized so that it is relevant to these visitors. Page relevancy is always a popular topic. The more relevant a page is to its visitors, the more targeted those visitors will be, and the more targeted a visit is, the more likely they will convert and perform your desired action. Including keywords is a part of page relevancy but generally matching all of the page content to the needs of your visitors is vital.

- Why did a visitor choose to visit your site?
- What did you promise or infer in your advertisement?
- Do your visitors want information or do they want to buy straight away?

If you promise information in the advertising link then you should provide that information. In contrast, if an advertisement implies that your visitor will be taken to a purchase page, then that is where they should be taken. Most searches are done by surfers looking for information on a topic - this may or may not lead to an immediate purchase. By providing the information that a visitor is looking for it provides you with the opportunity to increase brand awareness, and even make an immediate sale.

- What makes your product better than your competitors' products?
- Why should visitors use your website rather than the next one?
- What do you have to offer that no other service, or very few services, also offer?

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is what makes you stand out from your competition. It's the reason that your visitors should choose you over any other site. It's also one of the most powerful conversion tools you have available to you. Many websites do not include their USP because they have yet to identify it - virtually every website and every company has a USP and promoting it early or prominently in the content of your site will help to increase conversion rates.

- Does the first paragraph of content include a summary?
- Have you got all of the important information on the page before the fold?
- Have you used an appropriate web content writing format?

Reading from a computer screen is very different to reading from paper based media. We can't read as quickly, we digest less information, and we comprehend fewer facts and less information. As such, it is good practice to write differently for the Internet than we would for a magazine or other publication. The very first paragraph needs to be a concise and informative summary of the rest of the page. Sentences and paragraphs should be shorter in length and, therefore, simpler in their reading. Headlines and titles, as well as other formatting, should be well employed in the relevant areas.

- Have you removed any unnecessary links?

- Is advertising kept to less visible sections of the page?

- Have you moved distracting page elements below the fold?

The more external links that appear at or near the top of the page, the more likely that your visitors will leave your site. Similarly, distracting advertisements that aren't a part of your CTA (Call To Action) need to be placed somewhere less distracting, along with other potential diversions. While these page elements all have a place on websites, they shouldn't detract from a well optimized landing page.

- What do you want your visitors to do next?
- What will your visitors want to do next?
- Have you clearly defined and implemented your CTA?

The Call To Action, or CTA, is the online vehicle that will drive your visitors to take the next step in the process. What this step is will differ according to various factors. If you sell your own products then the next step for your visitors could be to make the purchase. Alternatively, the desired action could be to sign up for a free newsletter, click an affiliate link, or download a free ebook. Identify what it is that you want your visitors to do next as well as what you believe they will want to do next. Once you've identified your CTA you need to implement it on your page so that visitors recognize what they are expected to do.

- Do you have any special offers, reductions, or discounts?
- Do you have any promotional giveaways or other incentives to offer?
- Have you pushed these incentives above the fold?

Incentives are a great way to persuade undecided visitors to take the plunge and move on to the next step. Either have a creative ad made that is relevant to the incentive, or at the very least ensure that it is mentioned in or around the first paragraph of your page. It should also be considered one of your USPs so it is a critical part of optimizing your landing pages.

- Is there any way you can make improvements?
- Are you tracking results?
- Are you prepared to make changes according to those results?

Your landing page is all about getting results. This means you need a powerful analytic package so that you can track the performance of these pages. You should have this software installed on your site anyway, in order that you can track the results of the advertising campaign itself, determine your most successful and least successful pages, and gather important data. Make small changes in a bid to improve page performance, and ascertain the success of those changes before making any others. Keep monitoring and optimizing until you get the best possible results.

Why is Online Marketing Like Rocket Science?

2008-03-10T14:43:00.001-04:00

I hear from customers all the time that they don’t know what to do next to get better results from their websites? Also they are surprised when they find out how much it cost for SEO / SEM work!

On the surface it seems very simple. All the elements involved are very basic from optimizing pages to PPC (Pay Per Click) to link building, etc. Anyone can get the proper information online and implement the various methods. The real science comes to play when you must decide where your best efforts should go and the right programs to use that will fit within a company’s budget and available resources. There is no “Magic Bullet!” It is not just a matter of how much money or doing something in particular. It is putting everything together and monitoring and tracking the progress. It’s like paddling a boat upstream. If you keep paddling you see progress; if you stop you go downstream real fast!

Constant adjustments will have to be made along the way. Each campaign needs tweaking, as the objective is to always work toward getting better results. The goal should always be to raise the bottom line, which is to get more qualified leads or more sales or make more money with your site. In other words your conversion rates should constantly increase until you see a satisfactory ROI (return on investment). The idea is that your website is going to make money for your business instead of cost you money!

The most important element is to make a commitment. Find an experienced and reputable company, develop a plan, monitor and track your efforts, make adjustments and increase your conversion rates. Then have one of the most knowledgeable and trusted persons in your business be responsible to coordinate your website marketing and educate and train any staff that will be involved.

“Rocket Science” - something requiring great intelligence, esp. mathematical ability

Online marketing is “rocket science!” Taking all the basic elements and formulas, putting them together to get the rocket to blast off the launch pad and get to its destination! Also it takes mathematical ability and acumen to properly analyze and track results, then calculate conversion rates and ROI (return on investment), which is the bottom line!

If you want your website to take off and generate the maximum revenues and quality leads then call me for an online marketing consultation to put everything in perspective.

The Internet - A Powerful Selling Tool

2008-03-03T10:46:00.001-05:00

The Internet is a powerful selling medium. Never before has it been easier to start a business, reach out to literally millions of potential customers and operate Internationally in a worldwide marketplace.

The Internet also offers new tools and ways of marketing to succeed. E-mail allows instant communications whether across the street or across the globe. Websites act as virtual storefronts, staying open 24/7. Newsletters, blogs and RSS feeds inform, educate and provide the latest thoughts, ideas and information quickly.

There is much more to success than simply having a website or using these tools. The fundamentals of marketing and selling are changing. The consumers are getting bombarded with information and processing this information much faster. You must get your message across quickly, in some instances in less than a minute. Next you must instantly separate yourself from the competition plus create a unique selling proposition.

While Internet usage along with the new tools may change the WAY people buy, it hasn't really changed WHY people buy. Here are factors that will help you with your E-commerce efforts:

1. People aren't ON the Internet. They ARE the Internet. Is your site marketing oriented and easy to navigate? Does your site state in clear terms what you sell, what is the benefit of your products and services and why they should buy from you?

2. You need an immediate “call to action!” People buy online just like they buy offline. If they are buying an impulse item, they'll click thru and spend a buck if you properly entice them with an offer they can’t refuse. If it's a bigger ticket item, they'll shop around. You need to offer incentives so they will come back to buy from you. What is your unique selling proposition? What can your customers expect to get that they can’t get anywhere else: free shipping, lower price, volume discounts, larger selections, buy one get one free, etc.

3. People buy what they need and want, when they need it and want it, plus can afford it. The key is to give people information that connects with what their desires. Establish clear cut benefits of using your product and service to meet their demands. People require the same things they have always needed, but now they are also searching for the new, the latest, something different and/or unique. Which of us doesn't long for more time, more money, better relationships with family and friends? But now many want the latest, new high tech gadgets, toys and devices. Also the latest versions of products and programs are always being launched. The more your message is aligned with the marketplace’s needs and wants, the better you will do.

4. People buy because they believe that your product or service will work to fulfill their needs and wants better than anything else no matter what the price (as long as they can afford it)!

5. Separate yourself from the competition! If they cannot see why your product or service is different and/or better they will make a buying decision solely on price.

6. Marketing is everything!

“You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising budget is big enough”

- Ed Rollins

7. Create happy customers. An old marketing rule of thumb stated that a happy customer would tell three people, an unhappy customer would proclaim disgust to 11 others. With the advent of the Internet, a single unhappy customer can tell the world!

8. Create repeat customers. Repeat customers have significantly higher conversion rates and average purchase amounts than one-time buyers. Offer incentives to come back to your site and buy plus keep in touch with first time customers by E-mail.

Note: Keep track of the latest buying trends as to times when people usually want to buy cars, jewelry, travel packages, music, books, etc. The timing is critical such as vacation time, holiday shopping, major events occurring including sporting events. Don't buck the trend. Understand and USE people's existing buying habits to your advantage, and kick your online efforts into high gear during those peak times.

Become “Wired for Success!”

Securenet Systems FREE Seminar

2008-02-25T11:11:00.002-05:00

Securenet Systems
Presents:
George Dubec

“Local Online Marketing for Your Business”

FREE Local Online Marketing Seminar
Tuesday – February 26, 2008
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
at Securenet Systems Offices

Let George Dubec, industry expert, provide valuable information to help you market your business in your local area whether you have a website or not. Get more local business before your competitors do.

FIND OUT:

How to develop an online local marketing plan
How to design a website that is effective for the local market
How to optimize your website for local search engines
How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
How to get more targeted local traffic to your website
How to market online without a website
How to create links with other local businesses
How to use Pay Per Click campaigns for local search

LOCATION:

Securenet Systems Offices
SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):

Securenet Systems
(866) 568-9402 / (954) 481-9402
info@securenetsystems.net

Online Advertising Grows by 27 Percent in 2007

2008-02-14T17:27:00.002-05:00

Online advertising grew 27 percent last year, making it a sector unlikely to be affected even if the U.S. economy capsizes this year, according to an IDC (http://www.idc.com/) analyst.

Businesses affected by the slowing U.S. economy will slash other advertising budgets before paring their online campaigns. It seems there will be some effect on ad spending overall, but it is felt that online ad spending will almost be unaffected even if there's a depression.

Internet ad spending totaled $7.3 billion for the fourth-quarter of 2007, about 28 percent more than the same period in 2006, according to IDC. For the 2007 calendar year, it reached $25.5 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 27 percent.

IDC estimates how much revenue was garnered by the large online media companies in the U.S. It says Google remained the big dog, snagging 23.7 percent of the market. Yahoo came in a distant second with 11.4 percent, followed by Microsoft's 5.6 percent, AOL's 5.2 percent, Fox Interactive Media at 3 percent and InterActive Corp. (IAC) with 1.5 percent.

It’s time to ramp up your business toward a more aggressive online marketing strategy and start taking money from your offline budget and transferring to online advertising. Don’t wait until your competition corners your market online!

Internet News: Hot Off the Press

2008-02-06T09:06:00.001-05:00

Advertisers around the world are expected to double their spending on the Internet during the next three years as more people get their news and entertainment on the web versus TV, radio, newspapers and magazines.

Nearly 80 million Americans (43% of the online population) have watched one of their favorite TV shows on the Internet, up from 12 months ago when the number was 25%.

China now has 210 million Internet users, up from 137 million one year ago, only 5 million behind the USA which is the number # 1 user.

85 % of the world’s online population shopped online, which is 875 million people, an increase from 10% in 2005.

Search advertisers spent 29% more on search engine advertising in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with one year earlier.

US ad spending on social networks will rise to $1.6 billion dollars in 2008, from $920 million in 2007 (70% growth rate).

Online holiday sales passed $29 billion dollars a 19% increase over 2006.

Hot new shopping trend for 2008 will be to buy online then pick-up in the store .

If these facts and stats don’t get you motivated to get “Wired for Success” then nothing will. Call me, the online marketing expert, to get started!

FREE WebStream Seminars

2008-02-04T09:37:00.001-05:00

WebStream Internet Solutions
Presents:
George Dubec

“How to Sell Your Products & Services Online”

FREE Online Marketing Seminar
Tuesday – February 5, 2008
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
at WebStream Corporate Offices

Let George Dubec, industry expert, provide valuable information to help you sell your products and services to a local, regional, national or international market. Learn how your website can make money and generate revenues.

FIND OUT:

How to develop an online sales and marketing plan
How to design a website that is E-commerce enabled
How to optimize your E-commerce website for search engines
How to set-up an easy to use, effective shopping cart
How to establish a sales oriented Opt-in E-mail program
How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
How to offer sales and feature items on your website
How to set-up an Affiliate program
How to get links from other related sites
How to economically process credit card transactions online
How to offer incentives and promotions to buy your products and services
How to get targeted traffic to your website interested in buying your products

LOCATION:

WebStream Corporate Offices
SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):

WebStream Internet Solutions
(888) 932-2333 / (954) 730-7127
info@webstream.net

FREE WebStream Seminars

2008-01-30T11:19:00.001-05:00

WebStream Internet Solutions
Presents:
George Dubec

“How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website”

FREE Online Marketing Seminar
Thursday – January 31, 2008
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
at WebStream Corporate Offices

Let George Dubec, industry expert, provide valuable information to help you develop an Online Marketing Plan for a new web project or an existing website to get more targeted traffic.

FIND OUT:

How to develop a twelve month online marketing plan
How to design a website that is search engine friendly
How to select effective keywords
How to optimize your website for search engines
How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
How to develop a link building program
How to use blogs, newsletters, press releases and RSS feeds
How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
How to get more targeted traffic to your website

LOCATION:

WebStream Corporate Offices
SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):

WebStream Internet Solutions
(888) 932-2333 / (954) 730-7127
info@webstream.net

RADIO SHOW FORMAT

2008-01-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

I am posting a link to our latest production of “The Internet Business Hour” radio show that is broadcast in over sixty markets plus webcast on our website http://www.theinternetbusinesshour.com/. WebStream produces a new show at our corporate offices approximately every two weeks.

This most recent show is about:

INTERNET STATS - latest information on what’s happening in Cyberspace

WEBSTREAM UPDATE – up to date information about WebStream’s services

WEBSITE CHECKUP QUESTIONS – specific questions geared to help analyze whether your website is effective or not

HOW TO GET LOCAL TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE – all local business owners should learn how to take advantage of local search on the major search engines and local online marketing to promote their businesses

ALL ABOUT BLOGS – the purpose of blogs and how to get started

To listen to the show go to http://radio.webstream.net/radio_player_large.cfm?stationCallSign=WSTR

Online ads to overtake TV ads by 2010

2008-01-21T14:21:00.001-05:00

The following information is extremely important for every business owner to take heed! This is the ushering in of a new age in marketing and advertising. The shift from traditional ways of advertising, not only on TV but as far as using the Yellow Pages, for generating business leads and customers to online marketing. If your website and online marketing program are not up to date and properly optimized for search engines you are operating in the dark ages!
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The Internet Advertising Bureau predicts that Internet advertising could surpass television marketing as early as next year.
by Helen Leggatt

Online ad networks have gone some way towards dealing with the “fragmented” nature of the Internet drawing more and more advertisers to the medium. "With the latest technology it is possible to amalgamate thousands of websites and segment their content into broad and narrow categories," said Jack Wallington, IAB programs manager. A rising Internet audience, coupled with the technology and networks that allow targeting of specific customers, such as DoubleClick, could see Internet advertising overtake television marketing very soon. If not 2009, then certainly 2010, said the IAB. In fact, online advertising in Sweden already surpasses television advertising spend and GroupM’s recent research found that this could well happen in the U.K by the end of this year.

Google and Yahoo Lead the Search World

2008-01-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

Some recent industry blog posts show that Google is continuing to increase its share of the search market. It has gone from the 800 lb gorilla to the 900 lb gorilla. Yahoo on the other hand leads in mobile search

Google's Market Share Tops 65 Percent

Posted by Matt Asay January 2, 2008 11:31 AM PST

Google may not have monopoly power, but it certainly has monopoly mind share. As The New York Times reports, Google's search market share has jumped from 58 percent in March 2006 to 65.1 percent today. Yahoo? Less than one-third of Google's share. Microsoft? Less than one-ninth.

Monopoly? Not in the ordinary sense of the word. Google may well be aiming for a data monopoly to keep us close forever and ever, but for now it just has a brand monopoly that keeps users on its site, feeding it ever-increasing mountains of data.

We are feeding the beast, in other words. Whether it turns out to be a benevolent or malignant beast, however, is out of our hands. An interesting quagmire...

Yahoo Leads in Mobile Search

Posted by Enid Burns, The ClickZ Network, Jan 8, 2008

Yahoo has greater mobile reach than its competitors, according to M:Metrics. In October, 17.4 million users accessed mobile sites on Yahoo, compared to 12.6 million for Google; 9.3 million for AOL; and 8.7 million for MSN's mobile properties. All other brands combined served 20.4 million users.

Yahoo has boosted its investment in mobile services and ad representation with enhancements to its OneSearch http://mobile.yahoo.com/onesearch/tryit and Yahoo Go http://mobile.yahoo.com/go mobile platforms.

The changes revolve around a new open platform strategy under which publishers and advertisers are invited to create applications for the mobile search and services platforms. Yahoo said EBay, MTV, and MySpace are the first partners to develop material for the platform; larger publishers may opt to sell their own ads, though any publisher can let Yahoo handle its inventory.

"Yahoo is very much in the business of creating a large mobile ad network," said Michael Bayle, senior director of mobile advertising at Yahoo. Bayle added standardization of mobile widget ads may be the next hurdle for Yahoo, and the mobile industry at large.

Apart from publishers creating and monetizing widgets under the mobile developer platform, Bayle said Yahoo has seen interest from advertisers in creating widgets. Mainstream brands across the automotive, travel, and financial sectors have been the most active, Bayle said, though he declined to name specific advertisers currently developing content.

Yahoo's mobile announcements, announced yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, were only one component of an overarching strategy outlined by Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang. The company's new goal is to deliver "the most personally relevant and indispensable Internet experience to consumers worldwide," regardless of platform, the company said in a statement.

Yahoo aims to capture more users by allowing them to customize their mobile experiences. People can create a start page containing e-mail, Yahoo buddy status, news feeds, widgets, and RSS feeds. Feeds may top out at around three, to make the home page both useful and navigable. "Yahoo spent some time harmonizing the content to appear as best as possible on a mobile device," Bayle said.

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If you need help getting your website listed on Google or Yahoo, then you definitely need to see an Online Marketing Specialist! Call me at (954) 730-7127 #222.

George Dubec’s Top Ten Internet New Year’s Resolutions for 2008

2007-12-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

1 – Establish a budget and develop a twelve month online marketing plan for your website

2 – Establish the KPI (key performance indicators) to track your online marketing campaigns and conversion rates

3 – Make sure you have a recent back-up of your website

4 – Make sure all the prominent pages of your website are optimized for search engines

5 – Build as many quality links as possible to your website

6 – Assign a top level person in your company to manage your website

7 – Plan on updating the information on your website frequently to insure that you will be providing fresh, relevant content for the search engines to spider

8 – Make sure you are properly registered on Local Search on all the major search engines

9 – Consider developing a version of your website for mobile applications (.mobi)

10 – Find out how you can take advantage of social online networking by using blogs, chat rooms, myspace, youtube, discussion groups, news forums, bulletin boards

If you are not able to follow through with the above resolutions for the upcoming new year then you should call experts like WebStream Internet Solutions to help you with design, programming, hosting, online marketing or any of your technical needs at 888-932-2333. Remember that your website is an extension of your business. Most companies are not taking full advantage of their websites! Demand more from your website and consider it an important sales and marketing tool. Make sure that your website is making you money versus costing you money.

George Dubec's Top Ten Personal New Year's Resolutions for 2008

2007-12-18T09:39:00.000-05:00

It’s important to take control of your personal life no matter what kind of business you are in or career you have. I am the Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing for WebStream Internet Solutions and I work almost sixty hours per week and sometimes I am in the office seven days a week. Not only do I take care of customers but I write for my blog and produce and host a weekly radio show, “The Internet Business Hour” which is now broadcast in over sixty markets. I make sure that I have the time to balance my life properly with family, children, work, social time and most importantly fitness and health. I may be sixty one years old but I am operating like someone in their thirties. By proper planning you can accomplish everything you need to and want to.

1 – Earn more money to save more money and give more money
Just remember that you won’t ever own anything. You are just using it. Money is like oil, it just helps you slide through life easier!

2 – Spend more time with your family and especially your kids
Your kids are more important than you! Take responsibility for their actions and their lives. You are their real teacher.

3 – Get organized
Find out how to prioritize your time and maximize your efforts. If you are watching TV more than a couple of hours a week then you are not using time wisely.

4 – Exercise a minimum of five (5) times per week (at least for an hour per day)
You really should set a goal for seven (7) days a week for a hard workout at least one hour per day. Workout more and eat less!

5 – Appreciate what you have (enjoy life)
Especially if you live in America. Most of us are living better than the greatest Pharoahs of Egypt.

6 – Eat as healthy and as little as possible
Eat to live not live to eat! Eat less and workout more!

7 – Help others (give without expecting anything in return; you must first give to get)
If you really want to help someone, do it because you want to and not because you are going to get something back. Your reward is your good deed.

8 – No matter what happens learn to say, “So what !!”
In the grand scheme of things nothing is all that important. Being centered and in control of your personal universe is the key.

9 – Become more disciplined, moral, ethical and respectful
When you have a choice to make it’s simple, do what is right and just. Always respect yourself, your parents, your body, your country, other people and especially the earth! Once you lose respect for any of these then you are lost! Learn to say thank you privately and openly to others constantly.

10 – Be careful what you let into your mind (listen to your inner self only as you already know what’s right for you)
Don’t except things on face value. Everyone is trying to get you to see things their way. Find out the background of those that produce the books, music, movies, TV shows and other material that you are exposed to before you let them into your mind.

Bonus Resolution: Try to make yourself better every day in every way!
Make your body look better, work harder on your relationships, get more fit, learn to speak better, write better, be more creative; spend time making more money. Life is a process of never ending self improvement!

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The bottom line of life is that you’re born, you procreate, then you die! Approximately 150 years from now no living human today will still be alive!

2008 is almost here, and you have probably started thinking about your New Year’s Resolutions.

My list above is a jump start for you. So put check marks to as many of the above as possible, even before 2008 starts.

DO YOU WANT TO FEEL GOOD IN 2008?
The better I look, the better I feel!
The harder I work, the better I feel!
The more I workout, the better I feel!
The more money I make, the better I feel!
The more people I help, the better I feel!
The more I learn, the better I feel!
The more I spend time and work with my children, the better I feel!
The more I am thankful, the better I feel!
The better I feel, the more I want to feel better!PS: Who needs Prozac!

Increase E-commerce Conversions

2007-12-13T09:53:00.000-05:00

“Better Product Images Are Worth A Thousand Calls to Action”

Having the best possible product images will do wonders for your conversion rate. Research indicates that product images are a major factor in converting visitors. In fact, 83 percent of eBay shoppers skip listings without images, while sites with image galleries get 15% more activity and those with so-called super-size photos show a 24 % spike in sales. A better photo wins every time.

Skimping on the quality of product images and using manufacturer-supplied images is common. To see a great example of product images used well, check out TigerDirect.com. Not only do they show multiple product images; they also redline the features for their visitors. The extra effort is worth it.

George Dubec – Selected as 2008 Internet Advertising Competition Awards Judge

2007-12-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

As a past Web Marketing Association (http://www.webaward.org) judge for 2006 and 2007, George Dubec has been invited to participate as a judge for the 2008 IAC Awards. They are expecting a record number of entries from around the world and are grateful for industry leaders to continue to support this worthwhile program.

Judges help set the standard of excellence for online advertising development. Industry leaders have a responsibility to share their expertise to improve what is expected from online advertising and marketing to reward those who are executing creative and marketing strategies effectively.

2008 IAC Awards Call for Entries

The Web Marketing Association is launching its sixth annual Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) Awards. The IAC Awards are the first and only industry-based advertising award competition dedicated exclusively to online advertising. The Competition Web site is located at www.iacaward.org and the deadline for entry is January 31, 2008.

The Internet Advertising Competition Awards are open to all organizations and individuals (advertising and interactive agencies, corporate marketing departments, etc.) involved in the process of developing Internet advertising. Entries may be submitted online at www.iacaward.org. The deadline for entry is January 31, 2008 and will be judged on creativity, innovation, impact, design, copywriting, and use of the medium.

George Dubec, Sr, VP of Marketing and Sales for WebStream Internet Solutions is regarded as an industry leader and Internet Marketing Specialist. He is also the “Voice of the Internet” based on his broadcast radio show “The Internet Business Hour”, which plays in over sixty markets. The show has been on the air now for over six years and has become an industry standard.

If you would like to contact Mr. Dubec, email to gdubec@webstream.net or 888-932-2333 # 222.

32 Important Search Marketing Acronyms

2007-12-05T15:10:00.001-05:00

1. BL = Backlink
2. CPC = Cost Per Click
3. CSE = Comparison Shopping Engine or Custom Search Engine (Google)
4. CSS = Cascading Style Sheet
5. DC = Data Center
6. DMOZ = Directory - Mozilla
7. HTML = HyperText Markup Language
8. IBL = Inbound Link
9. IPB9 = Internet Business Promoter
10. LSA = Latent semantic analysis
11. LSI = Latent Semantic Indexing
12. OBL = Outbound Link
13. ODP = Open Direcrory Project, See DMOZ
14. OWBL = One way back link
15. PPA = Pay Per Action
16. PPC = Pay Per Click
17. PR = PageRank
18. RI = Regular index
19. RSS = RDF Site Summary, Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication
20. SE = Search Engine
21. SEM = Search Engine Marketing
22. SEO = Search Engine Optimization (Optimisation)
23. SERP = Search Engine Results Page
24. SI = Supplemental Index
25. SSE = Yahoo! Search Submit Express
26. SSP = Yahoo! Search Submit Pro
27. SWL = SiteWide Link
28. TBPR = Toolbar PageRank
29. TR = Trust Rank
30. VIPS = Visual-block Page Segmentation
31. WP/WP4 = Web Position/Web Position 4
32. XML = Extensible Markup Language

FREE WebStream Seminar

2007-12-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

WebStream Internet Solutions
Presents:
George Dubec

“Sell Your Products and Services Online”

FREE E-Commerce Seminar
Thursday – December 6, 2007
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
at WebStream Corporate Offices

FIND OUT:

How to develop an online sales and marketing plan
How to design a website that is E-commerce enabled
How to optimize your E-commerce website for search engines
How to set-up an easy to use, effective shopping cart
How to establish a sales oriented Opt-in E-mail program
How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
How to offer sales and feature items on your website
How to set-up an Affiliate program
How to get links from other related sites
How to economically process credit card transactions online
How to offer incentives and promotions to buy your products and services
How to get more targeted traffic to your website interested in buying your products and services

LOCATION:

WebStream Corporate Offices
356 SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):

WebStream Internet Solutions
(888) 932-2333 / (954) 730-7127
info@webstream.net

SEO Tips to Live By

2007-11-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

1. Choosing your Keywords

A research done by Entireweb 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word.
Do not choose a keyword to optimize your website for that you don't have the slightest chance of ranking good with because of the fierce competition.
Do not choose a keyword that nobody looks for.
Do not choose a keyword that does not relate strongly enough to your content.
Only use generally popular keywords if you do not need targeted traffic.
Do not use words that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines.
Do not use images with filenames or ALT tags ( Alt attributes of IMG tag ) that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines.
Only use dynamic pages when the functionality demands it.
Use lots of relevant content, well laid out into separate pages.
For best results optimize one page for one keyword.
Do not post half-finished sites.

2. HTML Content

Title Tags

The title should not be any longer than 70-100 characters, including spaces. ( Google - DMOZ )
The title should bot be any longer than 60 characters. ( scrubtheweb.com )
The title should not begin with the domain name. It is often considered as spam.
The domain name shouldn't be repeated in the title. It is often considered as spam.
Do not use the same filename as the title tag, or the same filename as the domain name. It is often considered as spam.

Meta Description Tags

Shouldn't be any longer than 25-30 words ( DMOZ ).
Shouldn't be any longer than 100 characters ( Google ).
Shouldn't be any longer than 150 characters ( scrubtheweb.com ).
Shouldn't be any longer than 200 characters ( searchenginewatch.com referring to Google ).

Meta Keyword Tags

Shouldn't be any longer than 268 characters ( AltaVista ).
Shouldn't be any longer than 378 characters ( searchenginewatch.com referring to Google ).
You should not use words that are not present in the body of the page.
Redundant characters will not hurt overall results, however words after the first 300 characters rarely do any good.
Start all keywords with capital letters. ( Relevant only on alphabetical listings )
Separate keywords with the ", " ( comma, space ) character combination. ( Most search engines use either character as the separator ).
You may use phrases as well.
You should not use any word, not even within phrases more than 3 times. It is often considered as spam.

3. Content

The text on the page should contain the keywords right at the beginning of the page.
Do not overuse keywords. Neither keyword should take up more than 12-24% of the entire body text. It is often considered as spam.
Do not use too much content right on the front page. Both loading time and redundancy of additional words used will reduce the chance of showing up in relevant searches

4. HTML Code Page

In case your website uses a language different than the default of the search engine which your target audience prefers, or your website uses special characters unique to that language, make sure to implement the proper HTML codepage tag.
Unicode versions of special characters ( HTML encoded characters ) are more or less impossible to look up in most search engines.

5. Search Engine Basics

Search engines operate by funds as well. Funds are collected either from selling advertisement placement, selling listings, or both. When a search engine company sells out the area above the search results as advertisement space, and displays only relevant results based on what the users were looking for, most people will be mislead by the placement of such links, and choose them instead of the actual results.
Search engines that operate by funds generated by selling listings will not show your website within the results regardless of its relevance, unless you sign up for their service.
You may be listed for free even on fee based search engines by getting your site listed on either of the directories the search engine company buys information from. However, such directories such as Yahoo.com and DMOZ.org are moderated based on relevance and content, thus getting listed on their websites may take some time and efforts.
Most search engines rank your website by relevance, which is measured by the thresold of keywords.
Some search engines, such as Google.com as well, will sort even relevant sites by their popularity, measuring the page rank by the actual links leading to the site. Also, the text or ALT TAG text accompanied with these links will influence the keywords the website is shown in the listings for.
Some search engines will consider a website more and more popular when they are clicked on the results page. These inlude AltaVista.com.

Website Objective

2007-11-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

Your website isn't and shouldn't be designed for “YOU.” It should be designed for your customers and users. What do your customers want to see on your website? What is the objective of your website? Who is the target market for your website? "You are not the user."

Website designers and developers spend far too much time on things that matter little to the customers. You need to communicate clearly; provide information the users want; and offer simple page design and navigation. Also if you have an E-commerce site, you need a unique selling proposition and an enticing “call to action!” Your website should be an online sales and marketing tool for your business and not a “work of art!”

If your website is not effective and getting the results you want, then you need professional help!

Thanksgiving Holiday!

2007-11-21T16:18:00.000-05:00

I will be traveling to Indianapolis and Ohio to be with my family over the Thanksgiving holidays. I will be visiting my sister, niece, nephew, brothers, son, daughter and grandkids. Plan on going to the Cleveland Browns vs. Houston Texans pro football game on Sunday over the holiday weekend. I will be back the following week to provide more valuable information about online marketing and getting targeted traffic to websites.

We are planning an E-commerce FREE seminar at WebStream’s corporate office on Thursday, Dec 6th. Keep checking back for more detailed information or call WebStream at 888-932-2333.

-----------------------------------------

Inspiring Quotes on Appreciation and Gratitude for this upcoming Thanksgiving

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have"
~ Frederick Keonig

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams"
~ Ashley Smith

"The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one"
~ Oscar Wilde

"Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did"
~ Sarah Caldwell

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well"
~ Voltaire

"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition"
~ Alexander Smith

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them"
~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year - and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!"
~ Anthony Robbins

"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread"
~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness"
~ Dalai Lama

"There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what something is worth to you”
~ Charles Dudley Warner

"If you can read the above, thank a teacher!"

Happy Thanksgiving to all !!!!

The Digital Age is Upon Us

2007-11-16T10:40:00.000-05:00

- Over 1.1 billion Internet users worldwide, 275,000 new users per day (within 18 to 24 months 1.8 billion users)

- Over 200 billion online purchases

- 40 billion E-mails per day (within 18 to 24 months --- 70 billion E-mails per day)

- 169 million cell phones sold in USA last year

- $2 billion dollars per year being spent on streaming media (18 to 24 months it will increase to $12 billion dollars per year)

- MySpace has 100 million users (230,000 new users per day)

- YouTube has a million visitors per month

- Over 100 million websites

- Over twenty billion web pages (over 5 million new pages are uploaded daily)

- 175,000 new blogs per day

- Internet Ad spending in the USA totaled $16.8 billion dollars in 2006

- 7.4 billion searches on search engines and directories per month worldwide

WebStream Seminar

2007-11-07T14:57:00.000-05:00

WebStream Internet Solutions
Presents:
George Dubec

“Local Online Marketing for Your Business”

FREE Local Online Marketing Seminar
Tuesday – November 13, 2007
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
at WebStream Corporate Offices

Let George Dubec, industry expert, provide valuable information to help you market your business in your local area whether you have a website or not. Get more local business before your competitors do!

FIND OUT:
- How to develop an online local marketing plan
- How to design a website that is effective for the local market
- How to optimize your website for local search engines
- How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
- How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
- How to get more targeted local traffic to your website
- How to market online without a website
- How to create links with other local businesses
- How to use Pay Per Click campaigns for local search

LOCATION:
WebStream Corporate Offices
356 SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):
WebStream Internet Solutions
(888) 932-2333 / (954) 730-7127
info@webstream.net

WebStream Seminar

2007-11-05T15:58:00.000-05:00

Biz to Biz Expo

Presents George Dubec

"How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website"

Tuesday - November 6, 2007

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Airport

1825 Griffin Road

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

(SE corner of I-95 and Griffin Road)

Find out how to get the kind of visitors who will be interested in your online products and services. Learn how to make your website into an effective sales and marketing tool. Have a website that will make you money instead of cost you money!

DEMAND MORE FROM YOUR WEBSITE!

*Free Admission
*Plenty of Parking
*Everyone is Welcome to Attend
*Showcase your Business to Hundreds
*100+ Business Exhibitors
*Business Card Exchange

OVER A THOUSAND ATTENDEES

Reservations for table space still available
For More Information Go To http://www.biztobiznetworking.com/
Or Call WebStream @ 954-730-7127 / info@webstream.net

George Goes to Las Vegas

2007-10-29T09:37:00.000-04:00

I will be doing a presentation for Courier Magazine’s Special Delivery 2007 conference in Las Vegas from November 1st thru the 3rd. My topic will be “The Fundamentals of Online Marketing.” I look forward to discussing how to get more targeted traffic to websites and increase conversion rates into more leads and more business for website owners. I have over ten years experience working with all size companies and specialize in developing twelve month online marketing plans.

Without a plan most business owners and website owners try a multitude of things to get more traffic to their websites. Sometimes this results in more traffic but not more business. The idea is to get those that are interested in the company’s products and services to visit the site. Targeted traffic is the key!

It’s important to look at a website as a sales and marketing tool for the business. It is an extension of the business and sometimes it is solely an online business. Demand more from your website and make the commitment to have your website make you money instead of cost your money!

I will not be posting to my blog until I return on Nov 5th.

SPECIAL NOTE: I will also be presenting at the Biz to Biz Expo on Tuesday, Nov 6th from 6 pm to 7 pm at the Sheraton, Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida. The topic of discussion will be “How to Get More Targeted Traffic to Your Website!” Call 954-730-7127 or visit http://www.biztobiznetworking.com

Website Check-up Questions

2007-10-22T09:45:00.000-04:00

Answer YES or NO to the following questions:

1. Are you getting what you expect from your website?

2. Is your website costing you money or making you money? What is your ROI (return on investment)?

3. Is your website an effective sales and marketing tool?

4. Are you getting targeted traffic to your website?

5. Have you established KPI (key performance indicators)?

6. Do you have a twelve month online marketing plan in place?

7. Do you know what your conversion ratios are: visitors to sales, visitors to sales leads, visitors to shopping cart, shopping cart to sales, etc?

8. Do you know who your target market is?

9. Do you have a monthly online marketing budget?

10.How much time do you or your staff or anyone else involved with your web project have available to spend on weekly online marketing efforts?

11. What is the objective of your website?

12. Does your website Home Page readily explain what you do, what are your products or services, what are the benefits of using your products and services and what separates you from your competition?

13. Is your site search engine friendly: robot .txt files, 404 error pages, site maps, developed with CSS templates, text navigation links, clean URL’s?

14. Is your website SEO (search engine optimized)? Are all your pages being indexed by the major search engines?

15. Has your site fully SEO (search engine optimized) with a main topic for every prominent page that integrates your target search terms into your Page Titles, Meta Tags, Alt Tags on images and visible page text?

16. Do you monitor and track your visitor statistics on a regular basis?

17. Do you know which sites and search engines provide you with the most traffic?

18. Do you know your link popularity and that of your competitors?

19. Do you track the source of all reported errors in your site statistics and fix them promptly?

20. Do you know which keywords your site was found for in the search engines? Have you conducted keyword research to determine what search terms your target markets are looking for so you can optimize for them?

21. Does your site contain zero broken links? Do you check for and fix broken links regularly?

22. Have you created and submitted an XML sitemap to Google Sitemaps?

23. Have you created and submitted a sitemap to Yahoo Site Explorer?

24. Have you checked to see if your site meets Google's Webmaster Guidelines?

25. Do you check your key performance indicators (KPI) a regular basis and establish your conversion ratios?

26. Is your site easy to navigate?

27. Do you encourage feedback from your site visitors and provide an easy way for them to provide such feedback?

28. Are there at least 250 words of text on your home page to satisfy search engines?

29. Does your site readily display a visible, text-based site map to aid user navigation?

30. Does your site properly utilize your page real estate by following a conventional layout and position important items based on eye tracking studies?

31. Do you have an ongoing link building campaign to secure more incoming links to your site and improve your site's link popularity?

32. Does your site have a high percentage of repeat visitors?

33. Are the majority of your visitors staying on your site for more than a minute or two?

34. Does your search engine referrals and site traffic grow each month?

35. Does your website provide a “call to action” to offer a reason for your visitors to contact you, leave an E-mail address or buy your products or service?

Unless you can answer YES to all of the above, your website is not working hard enough for you and needs some work. Get with some online marketing experts to help you establish how to do it and how much it will cost!

Free SEO Tools

2007-10-17T09:44:00.000-04:00

Here are some tools I have gathered up that may be convenient to you if you want to check your web standings.

The following list is some of the tools that WebStream’s SEO staff uses to analyze and evaluate websites before we perform SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) work for a site:

1. Alexa --> Web Traffic Indicator / Related Link Finder / Incoming Link Finder --> Find out where you and your competitors rank amongst over 100 million websites. Also find out who links to you and related links in your business category. Great resource for link building programs.

2. Link Popularity --> Find out how many prominent linkbacks you have to your website. You can also check and compare your competitors' link popularity.

3. Spider Simulator --> See what the search engine robot spiders pick-up when they come to your web pages.

4. Keyword Position Ranking --> Select a keyword or keyword phrase and see if you rank in the top 30 with the major search engines.

5. Cool SEO Tool --> Great SEO tool for ranking and competitive analysis plus other SEO information.

If you would like me to perform a website evaluation of your present site either call (888-932-2333) or email your request.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases Increase Visitors, Rank Higher and Decrease Marketing Budget

2007-10-12T09:09:00.000-04:00

In Web Development, Keyword Themes Stack the Odds in Your Favor

Don't think of the search engine as having millions of entries per keyword or phrase. Understand that there are 1,000 entries and that's it. The rest exists in a black hole in space that will not be seen in time to earn you a dollar or a visitor.

Looking at the results for any key phrase, the statistics tell us that there are, for example, 489,876,431 entries. On closer review, we can verify that 489,876,431 entries are never listed on the major engines. There are in fact only 1,000 entries listed for a search.

If you aren't in that first 1,000 of those millions of reported search engine statistics, your site has no search engine representation. That means it is impossible for anyone to find your site except those to whom you specifically give the address, totally defeating the purpose of having a web site in the first place.

The keyword theme helps us overcome the outrageous odds stacked against our sites.

Using specific search engine optimization formulas in our initial web development, we can produce several related key phrases that effectively boost our placement in search results. Not only can we be sure to be among the 1,000, using this strategy fully should get your site in the top 25 within 30 - 45 days or sooner.

Web development’s ultimate goals are to accomplish the following:
-Inform and convert visitors to leads or sales
-Attract search engine robot spiders from as many engines as possible
-Get high rankings for a particular keyword or keyword phrase

By applying proper keyword themes, you can decrease your online advertising and marketing expense. Use the following tools to help in developing your keyword selection and themes –

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Seminar Turnouts

2007-10-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

I received a great turnout at my last two Online Marketing Seminars. We had packed houses with individuals and business owners looking to find out how to get more targeted traffic to their websites. I went over the “Ten Commandments of Online Marketing” and “The Fundamentals of Online Marketing” with the groups. We also spent a a considerable amount of time on link building. The three most important things you can do as a foundation for online marketing is –

1 - Properly optimize your site for search engines with keyword rich content, alt tags, meta tags and header tags

2 – Make your site search engine friendly with robot .txt files, 404 error pages, text link site maps, Google site maps plus use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for design

3 – Build as many quality links back to your site as possible

Then follow-up by developing a twelve month online marketing plan with an established budget and available in-house man hours. It is critical that you have a good stats program and the ability to track all your marketing campaigns. Online marketing is like “paddling a canoe upstream.” The harder and faster you paddle the greater your progress, but if you stop you will go downstream real fast! Online marketing is a process that never stops as there is no “magic bullet” for success, just a commitment with a plan in place and constant tracking and monitoring your efforts.

WebStream Seminar

2007-09-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

WebStream Internet Solutions
Presents:
George Dubec
“How to Optimize and Market Your Website”

Online Marketing & Link Building Seminar
Tuesday – October 2, 2007
6:00 pm – 8:00 pmat WebStream Corporate Offices

Let George Dubec, industry expert, provide valuable information to help you develop an Online Marketing Plan for a new web project or an existing website and help you get more targeted traffic.

FIND OUT:
- How to develop a twelve month online marketing plan
- How to design a website that is search engine friendly
- How to select effective keywords
- How to optimize your website for search engines
- How to establish an Opt-in E-mail program
- How to develop a link building program
- How to use blogs, newsletters, press releases and RSS feeds
- How to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
- How to get more targeted traffic to your website

LOCATION:
WebStream Corporate Offices
356 SW 12th Ave.
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

RSVP (LIMITED SEATING):
WebStream Internet Solutions
(888) 932-2333 / (954) 730-7127
info@webstream.net

WebStream Seminar

2007-09-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

Biz to Biz Expo
Presents George Dubec
Internet Marketing Specialist / Radio Show Host

"How to Get Targeted Traffic to Your Website"

Seminar with George Dubec is 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Boca Raton Marriott Hotel

5150 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton

From I-95, Exit Palmetto Park Road West, Right on Military Trail

"Find out how to get the kind of visitors who will be interested in your online products and services. Learn how to make your website into an effective sales and marketing tool. Have a website that will make you money instead of cost you money! "

Demand more from your website!

*Free Admission

*Plenty of Parking

*Everyone is Welcome to Attend

*Showcase your Business to Hundreds

*100+ Business Exhibitors

*Business Card Exchange

OVER A THOUSAND ATTENDEES

Reservations for table space still available!

For more information go to http://www.biztobiznetworking.com/

Or call WebStream @ 954-730-7127 / info@webstream.net

How to Get Indexed by Google Within 48 Hours

2007-09-12T09:05:00.000-04:00

Once you launch a new website it could take some time until Google visits your web pages. Even if you submit your website to Google through their regular submission form, it usually takes weeks until Google visits your site.

Here are three (3) things you can do so Google indexes your web page within 48 hours and not within weeks:

#1: Get a link from an existing site

Links are very important for high rankings on Google. The more (quality) links you have from related sites, the higher Google will rank your pages. A fast and easy way to get a link to your website is to join a forum that is related to your website. Participate in the discussions and sign your posts with your name and a link to your website. Don’t spam the forums. Only participate in an online discussion if you really have something worthwhile to say about the topic. If you post in a well known forum then Google will quickly pickup the link to your site.

#2: Create a blog

Google likes blogs and some blogs are indexed very quickly. Use Google's Blogger.com service to set-up a blog that relates to your business. Write a few posts and add a link to your website in your blog posts. Google will quickly index your Blogger blog and navigate the link to your site.

#3: Get as many links as you can

The more high profile, high rated websites that link to your website, the sooner Google will find your site. Initiate a link building program to get as many linkbacks to your site as possible. If you use all of the methods listed above, it's very likely that Google will index your website within 48 hours. Links from other sites will ensure that Google finds your website more quickly. The more links that point to your website, the more likely it is that Google will find your site. In addition, you will get higher rankings if many other pages link to your site. If you want to find out how to start a link building program contact me as soon as possible.

The Art of SEO

2007-08-31T10:40:00.000-04:00

By: Jill Whalen

As much as Google *pretends* to like SEOs by inviting us to parties at the Googleplex and posting on SEO forums, the bottom line is that they don't like us -- or rather, they don't like what we do. Google wants to find the best, most relevant sites for the search query at hand all by themselves. Perhaps someday they will actually be able to do that, but for now, they still need our help, whether they like it or not.

Unfortunately, unscrupulous SEOs have given Google good reasons not to like us. Because of search engine spammers, Google is constantly changing their ranking criteria and is always on the lookout for the telltale signs of SEO on any given site. It's not a huge stretch to say that they may even downgrade the sites that they believe have been SEO'd.

If you think that having your keyword phrases "in all the right places for SEO" is a good thing, think again! You're essentially telling Google, "Hey look...my site has been SEO'd!" To which they reply, "Thanks so much for letting us know... ZAP ... see ya later!" Doesn't matter if your site is the most relevant (in your mind) to the search query. Doesn't matter that you've placed your keyword phrases strategically throughout the site. That's actually the thing that may become your downfall.

Stuff that worked like a charm for many people in the early years of SEO may actually hurt rather than help now. As to what might trigger an SEO "red flag," my guess is that it's a combination of things. Like, if you have a certain number of traditional SEO factors on any given page, those may set off some Google warning bells (otherwise known as a spam filter).

Some of the traditional SEO formulaic elements that you may have been taught to use include putting the keyword phrase:
· in the domain name
· in the file name
· in the Title tag
· in the Meta description tag
· in the Meta keyword tag
· in the image alt attributes
· in an H1 (or any H) tag
· as the first words on the page
· in bold and/or italics or a different color o multiple times in the first paragraph or twice on the page o in the copy in every single spot on the page where it might possibly make sense to use it, and o in all the hyperlinks pointing to a page.

If you put the same keyword phrase in many of those spots, you might very well trigger a spam filter. Since it's difficult to determine how many and which combinations of those things might trigger the filter, the best advice I can give you is to do your SEO without any particular formula in mind. That's how I've always done it and it's always worked because every site is unique and has different SEO needs.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to describe this type of SEO to others, as people are always looking for the magic formula. For as long as I've been doing SEO (over 12 years now), I've had it in the back of my mind that I wouldn't want to tip off the engines that my sites were SEO'd. This is one of the reasons I've never used keyword-rich domain names or file names. That's probably the most obvious SEO thing you can do.

The most important aspect to being a good SEO is creativity. You shouldn't worry too much about the specifics of putting keyword phrases here and there, and again over there. Not every page needs an H1 heading with keyword phrases in it. If your page isn't designed to use H1 headings, you don't need to change it to use one just for SEO purposes. And many images don't really and truly make sense with a keyword phrase in their alt attribute (alt tag). Don't force one to be there just for the search engines.

Most importantly for Google (and for your users), when it comes to your page copy and how you use your visible keyword phrases, less is definitely more. Please don't read my Nitty-gritty report and then put the same keyword phrase in every single available spot on your page that you can find. My report is supposed to help you think about a few places you may have missed because you weren't thinking about being descriptive when you originally wrote the copy. You can definitely have too much of a good thing.

A first paragraph on a page that has, say, 4 sentences, should not have 10 instances of your keyword phrase. It will look and sound dumb. I know that I have stressed this in my conference presentations and in our High Rankings seminars, but no matter how many times I say this, people don't quite grasp the importance of working this way. If your copy reads poorly to a human, and does not come across as natural professional copywriting, the search engines won't like it either.

When you do SEO, you don't follow a guidebook. Think like a search engineer and consider all the possible things they might have to combat both now and in the future. Always optimize for 3 or 4 or even up to 5 phrases, and spread them out throughout the entire page. Never, ever, ever think that it's the first paragraph that matters and stuff 'em all in there. There should be an equal distribution throughout the entire page, and you should never use the phrases so much that you hear them constantly when you read it.

If you've done it right, an everyday user should not have any idea that a page has been SEO'd. A trained SEO should be able to spot what your keyword phrases are, but it shouldn't be glaringly obvious. Last, but not least, hire a professional copywriter to work on the important pages of your site. This is the best investment you can make for your site and your business.
Even if you don't want to hire an SEO, you absolutely MUST hire a professional copywriter. You need someone who really and truly understands target audiences and how to speak to them about the benefits of what you offer. You can easily teach someone like that the SEO writing part.

Hope this helps to give you some ideas on how you might get out of formula-SEO mode and start doing more creative SEO. More than ever, SEO is much more of an art than a science. The science is only a small portion of it.

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CEO and founder of High Rankings®, Jill Whalen has been performing search engine optimization since 1995 and is the host of the free High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter, author of “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" and founder/administrator of the popular High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum. In 2006, Jill co-founded SEMNE, a local search engine marketing networking organization for people and companies in New England.

Free Link Building Seminar

2007-08-23T12:54:00.000-04:00

Presented By George Dubec

Tuesday August 28, 2007
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

WebStream Corporate Offices
356 SW 12 AVE
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

Find out how to get the kind of visitors who will be interested in your online products and services by building links from other related, high traffic, popular sites with high Google Page Ranks. Learn the latest link building strategies and techniques to help you increase your link popularity so that you will get better search engine rankings. The search engines use many criteria to index your website and high link popularity is a 60% factor in getting a top 10 listing.

Types of link building discussed:
· Content Links
· Reciprocal Links
· One Way Links
· Directory and Search Engine Links
· Banner Links

FREE ADMISSION & LIMITED SEATING!

RSVP BY CALLING WEBSTREAM@ 888-932-2333 / 954-730-7127
OR EMAIL INFO@WEBSTREAM.NET

SEO Questions and Answers

2007-08-13T09:12:00.000-04:00

What is a Search Engine?

A search engine is an online database of websites that allows Internet users to search for information contained on websites listed in the database by "Keywords" and “Keyword Phrases.” Keywords and Keyword Phrases are words or string of words used when looking for information on a specific topic. For example, the words "grad schools" would likely be used when looking for information on continuing post-secondary education. Each search engine has slightly different behaviors and characteristics. Search engines use a robot spider that patrols the Internet through navigation links looking for new websites, web pages as well as new content on websites. The robot spider has been programmed with an algorithm based on established ranking factors which is used to index the new information properly. It is best to be positioned within the top (3) pages (top 30) on the search engines Free, Organic or Natural search listings. Research shows that over 60% of searches take place on the Natural listings versus the Pay Per Click (PPC) or paid listings. Google is the largest and most well known Search Engine.

What is a Directory?

A directory is a search tool much like a search engine but with a few major differences. Directories tend to employ human editors to review and rank websites submitted to their database. Yahoo! is the most well known example of a directory. Most directories catalog websites based on a variety of topic categories such as Business and Economics, or Arts and Culture. Most directories request payment before assigning a website review to one of their editors. Payment will also expedite the review process.

What is (PPC) or Pay Per Click?

Major search engines and directories offer Pay per Click rankings. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing as well as other major search engines allow webmasters and website owners the chance to purchase placement through an auction system, bidding on keywords and keyword phrases. The average cost for a click through is about $1.45. Depending on how many bidders want a particular keyword or keyword phrase the cost per click could be more or less. Also a maximum amount per month can be established so the customer doesn’t spend more than their budget allows. It is also suggested to attach a stats program to track the click thru’s, such as Google Analytics.

Is there a simple solution to top placement?

There is no simple solution to obtain high search engine rankings. It is desirable to be listed with the top (3) pages (top 30 listings) in order to get the best visibility. Search engine optimization is time consuming work and requires a healthy knowledge of how the Internet functions and how search engines operate. The basic elements of top placement include longevity of the site at about 10% / proper optimization of the website and prominent web pages 30% / linkbacks from high traffic, high ranked, related website 60%. It also takes a long period of time, sometimes months before favorable listings can be seen.

Are not all search engines the same?

Each search tool has its own unique characteristics and criteria. As businesses, each search tool has found ways to make its service slightly different from other search tools. For example Google uses over 200 ranking factors to decide where a website should be indexed.

Will my website stay at the #1 position once my website is indexed there?

Search Engine rankings fluctuate frequently, however, if your site is properly maintained by search engine specialists, month to month, then it is likely that the movement will be confined to within the top10 positions. Periodically the search engines reindex the listings in their database, with the latest information, to keep the listings fresh, up to date and relevant. Also the search engines periodically change their algorithms to reflect new criteria used to index sites. The famous “Google Dance” is known for “shuffling the deck,” changing website positions to reflect the latest information and algorithm changes.

My website did not get accepted last time I submitted to the search engines... why?

Search Engine listings are not guaranteed to everyone who launches a website on the Internet. Search engines are for-profit businesses and have the right to refuse to list any site for virtually any reason. If done properly most sites can get listed on search engines. It is important to cover all bases and all necessary elements are present before submitting the finalized site to the search engines or directories. That is why new websites should be reviewed by SEO professionals before being launched.

How long does it take to see results?

It can take between 2 - 12 weeks or longer to see results, depending on each search engine. Sometimes it can take longer if you don’t follow industry standard SEO procedures. To get in the top (3) pages (top 30 listings) requires proper optimization along with extensive link building which can take months if at all.

How does the Search Engine find websites?

There are two ways a search engine can find a website to add to its database. The first and most direct method is to accept submissions from website designers, optimizers or website owners. Most search engines have a "submit your URL" section inviting submissions from website owners. The second method of finding websites is that search engines send a "spider" to follow each and every link on, off, and through websites which in turn link to other websites. If you have links from other sites then your site eventually will be found.

What is a "Spider"?

A "spider" is an electronic robot that travels the web examining websites in order to add them to a search engine database and rank them according to the specific ranking criteria for that search engine. Most search engines use spiders to quickly and efficiently canvass the web for information. The spiders will periodically come back to your site once indexed in their database. That is why it is important to constantly refresh your content, because the spiders will stop coming to your site if your content remains the same. One should add new content as frequently as possible as well as refresh their websites at least every six months to a year.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of making websites search engine friendly. The process often involves minor modifications to, or additions of, several standard elements of a website such as: keyword rich content, meta tags, alt tags, header tags as well as robot .txt files and site maps.

What do you mean by Search Engine Friendly?

We use this term to describe a website that has specific elements added or modified to attract and please search engine spiders or live directory editors. In other words don’t structure your site to obstruct the ability of the search engine robot spider to navigate your site such as: frames, flash pages, splash pages with no relevant content, “dirty URL’s,” no site map or Google site map, not using proper programming code and not using good web page format.

Why might I need to have extra elements added to my website?

A search engine spider is an automated program that electronically probes every URL submitted to its database. As the spider is a computer program, it is designed to look for and rank very specific items on each page it probes. If those elements are present, the spider computes a higher ranking than it would if those elements were not present. Each page needs to be properly optimized to have the best possible chance for a favorable listing.

If these elements are so important, why didn't they get added when my site was originally designed?

Most website designers don’t know or have the experience to properly optimize the web pages. Also they don’t want to charge you extra dollars to take the time to properly optimize each page because you may decide the project is too costly. In most cases the site designer is a highly skilled and creative person whose job is to put your ideas on the web. Again more often than not, the designers have not received extensive training in search engine optimization and don't think about it while pursuing a cool looking design. Search engines are also constantly changing their ranking criteria. They do this to prevent gross manipulation of their search tools. Often, website designers are not fully up to date with changes taking place with the search engines. It is critical that if you are using website designers to create your site that you bring in SEO professionals during the development stage to save you time and money. It would also be to your benefit to find a design firm that also understands and knows SEO practices, so all the necessary elements can be factored in the beginning.

Why don't I just do the work myself and save money?

You can do the work yourself. You will need to first get a good understanding of SEO practices and procedures then continuously update your knowledge of how the various search engines work and the constant changes in the way they work. This is time consuming and takes a lot of time. You should also know that if you make a mistake in optimization and submission, it can take months to find the mistake and fix it, resubmit the site and obtain the search engine ranking you want. It is also possible to get banned from a search engine if you use the wrong SEO techniques.

Future of Online Marketing and Ad Spending

2007-08-09T09:52:00.000-04:00

Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson forecasts that spending on Internet advertising will reach almost $62 billion in 2011, becoming the U.S.’s leading ad medium.

Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s ‘21st Communications Industry Forecast’ was released this week and the forecasts project that U.S. online advertising will grow by more than 21 percent per year, reaching $61.98 billion in 2011. This will see U.S. online advertising overtake U.S. newspaper advertising, which falls slightly behind with $60 billion, in 2011. The shift in advertising spend isn’t limited to the U.S. Online advertising spending is expected to overtake newspaper advertising this year in both Sweden and the U.K.

"We are in the midst of a major shift in the media landscape that is being fueled by changes in technology, end-user behaviors and the response by brand marketers and communications companies," said James Rutherford, executive vice president and managing director at VSS.

Television, cable and satellite will continue to command the biggest share of U.S. advertising budgets and are forecast to reach $86 billion in 2011, according to the forecast.

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It’s important for today’s business owners to consider shifting their budgets to include more Internet marketing and advertising. I recommend that every website have a twelve month marketing plan in place to attract targeted visitors. In other words, visitors that have an interest in your products and services. There are so many different online marketing strategies and programs that it’s important to seek the advice of SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing) and Internet professionals to help develop a plan and obtain information as to what all is available. Things are happening so fast that the average business owner cannot possibly be aware and keep up with all the new marketing trends, products and services.

Call me at (954) 730-7127 ext. 222 or email me to discuss a marketing plan for your business!

Google Dance Affects Website Traffic

2007-08-07T16:56:00.000-04:00

The most recent Google Dance has already affected many websites, with some online businesses seeing a radical change in their search engine positions. For websites that rely heavily on search engine traffic, this has had a significant effect. A recent algorithm change by Google has resulted in the loss of a significant amount of web traffic, as much as 25% for some websites.

Many online businesses use a variety of tools to try to predetermine when the next Google Dance is about to commence, and time their website updates accordingly. Regular updates to their algorithms are carried out, says Google, to continually improve their user's experience.

During the month, Google sends out robots (spiders) to crawl the web and archive every website it finds. These archived websites will be presented in the next update of the Google index (database). The update process is initiated every 30 days or so, although on some occasions there have been more than 30 days between updates.

Now if you're familiar with Google you know they have 3 main www servers online, which are as follows:
http://www.google.com/ - The main address, the true Home Page of Google.
www2.google.com - Thought to be a test server.
www3.google.com - Thought to be a test server.

Nobody outside of "Google" truly seems to know the purpose of the www2 and www3 servers; many people have come to the assumption that they are test servers. During the update, which takes several days, the 3 Google servers display different results. While the results vary from server to server, they are said to be "dancing", hence the name "Google Dance".

The www2 & www3 servers are the ones most closely observed during the Dance, there are actually 10 Google Datacenters involved! By paying attention here will provide for a slight enhancement in the detection of the "Google Dance.” The tool listed previous is the only tool (that I know of) to provide the 10 Datacenters option.

Online Marketing Seminar - What a Turn-out!

2007-08-02T09:37:00.000-04:00

There was a standing room only crowd at my Online Marketing presentation at the Biz to Biz Expo in Boca Raton, Florida on July 17th followed by a packed house at the WebStream Data Center for my Internet Marketing seminar on July 24th. I will be presenting at the next Biz to Biz Expo in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, Aug 21st and will be holding an in house seminar at the WebStream Data Center on Tuesday, Aug 28th.

Keep checking my blog and my website for more details or E-mail me for information!

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Some comments from attendess from my last presentation at the WebStream Data Center:

“Boy, I wish I had talked to George Dubec when I first started my web project. I could have saved so much time, thousands of dollars and a lot of headaches. It is invaluable to be personally mentored by George, a nationally renowned Internet Marketing expert.” - J.C. – Boca Raton, FL

"I want to thank you for hosting such an informative seminar! I learned so much about the internet last night that I simply never knew. The timing is perfect, with Webstream beginning work on my site as we speak! I was very impressed by Webstream’s new office and facility (I have never seen a server room like that before!) And it was a pleasure to finally meet Diego in person. I am confident that I have chosen the right company to build, host and market my website! I look forward to working with you and attending more seminars!" - Lorraine

"I wanted to thank you for hosting the Seminar. I found it extremely beneficial and I would be more than willing to help promote this event in the future. If you had the space, I would like to see all 600 of our members attend." - Ryan Diamond – Deerfield Beach, FL

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If you want your website to “make you money” and not “cost you money” then you need to consult with me. I will break down your project into its fundamental elements and show you how to establish the right marketing campaigns that will bring targeted traffic to your site; then be able to rate and track your results. The bottomline is to turn your website into an online sales and marketing tool that provides a high conversion ratio which will in turn give you a large return on your investment (ROI).

This is your chance to make it happen with personal one-on-one help. “Demand more from your website!” Call me now!

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF ONLINE MARKETING

2007-07-30T09:01:00.000-04:00

I. Define your target market: international, national, country specific, state specific, local or a combination thereof.
-Percentages of the market in each category

II. Decide on the purpose of your website.
-Provide information
-Sell products and/or services
-Company or product branding
-Generate leads
-Other

III. Establish a monthly or yearly budget for online marketing.

IV. Develop a twelve month online marketing plan.
-Adjust your marketing plan approximately every month based on web traffic and your conversion rate.

V. Designate a point person in house to be responsible for plan follow-up and monitoring progress.

VI. Establish a relationship with a reliable, experienced outside resource (web design, SEO or marketing firm) to partner with to help and assist in implementing your online marketing plan.

VII. Properly optimize a new website or restructure an existing website for optimization and integrate or add all the appropriate online marketing features and functions necessary to go along with your online marketing plan.
- It’s important to create an online sales and marketing tool versus just a website.
- Consider the sales and marketing elements first, then design the website around them.
- On your Home Page you must describe exactly what you do and what separates you from your competition.
- "Why should anyone do business with you?"

VIII. Make sure you have a comprehensive web statistics program in place to track your web traffic.
- Create a Ground Zero Report to use as a base reference for your online marketing efforts.
- Check your web rankings regularly (Alexa ranking, Google page rank, link popularity, search engine rankings).

IX. Make sure you have a plan to track your conversion rate (sales, leads, requests, etc.) based on the amount of web traffic you are getting.

X. Check your statistics and track your conversions on a regular basis to analyze how your website is doing.

*NOTES:
1 - The online marketing process is an ongoing and dynamic effort. There is no "magic bullet!" It’s like "paddling a canoe upstream, if you stop you go downstream real fast!"
2 – Make sure your online marketing efforts are properly coordinated with your offline marketing efforts.

Google Remains the “900” Pound Gorilla of Search

2007-07-20T13:14:00.000-04:00

RESTON, Va., July 16, 2007 – comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of activity across competitive search engines. In June 2007, Google Sites maintained its spot atop the rankings with 49.5 percent of the U.S. search market. Yahoo! Sites captured second place with 25.1 percent of U.S. searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (13.2 percent), Ask Network (5.0 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.2 percent).

Check out the June U.S. Search Engine Rankings from comScore:

*Americans conducted 8.0 billion searches online in June, up 6 percent versus May and up 26 percent versus June 2006.

*Google Sites led the pack with 4.0 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), Ask Network (403 million), and Time Warner Network (341 million). Despite declining in search market share in June, both Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites enjoyed increases in search query volume.

*Microsoft Sites experienced a significant increase in search query volume (up 36 percent) and search market share (up 2.9 share points) in June, due in large part to Live Search Club, a program launched by Microsoft in late May to engage and reward users of Live Search.

If you want to find out how to get favorably ranked on Google go to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If you need help, don’t hesitate to call me at 888-932-2333 #222.

WHAT IS BETTER – SEO OR PPC?

2007-07-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

Most commercial websites work best if both SEO and PPC are used. The exact percentages depend on your goals.

Pay per click advertising (PPC):

Advantages:

-You get instant results, you will start getting traffic immediately and not months later.

-PPC ads are perfect for time limited offers such as holiday sales and promotional events.

-You can stop your ads at any time.

-PPC ads make it easy to test a variety of keywords and landing pages.

-PPC ads also work with websites that are not favorable for good search engine rankings, such as frame structures, FLASH sites and dynamic pages.

-PPC ads allow you to bid on a many different keywords and keyword phrases, including misspellings and other variations that you cannot display on your web pages.

-PPC allows you to control your marketing budget.

-You decide where your keywords and keyword phrases are to be displayed on the search engines.

Disadvantages:

-PPC advertising can become very expensive if you bid on the wrong keywords or if you don't calculate the maximum bid price correctly.

-Click fraud can be a problem. Not all visitors are potential customers.

-You will get increased traffic but may not get sufficient conversions to sales or leads because the traffic is not targeted specific enough.

-Your sales may not be enough to offset the cost of the ads.

-More search engine visitors tend to favor and thus click-thru the organic listings.

Search engine optimization (SEO):

Advantages:

-Traffic through organic search engine listings has minimal reoccurring cost once the initial expense and up-front work has been completed.

-After the site has been optimized and you have achieved favorable listings, you can then use your online marketing budget for other programs.

-A large volume of visitors and click-thrus to your site won’t cost you money.

-Search engine optimization offers long term results that don't require constant financial spending.

-Link building, which is part of search engine optimization, will also get targeted traffic from other websites to yours.

-Optimizing your site properly will also make it more user friendly.

-More search engine visitors tend to favor and thus click-thru the organic listings.

Disadvantages:

-SEO is very time-consuming both up-front and ongoing.

-SEO may require that you redesign your site and/or reprogram your code to make your website search engine friendly.

-You must constantly update and refresh your content to keep your search engine listings high.

-You must constantly continue to build links to your site to maintain or increase your link popularity.

-It will cost considerably more money to optimize your site properly when being developed than it would otherwise.

-It will cost additional dollars to restructure and reprogram your site if you decide to properly optimize an existing site.

-You have no choice as to where your keywords and keyword phrases are to be displayed on the search engines.

Search engine optimization delivers lasting results and it costs considerably less in the long term. However, you must make sure that you optimize a website correctly to get high search engine rankings.

Pay per click advertising and search engine optimization both contribute to the success of your website. If you use a combination of both, you can get many new visitors and customers without spending a fortune. The key is to track your conversions to make sure you are getting a favorable Return On Investment (ROI). You must generate more revenue than you are spending on SEO and PPC to make it worthwhile.

Fundamentals of Online Marketing

2007-07-12T09:28:00.000-04:00

The following outline will help you establish your basic needs before you start an online marketing program:

I – Twelve month online marketing plan based on:

- What is the objective of your website?
- Who is your target market?
- How much in-house time do you have to devote to online marketing?
- What is your budget?

II – Key Performance Indicators (KPI):
- What stats need to be monitored?
- What web traffic indicators are to be used?
- What conversion rates are to be evaluated?
- Ground Zero Report with all the KPI’s established (tracking and stats data for existing sites).

III – Tracking software and tools:
- What will be used to track and analyze information for the KPI’s?

IV – Competitive analysis:
- Find out what other websites in your business category are doing.

V – Online marketing work responsibility:
- Establish a point person in the organization responsible for the website marketing.
- Assign in-house work.
- Assign outsource work.

VI – Evaluate information and data:
- How often and who is going to analyze data (KPI’s) and make recommendations and adjustments to twelve month marketing plan?

It is highly recommended that you meet with professionals to put together a proper marketing plan and establish how you are going to track and evaluate your website success.

Welcome to my Blog!

2007-06-25T09:28:00.000-04:00

Hi, I am George Dubec (http://www.georgedubec.com), Sr VP of Sales and Marketing for WebStream Internet Solutions. I have been in the Internet business for over ten years, starting as one of the founding partners of WebStream Internet Solutions back in 1997. We started the business mainly for web hosting and then expanded into programming and web design for our customers. Within three years we had thousands of customers in over fifty countries. We have been in business for over ten years and now have customers in over two hundred countries. Over the last five years we have developed and specialized into online marketing to help our new and old customers get more targeted traffic to their websites and more importantly get a higher conversion rate for leads and sales.

We also have a broadcast radio show, “The Internet Business Hour”, that has been on the air since 1999. We started locally in South Florida and we are now in over sixty markets throughout the USA. The show covers all aspects of doing business on the Internet. I produce and cohost the show with Kerry Brewer, President of Webstream Internet Solutions. The topics include: web design, web hosting, web promoting, Internet statistics, news, E-commerce as well as special guest interviews. The show has been playing for over eight years and "The Internet Business Hour" is now considered the "Voice of the Internet."

Our radio show is broadcast in Florida as follows:

SOUTH FLORIDA:
Thursdays – WSBR 740 AM – from 10 pm to 11 pm (EST)

Fridays – WWNN 1470 AM – from 3 pm to 4 pm (EST) -OR- WSBR 740 AM – from 10 pm to 11 pm (EST)

LIVE WEBCAST:
You can also hear a live webcast, anywhere in the world, by going to http://www.theinternetbusinesshour.com and clicking on the “LISTEN LIVE” banner.

Now that I have started my blog I am going to share cutting edge insights into doing business on the Internet. I want to educate the public about the Internet, as I believe that an educated business owner is going to wind up with a better web presence for his business. The more you know the better decisions you will make concerning your online efforts. Also many individuals and business owners are confused, perplexed and frustrated about the Internet. They have asked too many friends, neighbors and associates for advice, but have come up empty handed. This leads to plenty of misinformation that creates poor choices. Well if that’s the case then you are at the right place at the right time. I plan on bringing the right information, latest statistics and professional tips to help you keep up in CyberSpace. Keep checking back to my blog on a regular basis to get the latest industry news and information. If you would like direct help or have any specific questions don’t hesitate to call me at 954-730-7127 #222 or e-mail gdubec@webstream.net.

The Importance of Fresh Content in Redesigning Your Web Site

2007-06-19T10:36:00.000-04:00

Deerfield Beach, Florida – June 19, 2007 – WebStream (www.webstream.net) has always been a leading proponent of building an SEO-friendly web site. It is ever so important today however, when redesigning your site, that you take into consideration a number of key factors relative to the search engines. When factoring in search engine findability, not only is relevant content important, but fresh content is the key to higher relevancy.

One way to accomplish this when working on a web site redesign is to write your own content. That is one sure way to ensure that you have unique and original content. The search engines like fresh and original content. It takes more effort on your part, but the facts prove out that original and fresh content is one of the best ways to boost your web site’s popularity with the major search engines.

In order to take dual advantage of human and search engine logic, keep your content down to text blobs of 300 - 400 words or less. This is called “chunking” - small blobs of text that can be easily read and digested by the visitor, as opposed to a long chapter or story-like challenge that most visitors will not read when surfing a site. Another important factor in creating your own original content is to carefully “wrap” the text around your primary and secondary key words and key phrases. You may also want to add freshly created text content to your alt-tags as well. In addition, by not periodically updating your site, you will turn off repeat visitors with stale content.

If you do not have the time, or the creative spark, you can always hire a professional copywriter who will take your ideas, products or services and create compelling content. You can also re-print article on your site, providing that you have gotten permission from the original author. RSS news feeds are a simple and cost-effective way to “pull” relevant industry news into your site by targeted categories, providing fresh content for the search engines when you do not have the time to create the content yourself.

Founded in 1997 with headquarters in Deerfield Beach, Florida, WebStream is one of the oldest and largest web hosting and marketing companies and is a leading provider of comprehensive business Internet services specializing in the business-to-business market in over 200 countries and every U.S. state. WebStream offers a wide range of Internet solutions, including high-speed web hosting, streaming and hosting solutions, co-location services, e-commerce services, web design/programming and search engine optimization and online marketing. WebStream also offers an Affiliate Reseller Program that is available worldwide.

For more information on redesigning your web site, or to request a design consultation, call Toll Free, 1-888-932-2333, or email info@webstream.net.