New Online Marketing Blog

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

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?

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)

* 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

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

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

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.