SEM Geeks Blog

5/16

What is LinkedIn and Can I Use it For Business?

In the business world, finding new ways to market yourself and your company is critical. Many business professionals and entrepreneurs have discovered the power of social networking sites when it comes to marketing their services or products. While many professionals are spending most of their time on sites like Facebook and Twitter, another social network actually has more potential for business professionals. LinkedIn is a social media site that makes it possible to network with other professionals in a specific area and develop relationships that can provide results.

What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a social media site that allows professionals to create profiles and network with other people. Users can fill out information in their profile that is similar to creating a resume. They can join networks and develop contacts, in much the same way as other social networks. Users also have the ability to join groups and interact with other people in specific fields or areas of interest.

Developing Relationships
One of the biggest advantages of using this social network is that it makes...

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5/11

How Often Should I Blog for My Business?

Blogs are a way for businesses to communicate with their customers. They help businesses establish themselves as a reliable and informative source. One of the most popular questions asked by businesses deals with how often they should post. The answer depends on the goals of the business and needs of the website's target audience.

Increased Traffic
Blogging is also called content marketing. Content marketing increases a website’s traffic. If blogging is done to increase traffic, post frequently. Occasional posting attracts very little traffic to a webpage. Businesses wanting to increase traffic should post two or three times a week. The increased content creates more material for search engines to index. The more material indexed, the higher the rate of search engine traffic.

Meet the Needs of the Target Audience
Businesses should create content that focuses on the type of audience the business is targeting. If the website gives people up-to-date information, the blog posts should occur throughout the day. If the posts are designed to showcase a product or aspect of the business, it may be beneficial to post weekly.

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5/9

What is the Latest News on the Facebook IPO?

Getting branded as “The Most Expensive Dog and Pony Show in the World” is not good footing to start a journey on a cross-country tour to sell a product, even if it is the most popular social media site in the world.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg found that out today as he scrapped his 30-minute look-at-me video before a tough crowd of Boston investors, Wall Street analysts and hedge fund mavens at Boston’s sophisticated Four Seasons Hotel. The executives in attendance were in no mood for cute videos from the creator of the social media powerhouse. They wanted hard and fast answers that would convince them to spend billions and billions on Facebook’s Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Zuckerberg disappointed some when he decided to stick to smaller meetings on day 2 of the "road show". Instead, he sent his trusted partner, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, to face the music. It’s possible that Zuckerberg was still recovering from the less than positive remarks he received from the New York investors the previous day. Reports from those Big Apple attendees drew a picture of unhappy investors who...

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5/4

Top 3 Online Marketing Buzz Words And What They Mean

Marketing terms evolve as rapidly as the platforms through which businesses put them to use. One need only consider the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of daily deals, email marketing campaigns and other marketing strategies that have shot to the heights of popularity and then slowly faded into the shadows. These things have not gone away, they are simply no longer buzzing on the tongues of marketing professionals who are continually in search of the newest and the next best thing. Following are the top 3 online marketing buzz words that you need to know right now.

1. SoLoMo
SoLoMo is a somewhat clumsy acronym for the fusion of social media marketing, local marketing and mobile app marketing. Ultimately, it is a term that is used to define mobile services that connect mobile phone users locally and socially. SoLoMo is essential for reaching the increasingly harried consumer. The widespread use of tablets and mobile phones to conduct online searches makes it necessary for businesses to streamline their marketing efforts so that they are continuously visible,...

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5/2

Top 5 Questions to Ask a Potential Web Designer

Getting started with a new web property or website development project can be an exciting time for your firm. Among the many options that are often considered when it comes to an actual hire for a project or position, are outsourcing the project to a firm, outsourcing pieces underneath a primary web designer, or utilizing in-house talent and bringing a web designer in to coordinate the work.

Talented designers need to be good at understanding how technology meets design. They also need to be able to provide key input into your marketing strategy for the project.

Here are some of the top questions that you should consider asking of designers applying to work on your project:

1. What mobile technologies would you choose to focus our resources on and why?
Most designers are sophisticated at consulting and will give you some solid approaches to implementing the mobile portion of your development. Listen carefully. If you are staying on top of technology, you'll have a solid grasp of how prescient their ideas actually are.

2. Given that we want to promote our ideas vertically via third parties,...

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4/25

Online Branding That Delivers

A balanced online brand is one of the keys to building a solid, respectable, and well-received website presence. In today’s society of information overload, consumers can easily recognize specific brands based on consistent marketing focused on image building. This is achieved by developing a clear marketing program that clearly displays your business products and services in a uniform manner.

Branding for your company should always be fluid, consistent, and designed to appeal to your target consumer base. As one of the key components to building long term relationships with existing and new customers, tailoring your overall business image can create an everlasting impression. To attract relevant online traffic, companies of all types make it a point to build an image that is aligned with their actual brand to not only gain market share but make the customer’s experience memorable.

To effectively balance your online media mix to include multiple channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and your company website, your branding will require both a content strategy and communication plan. Firstly, the...

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4/23

Top Tips for an Effective Website

It today’s marketplace, the lack of an online presence means a loss of revenue. However, just having a website won’t guarantee an increase in sales.

All successful websites have common elements, which work to grab and then hold the attention of the consumer. When designing webpages, consider these top tips for creating an effective website.

Layout
To have an idea of how the site will look published, start by creating an outline with a web design, word-processing or desktop publishing program. Decide on the total number of webpages and create each webpage on a separate page in the software program.

Keep the site as uncluttered as possible. Increase conversion rates and customer retention by focusing on the message.

Graphics create an appealing visual effect, but keep photos and illustrations relevant to the topic and adjacent text. Use only high-quality graphics; fuzzy photos make even the best designed site look amateurish. Purchase message-relevant images from a stock photo agency if necessary.

Break pages down into short paragraphs, as people tend...

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4/20

What is the Best Way to Build Relationships with My Online Customers?

How can you build a relationship with your online customers? As technology increases, so must your presence on the Internet. Social networking is one of the biggest catalysts on the Internet. Creating a fan page on Facebook and allowing people to follow you on Twitter is one of the best ways to build a relationship with your customers. Your online clients can contact you via Twitter by sending you a direct message. In addition to Twitter, you can use Facebook to engage your customers. You can develop a new product and you can ask your customers for their opinions. They can voice their opinions of your Facebook page by allowing them to "Like" your suggestions. They can comment on your wall posts and they can give you some tips on how to improve your product. Social networking is the most effective way to build relationships.

Another way to build a relationship with your online customers is giving them certain contact information. What type of contact information? Giving customers your personal e-mail address, telephone number and instant messenger names will build a personal relationship with them. You can have real-time conversations on instant messengers,...

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4/16

How Do I Improve My Site's SEO Rankings?

Websites help businesses market, inform and sell. However, without proper exposure to prospects, even the best website does not produce many positive results. Search Engine Optimization, SEO, can help.

SEO recognizes that most Internet users start looking for goods, services and product information by entering a query into a search engine. When a website does not appear on the first or second page of search engine results pages, it will not attract a lot of traffic from search engines like Google and Bing. Fortunately, the following simple strategies can improve the search ranking for almost any site without too much effort.

Create a Blog
Search engines give preference to websites that have fresh content. Standard websites might take a lot of time and effort to create regular updates. Blogs make an easy task of adding content to a website, so most websites can gain an instant boost in the rankings by adding a blog. Businesses can use the comments sections of blogs to encourage user interaction and a sense of community....

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4/13

Online Vs Print Marketing

Print marketing is one of the oldest forms of advertising on the planet. This type of advertising has probably made more money for businesses than any other type of advertising that has ever been done.

Even though television ads and radio ads have eaten into some of their profits, the demand for print advertisements has remained strong over the years.

Recently however, online marketing seems to be dramatically cutting into the profits of printed media.

The first reason is that advertisers can get access to global markets at a much lower price than they could if they were to use printed media advertising strategies. This means that online advertising has a competitive price advantage over print advertising. Its easy to place an advertisement on a website for all the world to see, but its not so easy to send out print media on a global scale. It can be done, but the printed media marketer better be very clever or have deep pockets.

Secondly, online advertising can be tracked in a much easier fashion compared to print advertising. For instance, with an online advertisement, the advertiser can...

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