What is a landing page… this is a page on your website, focused on important information about your company, your products or services, informational and educational content related to your business, sometimes offering free materials to the visitor, such as e-books, etc.

What are landing page goals?

* Obtain a registration typically generating a contact lead.

* Explore and convey your company’s valued proposition offer that differentiates your site from all the others that the visitor may also be visiting to research their buy. Define your distinct ability to provide something more than all the other sites.

* Communicate the value of your branded product and your organization’s integrity.

* Just in case the visitor does not want to provide their information at the time of the visit, be sure to communicate predominantly other contact means, providing them with the control to contact you (e.g. your primary company phone, sales numbers, technical and even basic information lines of communication). This provides contact information without forcing their hand into providing you their information.

A landing page must be keyword-rich, optimizing it for the search engines. The search engines crawl these primary landing pages. The first step is to have an attention-grabbing <H1> Header tag, subsequently, it should be followed by content that provides a solution via your products or services that address the visitors particular issue. Landing pages are the key to a successful website. You utilize these main landing pages to capture your audience and keep them on your site, which will result in conversions and a ROI. These are the gems of your website and should be optimized as such.

The user is taken to your first landing page and immediately, literal seconds pass, before they make the decision to stay and explore your site, that is how very critical landing pages are. Literally, this means that within less time than someone can truly perceive what they are looking at, they are drawing conclusions that will impact the rest of their experience.

Make your landing pages count by using some basic optimization techniques, such as the following:

* Instantly conveying the value your site offers and creating strong incentive to contact you by providing a clear title and description and an enticing layout.

* Focus your visitors, every chance you can get, to contact you by providing links, images linking to the contact us page; you may even offer free informational materials to get them to complete the contact us form.

* Always include your social media sharing links, encouraging visitors to spread the word that your website has something valuable to offer.

* Beware of what information you request in your contact form. You cannot expect them to fill out a complete page of information and be willing to do so. Just keep it simple, but be sure to obtain the important information needed to contact them.

Not only do you need to optimize your landing pages for search engines, you should take a step-back and consider as to what key words the user is entering in the search engine. These terms and phrases speak to the search engine and provide a better opportunity to have the visitor find your landing pages. In the same thought, your meta-tags, each individualized for each landing page, must convey the common terms visitors are searching for. Marrying the landing page content with audience intelligent meta-tags is another feather in your website cap. Essentially, make a point to consider exactly what is driving
visitors to your landing page.

Some thoughts on your page layout… it is a fact that the eyes are drawn to certain things and you should use this research to your advantage. Here are some factual layout points to consider:

* A studied and proven focal point on a landing page as the visitor moves left to right on your page, is grabbing their attention with faces. That’s right. Faces intrigue visitors and they will immediately be drawn to them. A poignant trick is to utilize facial images, but incorporate them into your landing page copy, tying one to the other.

* A controlled, often fixed design will be your best option for the visitor’s experience. It keeps the layout clean and delineated, without overwhelming the audience.

* Provide multiple and consistent ways for the visitor to easily communicate their needs and interests. The communication between the audience and your company is vital to your conversion rate, which means you transform a lead into an actual customer of yours.

* Your audience will tend to view your landing page from the upper left hand side first, so leverage images and content to provide the most punch in this location. Utilize their natural viewing of the page to your advantage.

* It cannot be stressed enough how very important the headline and web page title are. They are key items that have the greatest potential to provide an impact on the viewer, reflecting your conversion rate and ROI. Include keywords that leverage your websites relevance.

Landing pages can literally make or break your conversion rate and ROI. Do not venture into a website without researching what you need to present to the audience, build their trust, and obtain leads.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Create Killer Website Landing Pages

In continuing with my interview series, it is my great pleasure to bring to you Branding and Marketing expert, Patrice Rhoades-Baum, owner of BrandingAndWebsites.com.

Backed by more than 30 years of strategic marketing and expert copywriting, Patrice’s experience includes 25 years of high-tech corporate marketing. In her corporate career, she strategized, wrote, and managed dozens of websites, including 2 Hewlett-Packard websites with $250,000 budgets.

In addition, she has managed big-budget advertising campaigns, direct-mail programs, and $100,000 tradeshow events. One of her articles, a technical case study, was published by Fortune magazine. In her seven years as a marketing consultant, she has teamed with hundreds of solopreneurs and micro-business owners to create their brands, write their website copy, and facilitate the creation of hardworking websites and other strategic marketing tools.

David Jackson: Hi Patrice, how are you?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: Hi David, I’m doing great!

David Jackson: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview. I really appreciate it.

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: You’re very welcome. It’s a pleasure to be here. As you know, I’m passionate about educating small business owners on the importance of having an on-target brand and hardworking website to grow their business, so this is a wonderful opportunity to get on my soapbox, so to speak.

David Jackson: Speaking of soapbox, Patrice, tell my readers about your expertise. What makes you different from other branding experts?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: My branding expertise is specifically geared to solopreneurs and micro-businesses. My process is 100% “home grown” … it grew out of my need to brand myself as a marketing consultant and solopreneur. (Of course, I drew from my 25 years of marketing experience in high-tech corporations.) My branding approach is simple and goes “straight to the heart of the matter.” It is not a compilation of ideas from other branding experts who, for the most part, focus on either corporate branding or personal branding for executives and employees.

Examples of my solopreneur clients include successful corporate consultants, professional speakers, business coaches, sales coaches, etc. Example micro-business clients include dentists, a cardiologist, high-end building companies, and so forth.

I also have significant experience strategizing websites and writing the website copy for small businesses. I love how on the website — especially the Home page — so many branding, messaging, features, and functionality all come crashing together!

Clearly, these elements need to dovetail together in an elegant, powerful way. A strategic, hardworking website is the business owner’s most important marketing and sales tool. As you know, a hardworking website goes well beyond having an online presence … it helps to position the business owner as an expert or thought leader. It invites prospects to learn more about the products and services, and empowers them to self-qualify. It enables conversion, by selling products and services directly. Very exciting!

David Jackson: Patrice, how do you define the term “brand”?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: Unfortunately, corporate branding consultants have made the concept of “brand” extremely vague and mercurial. To a business owner, creating a brand feels like a massive undertaking, a project that will demand huge amounts of time and money. My view of branding is much simpler. I define a brand as simply a foundation to clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and the benefits (or results) your clients get. It’s that simple. Once you have a foundation with those clear concepts — who you are, what you do, what your clients get — then you can build on that foundation with a tagline, logo, and other elements that help you communicate your brand.

David Jackson: We live in a time when people are absolutely overwhelmed with information. Why is branding mportant? Doesn’t it just add more noise into the system?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: I believe a clear, on-target brand helps you quickly tell your prospects what they get. Imagine someone lands at your website home page, David, and they see your name, your photo or video, a great tagline that essentially says “here’s what you get,” and a professionally designed logo that visually supports this key message. I call these pieces the Brand Elements, and I love how the Brand Elements dovetail to quickly tell the story. When someone lands at your website, they immediately see key messages that let them know they’re in the right place — that they’ll get the help they’re looking for. Your prospects won’t need to read 3 pages of website copy to discern whether you’re the right service provider for them. On the other hand, if your brand is confusing, if prospects can’t immediately see that they’re in the right place, then “CLICK” they’re gone!

David Jackson: Patrice, I couldn’t agree more. In your opinion, what is most misunderstood about branding?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: That it’s hard. It’s expensive. And it’s overwhelming. With a bit of guidance, branding for a solopreneur or small business can be surprisingly fast, easy, and affordable. Oh, one more point: Many small business owners don’t think they need a brand, but this is a mistake. A clear, on-target brand empowers them to promote and grow their business.

David Jackson: Many consultants are uncomfortable promoting themselves, either because they’re introverted personalities, or some other reason. What would be your advice to those consultants?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: Excellent question! This can be a real challenge for solopreneurs and small business owners. I live in Colorado now, but I was raised in the Midwest. I was raised to embrace humility as a wonderful personality trait. And it is. But something odd happens when you own your own business, especially if you’re a service provider. You must be able to clearly communicate the value you offer and the benefits your clients receive. You can’t beat around the bush. You can’t look down at your feet, kick the dirt, and say, “Well, gosh, gee whiz, I guess I’m pretty good at such-and-such.” No one is going to beat a path to your door if you don’t clearly promote your products or services. And if you’re not selling anything, how will you pay your bills? How will you save for retirement? How will your take that dream vacation with your spouse?

The wonderful thing about creating a clear, on-target brand is that you can easily build on it to create a clear, on-target business card, website, brochure, ad campaign, and other marketing tools. Now you can promote and grow your business.

Also, you can build on your brand to develop a clear, on-target elevator pitch. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, you’ll want to practice your elevator pitch so it’s flawless. And don’t script an elevator pitch that is meant to impress someone. Remember, if you’re at a networking event and someone asks, “What do you do?” your goal is to connect, not impress.

David Jackson: What are a few strategies someone can use to differentiate herself from others in the same field?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: Many of my clients will ask about strategies to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and I tell them, “Don’t worry about it.” If you’re a corporate media trainer, you have competitors. If you’re a sales trainer, you have competitors — LOTS of competitors. In my view, the best approach is to gain a crystal-clear picture of what you offer that’s unique to you. In my branding process, I like to look for that “gem,” polish it, and make it central to my client’s brand, website, and marketing materials. Instead of worrying about competitive differentiators, we make sure the gem shines and that it’s extremely attractive to prospective clients.

David Jackson: With the advent of the Internet, do you think it’s easier for a company to brand itself today or harder?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: Well, I guess it’s a double-edged sword. Just 10 or 15 years ago, branding was simpler, almost one-dimensional. It was central to advertising, direct mail, tradeshows, and other marketing and promotional activities. Today, the Internet offers extraordinary opportunities for interactive websites, YouTube channels, pay-per-click advertising campaigns, social media marketing, and much, much more. All these opportunities make it more complex to promote your business. A clear, consistent brand is more important than ever, because you need consistent messages and a consistent, professional look-and-feel throughout all your marketing channels.

Again, I believe branding for a solopreneur and micro-business owner can be fast, simple, and affordable. The fact that the Internet exists doesn’t make any difference when we’re drilling down to your core concepts: who you are, what you do, what your clients get.

David Jackson: I’ve always felt that pictures of the people behind the company were an important part of branding, especially for small businesses. But there are a lot of small business owners that, for whatever reason, choose not to show their face to the public. I think that’s a mistake. What are your thoughts on that?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: I agree with you, David. If you are a solopreneur or own a very small business, I believe your photo is an extremely important Brand Element because YOU are your business. Remember the saying, “A picture’s worth a thousand words”? Your picture can convey trust, confidence, and much more. As a point of clarification, you must hire a professional photographer — don’t use a handy-dandy snapshot. Tell your photographer about your brand and discuss what you want to convey. Your photo must support your brand. For example, if you’re a sales coach who promises to turnaround lackluster sales groups, you may want a high-energy photo — you don’t want a photo that looks like a librarian.

David Jackson: Patrice, as individuals, we evolve over time. Companies evolve over time. Should a brand also evolve over time?

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: I love that you asked this question. I work with business owners who are experts in their field. In fact, many are thought leaders. These are dynamic people who don’t sit still! You can bet that, within 5 or 10 years, their businesses will be quite different. So you’re right: As they evolve, their companies will evolve, and their brand will need to evolve as well. Again, that doesn’t mean it’s a huge, expensive, time-consuming effort. When I consult with solopreneurs and micro-business owners, we strive for a branding process that is fast and affordable.

In fact, David, I’d like to extend an offer to your readers for my new product, which is hot off the press: “Nail Your Brand: A 5-Step System to Brand Your Business.” Folks can learn more about it here: http://www.brandingandwebsites.com/products.htm. With this do-it-yourself system, my audio CDs and workbook guide you through 5 simple steps to create an on-target brand for your business. This brand-new product will be priced at $495, but I’ll give your readers $200 off. They simply need to email me at Patrice@BrandingAndWebsites.com and mention your name, David Jackson, to get the discount.

David Jackson: Patrice, that’s very generous of you. I’d like to once again thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

Patrice Rhoades-Baum: It was my pleasure, David. Thank you so much!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Branding and Marketing Expert, Patrice Rhoades-Baum Interview – A SPN Exclusive Article

From short e-commerce product descriptions to enormously long sales letters; ask any copywriter and they’ll quickly tell you
that bullet points are one of the most valuable tools in their skill set. Why? Because they almost always get read.

Most people (and many professional copywriters), however, struggle with writing captivating bullet points. Follow along, and I’ll show you one quick process for cranking out an endless list of persuasive bullets that will help your copy convert.

What’s So Special About Bullets?

There are two notable features of bullet lists that give them their might.

First is the formatting. Just because bullet lists are formatted differently than the rest of the text on the page makes them more eye-catching. Without a thought, readers will gravitate to a bullet list just because they stand out more than copy within paragraphs.

Second is the copy. Getting people to notice a bullet list is the easy part. Once you’ve captured their attention, you need to give them a reason to keep reading. That’s where your copywriting comes in.

The Ingredients for Baking Up Sexy Bullet Lists

There are several different types of bullet lists. You can have a standard features list (that you see frequently on e-commerce sites). There are bullet lists for information products, for events, for services and more. While each style is a bit different, they all have a few ingredients in common.

Here’s what you need when you set out to craft bullet lists that engage people. A list of power verbs and adjectives is mandatory. Next, you’ll want to name the specific features and benefits pertaining to your product/service.

Last, you’ll need to conjure up some end results that buyers will enjoy after they’ve used those features and received the benefits.

Here’s how you put it all together.

This is from a piece of copy for a video-making conference I found online. Start with one feature (in this case about the event itself). Don’t be too broad.

Feature – Interactive workshops during the conference.

Benefit – You go through the process right there with the instructor so you know you’re doing it right.

End Result – Get the technique down cold before you leave the event.

Bullet Draft – Learn skills directly from instructors during live workshops so you can create lots of videos.

That’s an OK bullet point. It gets the message across and would certainly be interesting to a reader who wanted to learn to make videos. But it’s not sexy. To make it a bit more appealing, we can switch out some ordinary words for more powerful ones.

Sexy Bullet – Master professional-level skills during interactive workshops and confidently create an unlimited number of eye-catching videos.

See what happened? I swapped out “master” for the less intriguing “learn” and “unlimited” for “lots.” I added adjectives in front of “skills” and “videos.” I also inserted “confidently” before “create.” Big difference!

Let’s try it again.

Feature – PowerPoint 2010 session.

Benefit – Learn the new video-based features included in PowerPoint 2010.

End Result – Add interest and save time when making videos.

Bullet Draft – Go through all the new video-based PowerPoint 2010 features so you can save time and add more interest when making videos.

Sexy Bullet – Discover amazing, new features in PowerPoint 2010 that let you create sales-converting videos in a matter of minutes without a video camera.

The same process unfolded here as before. I replaced ordinary words with more captivating ones (“go through” went to “discover”) and added power adjectives (“amazing,” “attention-grabbing”) for more oomph.

If you haven’t been taking full advantage of your bullet lists, go back and have another look. It could be, with a few minor tweaks, that you’ll get significantly better results.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Mastering the Art of Writing Sexy Bullet Lists

Your title is the very first tool you have for engaging your reader. A well-crafted title can mean the difference between a successful article distribution and one that hardly gets read.

Problem solving titles are excellent for attracting the attention of readers and search engines because the title itself mirrors the type of thing your readers would be searching for in the first place.

Think about it – when people do Google searches, they are usually looking for the answer to a question or the solution to a problem. In order to get your article into the “hands” of these searchers, you need to make it very clear (in your title) that your article provides the answer or the solution to that particular question or problem.

Here are some article marketing strategies for creating problem solving titles:

1 – The Long-Tail Keyword Based Title

Long-tail keywords are longer phrases (usually 3-8 words long) that are usually pretty specific. They may even start with the words “how to,” indicating that the person searching is trying to find out how to do something.

They may also just state a problem or solution that a person is looking for, such as “Sell Your House Fast.” When you have a long-tail keyword term like that, you can either have a title that is just “Sell Your House Fast,” or you can add more information to that phrase, for example: “Sell Your House Fast: 5 Tips For A Quick Closing.”

You can even create several problem solving articles that have that same long-tail keyword term in them, for example:

Sell Your House Fast: 3 Home Improvements That Will Attract More Buyers

Sell Your House Fast: Finding The Right Real Estate Agent

And so on…

Long-tail keywords are perfect for using in your titles and for your article topics. If one of your long-tail keyword phrases is “how to fix a flat tire,” then you can write an article on that topic with the title “How To Fix A Flat Tire.”

Many times people will just type a question into Google. The question in itself can form the basis of a great title.

The idea is to proactively create content that provides the solution to questions that your target readers are asking.

2 – Problem Solving Titles Go Great With Google

When you can create a title that mirrors (or almost mirrors) what your target readers are searching for in Google, you’re helping Google to associate your article with that search, which results in a higher ranking for your article when someone searches for that phrase.

A straightforward problem solving headline is more effective than a clever title that leaves the reader wondering what the article is about. If the reader isn’t clear on the exact topic of the article, neither is Google!

Now, you can’t create this type of title with every long-tail keyword phrase on your list – sometimes you’ll need to tweak the phrase or add onto it to make it make sense and provide enough information.

Your Homework:

1 - First off, you need to do long-tail keyword research.

This shouldn’t take very long – just use Google’s free keyword tool. Where appropriate, you might take some of your shorter keyword phrases and enter them into Google’s keyword tool putting the words ‘How To’ in front of them, and see what you come up with.

2 - For your next 3 articles, focus on writing these different types of problem solving titles:

=> Write a problem solving ‘How To’ title.
=> Write a problem solving ‘Top Tips’ title.
=> Write a title that is a question (based off what your target market is searching for in Google).

Then, write articles that satisfy what the title promised. In that way, you’ll be creating helpful content that your readers really need, while at the same time phrasing the title in such a way that it’s easy for Google and your readers to find your article.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Lasso Prospects and Google With a Problem Solving Title

If you enjoy learning new marketing strategies via video, the following are 17 useful marketing channels that you should definitely bookmark:

1. Web Marketing Today’s Channel

Web Marketing Today’s®, Dr. Ralph Wilson is considered by many to be the “grandfather of Internet Marketing” and is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on web marketing and e-commerce. Web Marketing Today’s® channel features outstanding video tutorials, as well as interviews with industry experts.

2. Fabienne Fredrickson’s Channel

Fabienne Fredrickson, founder of ClientAttraction.com. Channel is geared toward women
entrepreneurs who are interested in growing their small business and attracting more high-paying clients. But be forewarned ladies… This is “where women entrepreneurs play a bigger game!”<brbr>

3. Joel Comm’s Channel

Online for over 20 years, Joel Comm has been teaching people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches people how to multiply their AdSense income. On Joel’s channel, you’ll find all kinds of videos. The Joel Comm Show, his media appearances, product reviews, iPhone apps, it’s all there.

4. Jack Humphrey’s Channel

Jack Humphrey is a self-described Internet marketing consultant, blogger, podcaster, entrepreneur, and social media freak. He’s also the author of the most widely-downloaded and respected book on link building called “Power Linking.” So he clearly knows his stuff.

5. SEO Copywriting’s Channel

Heather Lloyd-Martin, founder of SuccessWorks is considered the pioneer of SEO copywriting. She’s also one of the world’s foremost SEO copywriting teachers, and that’s exactly what her channel does better than anything else… teach you about SEO copywriting.

6. 2 Create A Website’s Channel

Lisa Irby, founder of 2CreateAWebsite.com’s channel is for beginner webmasters and bloggers who need help with basic Photoshop tasks, WordPress, using various web tools and programs (FTP, etc.), writing HTML and CSS code, web design, etc.

7. Social Marketing TV’s Channel

Video marketing experts Pam & Steve Brossman’s channel takes the mystery out of social marketing and serves it up in easy to understand bite-sized nuggets.

8. Pinterest’s Channel

While not technically a marketing channel per se, Pinterest does have strong retail and social marketing potential if used the right way. In case you aren’t familiar with Pinterest, it’s a virtual bulletin board that allows you to organize and share beautiful things you find on the web. For example, people use the virtual bulletin boards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. You can also browse bulletin boards created by other people. Currently, Pinterest is only open to invited users. You can request an invite at Pinterest.com.

9. Junta 42′s Channel

Joe Pulizzi’s Junta42 is a content marketing and custom publishing resource center and social bookmarking site. Junta 42′s Channel teaches you how to attract and grow customers through the use of content.

10. SEOBooks’s Channel

Aaron Wall’s SEOBook‘ is the number 1 SEO training program on the planet. SEOBook’s techniques & strategies are not based on abstract theory, but rather, years of hard work & education. SEOBook’s channel features a wealth of valuable information not found anywhere else on the Internet.

11. Four Blogger’s Channel

Fourblogger’s channel is the best place to find Thesis customization tutorials. They feature two premium Thesis resources. One is a free Thesis theme guide which has many PHP & CSS codes directly to apply in your blog and tweak it. The second one is a Thesis Designer Guide to learn Thesis Theme fast and become a Thesis design expert. Or you can easily design your site using Thesis Skins.

12. Mashable’s Channel

If you’re familiar with Mashable’s extremely popular blog, you know that it features a variety of high-quality information in the industries of technology, social media, entertainment and business. Mashable’s channel is an outstanding video extension of its blog – including interviews of well-known techies.

13. Affiliate Starting Line’s Channel

AffiliateStartingLine’s Claude Pelanne channel specializes in affiliate marketing for beginners. The channel has lots of basic information to help you get you started, including Search engine optimization, WordPress, YouTube marketing as well as affiliate marketing tools.

14. The Google Channel

If you’re going to promote your products and/or services on the planet’s top search engine, you’d better damn well understand how it works. The more you can learn about how to use Google and all of its innovative products to your advantage, the greater advantage you will have over your competitors.

15. ReelSEO’s Channel

ReelSEO.com describes itself as “The Online Video Marketing Guide — The world’s go-to destination for the growing interactive video community and the leading resource for news, research, analysis, tips and trends for the online video and internet marketing industries.” I think that sums up what REELSEO is all about nicely.

16. Top Rank Result’s Channel

TopRank Online Marketing, Lee Odden’s Internet Marketing channel is dedicated to interviews conducted by TopRank Online Marketing with digital marketing professionals on topics ranging from Content Marketing to SEO to Social Media to Online Public Relations.

17. Stacia Hopkin’s Channel

Stacia Hopkin’s Video Marketing For Beginners channel provides the most cutting-edge video tips and tricks that will allow you to take your business to the next level, including video tutorials on how to best utilize video on YouTube, WordPress and Google.

Conclusion

There are, of course, many, many more outstanding YouTube Marketing Channels that I could list, but the one’s listed above are the one’s I consider the most useful to my readers at this particular point and time. I’ve tried to include something for everyone’s taste and interest. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded in that regard.

That being said, as you know, things change quickly on the Internet. So as I discover more interesting and useful new marketing channels, I’ll add them to my favorites file and write a sequel to this article with a brand new list.

Stay tuned.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

YouTube: 17 Useful Marketing Channels That You Should Bookmark – A SPN Exclusive Article

For the third article of this series I’ll concentrate on utilizing reviews to generate more business and look at how building great reputation online will help with the SEO of local firms.

The internet has completely transformed the way we look for products. Nowadays most of us search for online reviews, social media based evaluations, online video clips as well as extensive product information when we want to make a purchase.

As an example, now I don’t reserve a hotel until I’ve scanned at least a couple of months worth of opinions on Tripadvisor. The facts are readily available and these actual comments will help me make my decision. In the past, this kind of course of action was restricted to searching for hotels, dining establishments and so on. However, what we are now seeing is that this information
is available across several areas of business such as local builders or even skip hire companies. The ‘Amazon type’ journey is now taken for granted for anyone seeking to make any purchase on the internet, especially finding a local trades person.

What exactly should you do as a local company?

Make an effort to to get listed on as many review oriented websites as possible – I have listed a few to get you started.

Google Places – www.google.com/places, Qype – www.qype.co.uk, Freeindex – www.freeindex.co.uk

Bear in mind – you will have to submit listings in the first place to be able to allow access for customers to place reviews but not only will this make a big difference to your inbound link count for Search engine optimization it will also offer you additional presence. We’ll cover some of these sites in depth over time:

As a local small business, the goal should be to encourage clients to leave honest reviews. Use this platform as a means to tune into how customers feel about your business whether it be good or bad. Where the feedback is negative, react to it directly on your website and also internally within the company. Handle your online reputation with care, ensuring you are perceived in the best light to potential customers. In some cases ‘turning around’ the customers who leave negative reviews can provide more beneficial exposure for your business than if the negative review hadn’t appeared in the first place – it all depends on how well it’s handled.

Reviews should be actively encouraged – for example why not add a link to some of these review sites on your own website: Leave us a review on… This shows confidence in your product/service and should ensure you gain more free of charge positive publicity.

In summary – reviews matter… make them count.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Do Online Reviews Help the SEO of a Small Business?

Terms of Use serve both, as the agreement that defines the legal relationship between a website and its users and a non-legal marketing document that sets the tone of the ongoing relationship that the website seeks to establish with its users. Well prepared Terms of Use will achieve an effective balance between these often competing objectives. Terms of Use are in addition to the other most common document associated with websites, the Privacy Policy, the terms of which need to reflect issues that Internet attorneys often confront.

It is tempting for new websites to grab a Terms of Use document from a similar website and just modify it for their purposes. While this might seem economical in the short run, it may be short sighted given the often modest fees that are charged to have Terms of Use professionally prepared. Once Terms of Use are prepared and uploaded, modifying them to address issues that were initially either overlooked or misunderstood may not be a simple or inexpensive matter.

Just this past year, as reported on www.publicknowledge.org, Twitter faced a problem when a user who was being harassed by another user wanted Twitter to take action against the harassing user for violating Twitter’s terms of use. In that matter, a Twitter co-founder actually admitted that Twitter, as a young start up, just borrowed Flickr’s terms of use, without considering them carefully, and would now have to revisit them.

KEY PROVISIONS

Following are some of the main issues that need to be considered when preparing Terms of Use.

ESTABLISHING ENFORCEABILITY. It may seem obvious, but Terms of Use need to be enforceable against the users. Enforceability will often hinge on how users express their assent to the Terms of Use. On one end of the spectrum, Terms of Use can just be posted on a website without requiring users to take any action to accept them. This approach will be least enforceable. On the other end, a user could be compelled to view and affirmatively accept the Terms of Use before being allowed to access the website. There are also various options in between. Several factors need to be considered before selecting the right approach, including balancing liability risks with the impact on the user experience. It is important to note that the method by which users are notified of modifications to Terms of Use will also determine whether such modifications are binding upon the users.

RULES APPLICABLE TO USER CONDUCT. The Terms of Use need to define acceptable and unacceptable behavior. For instance, the Terms of Use should (i) define proper and acceptable interaction with other users, (ii) define the guidelines for content that users are permitted to upload, (iii) restrict users to personal use or also allow commercial use, (iv) prohibit data harvesting or data mining, (v) prohibit unsolicited emailing or marketing, (vi) prohibit unauthorized manipulation of the services, (vii) prohibit impersonation or fictitious profiles, etc.

RULES APPLICABLE TO USER-GENERATED CONTENT. When users can upload content to a website, the rights and ownership relating to such content must be defined. For instance, does the website have ownership or at least license rights to comments and discussions, images, videos? License rights must be carefully drafted, because rights not specifically granted will be deemed retained by the user. So if a website wants to be able allow video or other content to be posted on other related sites or otherwise transferred, the website will need these rights expressly granted by the users. Also, a website will want the right to remove for any or no reason any content that it deems inappropriate. Without this express right, a website could face liability from a user. If the website wants to expand its use rights after initial Terms of Use are uploaded, it may be difficult to have the expanded rights apply to user-generated content uploaded prior to the effective date of the version containing the expanded rights.

PRESERVE OWNERSHIP RIGHTS IN CONTENT. Content can come from two sources: (i) website originated content and (ii) user-generated content. The Terms of Use should establish the website ownership in content and limit how users are permitted to use that content.

PROVISIONS DESIGNED TO BENEFIT WEBSITE FROM STATUTORY IMMUNITIES AND ACHIEVE COMPLIANCE WITH LEGAL REQUIREMENTS. Certain provisions are required to be in a Terms of Use to receive immunity for copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Similarly, Terms of Use can include language providing that the users provide affirmative consent to receiving direct marketing materials from the website or third parties. This will serve to avoid the opt-out provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act. Additionally, the law requires specific procedures for collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

PROVISIONS DESIGNED TO POSITION WEBSITE TO INITIATE ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS. It is important that a website has broad discretion to terminate a user’s right to access the website when violating the Terms of Service or otherwise behaving in a manner that might harm the website or other users. There are also various laws that a website will be better positioned to take advantage of if certain provisions are contained in the Terms of Use. For instance, an express prohibition of sending unauthorized emails to other users will improve the ability of the website to take immediate legal action for common law trespass and a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and other laws that require a showing of unauthorized access. Additionally, establishing and limiting rights to use copyrighted content will undercut an infringer’s defense that there is an implied license for liberal use of the website content.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. Users may come to rely on the performance or services offered by a website. It is therefore important that the Terms of Use clarify that the website makes no warranties as to performance, availability, quality, correction of errors or accuracy of information. Enforceability of such a provision may depend upon the jurisdiction.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. A failure in performance might result in users incurring some kind of a loss or damage. Therefore, it is critical that users agree that the website has only limited liability in terms of the types of damages and the total amount of damages incurred by a user. Enforceability of such a provision may depend upon the jurisdiction.

CHOICE OF LAW/VENUE. If there is a dispute between a user and a website, the website would want to be able to choose what laws apply and where any disputes will be conducted. Defending an action in a distant location could put a significant financial burden on a website.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

An Explanation of a Website’s Terms of Use

Guest blogging as part of a content marketing strategy should be a part of every website’s SEO campaign. Not only does guest blogging help with your website’s link building, it also increases your overall online brand presence and industry
authority, as well as helps your company connect with potential customers at multiple points during their buying cycle.

Here are 5 SEO benefits of guest blogging:

Link Building

This seems like the most obvious SEO benefit of guest blogging, and is probably the main reason companies are always on the lookout for new guest blogging opportunities. Most blogs will allow their guest bloggers a few links in the author bio section, so be sure you take advantage of that! Try to get a full http link to your website as well as two hyperlinked anchor texts if the blogger will allow it. Vary your author bio on different blogs to target different keywords and keep your link building, looking natural to the search engines. If you have a good enough relationship with the blog owner, you might be allowed to drop a link or two in the actual post itself back to your website, company blog, or other posts you have written for that blog to help with internal linking.

Increase Online Touch Points

While your website is your most valuable piece of online property, it shouldn’t be the only presence, your company has online. A successful SEO campaign depends on creating multiple touch points where customers can interact with your brand and be pulled into your website. Guest blog posts are one such touch point. Having a blog post on another industry site not only helps establish your credibility as an industry thought leader, it also gives potential customers that have never heard of your company the opportunity to learn from you. Great content marketing should focus on educating the consumer and hitting them at every step of the buying process. The more guest posts you have on industry blogs the more likely you are to interact with a potential customer, every step of the way.

Build Relationships With Industry Bloggers

In my opinion, it is much better to become a regular contributor to an industry blog then just try for a one-time deal. Even if you can submit one article every other month, go for it! The more times you publish content on an industry blog the stronger your relationship with that blog owner is going to be. Somewhere down the line you might be able to leverage that relationship and ask them to write a post reviewing/promoting one of your products. It’s much easier to ask for such a post after you have
been publishing content on their blog for six months.

The more comfortable a blog owner is with you the better. You might be able to jump from one post every other month to one post a month or even one a week. Maybe they let you add a few more links to your post or list you as featured author. But building that kind of relationship takes time and lot of writing.

Drive New Visitors to Your Site

Having links in the author bio and the post itself is not just good for link building; it can also help drive new, targeted traffic to your website. Someone that clicks on a link in your guest blog post is interested in learning more about your company and your industry. They might be at the beginning of their buying cycle and are just trying to get a feel for the companies out there, or they might be looking for more information about a certain topic and feel you are a reliable source or maybe they are looking to buy and want to get in touch with your company. For whatever reason, that visitor clicks through to your site, giving you the chance to convince them to convert. At the end of the day that is what SEO is about – increasing the volume of targeted traffic being directed to your website.

More Content to Fuel Your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Social media, much like SEO, thrives on content. The more content you can share, Like, tweet, update and post, the more reasons you are giving your target audience to interact and engage with your brand. Remember, social media should not be treated like another advertising platform. Consumers are driving the conversations on social media sites and expect brands to talk with, not at, them. Every time a piece of content is shared on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+, a social signal is created that tells the search engines that this piece of content is valuable. The more times your content is shared, the more links it gets, the more valuable it becomes and the better it ranks in the SERPS! Every published guest post can be added to your social networks to help keep them up-to-date with great content.

Just remember that before you start worrying about guest blogging, your own business blog is supplied with a steady stream of great content! A 100 guest blog posts are no substitute for your own blog. Once your company blog is well underway, it’s time to start looking for guest blogging opportunities that will help your SEO campaign succeed.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

5 SEO Benefits of Guest Blogging – A SPN Exclusive Article

LinkedIn has transcended simply being a place for aspirant unemployed guys to hang out awaiting their next big break. It’s a way for business experts to hang out and engage like-minded others and find the people who exhibit expertise in their markets on an everyday basis.

Peoples’ thoughts make for solid content. If you read my eBook LinkedIn Profile Optimization for Maximum Exposure, you know that in the chapter on Applications I touch on polls on LinkedIn but didn’t have a lot of detail to go with it. Here is a bit more on LinkedIn polls and how to make use of them.

My First Poll Experience

To more fully analyze market demand for a product I was creating on Executive Video Interviews for business leaders, I posted the following poll on LinkedIn.

So what did I discover? Well, obviously I learnt more people like utilizing web video for product exhibitions, something not entirely surprising given the simplicity of filming something live and uploading it on YouTube.

But did I truly figure that out?

With only 16 replies, I’m no statistician but I’d say this lacks analytical importance. I had hoped for hundreds to answer the poll. After all, I posted a link to it on about twenty LinkedIn user groups. There should have been tons of replies right?

Learning My Lessons

Here are some things I found out about making use of this poll to engage the small business community:

1. There is a ton of noise at LinkedIn. Readers won’t see or even care about your poll excepting that you PROMOTE THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF IT. That means posting in the Groups, tweeting several times, and using Facebook and other social media to the max leverage you can.

2. This is a hunch, but I believe that my Executive Video Interview results don’t tell me that much about acceptance to my product. Why? Because people haven’t seen it yet! 2 of the three responders to this survey on that item were customers of mine who had them done. Since there is nobody else I know of who does this like me, that insider information distorts the survey’s results. Which way I am still questioning. Since I took this poll down, industry experience is advising me that my sample portfolio of client interviews is garnering up a lot more interest than a poll with a product not widely known. LESSON: All forced choice replies should be commonly known. For item receptivity (like this one), poll based upon product outcomes, not the label of the item.

3. Often the most fascinating data are the comments left by individuals who take the survey, describing what they have done for their company (in this case). Don’t neglect that gold.

4. Promoting the survey in interest groups only slightly related provides no outcomes. Because I use web video to help small businesses, I got more LinkedIn Group results from a group on Web Video with only a couple hundred, devoted professionals. The issue here was that some of these folks, being connoisseurs in web video, may have been informing me what they specialized in, not what small business wanted.

Connecting with LinkedIn Polls

LinkedIn creates a fantastic survey and it’s simple to put together and put online, but it has 2 issues:

1. LinkedIn only keeps each survey around for 4 weeks more or less. You have to be capable to market it and promote it quickly because you have a deadline to collect your data. Fact is, in most surveying situations; they’ve done all they can in just a few days, so LinkedIn has a point.

2. You can’t put up the survey on your LinkedIn profile; you can only put it in your status update and publish to Groups. If you’re optimizing your profile you know you are posting updates every few days at the minimum. Saving you want to become an aggravating spammer on LinkedIn Groups, you won’t advertise your survey there more than once or twice every few weeks. This suggests that on LinkedIn itself, your poll has little staying power other than in a general Polls page, and typically speaking, people aren’t surfing that hunting for something to do.

No worries. Here are a couple of ways to control surveys in LinkedIn:

• Embed on your Site
• Tweet out to your favored hash-tag trends and followers
• Facebook post it for your followers

What about types of questions for surveys? Well, if the poll is something you are just looking to get replies to, appeal to low common denominators like popular culture or politics. Everybody has a thought on them. If, on the other hand, you are looking to find certain niche advice about your business or audience, as I was in this example, do everything you can to pinpoint the audience to the niche so that they follow it enough to want to know the results themselves, or just deal with a small response rate symbolic of your target reader size.

One way to do this targeting is to upload your poll in a blog write up or article and send to search engines. Through SEO your piece will be viewed by those who discovered it who wanted to find it, and odds are better they vote on the poll. In the next few days I’ll be doing this with one more LinkedIn survey on marketing techniques for small business. Get statistically considerable results, especially if they are unanticipated, and you have produced a sound bite that you can now leverage with, you guessed it, another article, an announcement to news outlets, or put as an item of interest on your homepage.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Network with LinkedIn Polls – A SPN Exclusive Article

Social Media has taken off and there is no looking back. The top dogs are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and for professionals, LinkedIn. Just 3 years ago MySpace was huge but in the world of Social Media, today’s winner is the next niche site when the next big thing takes its place. I prefer to use the trifecta of Facebook, along with a business page, Twitter and LinkedIn, which is more than enough for me to handle. I wish there was a means to do this effortlessly and save myself tons of time weekly…Hmmmm…

Sweeping the Social Media Market

As I’m finding out and you likely are too, social media is all about creating significant or at least functional relationships one person at a time. One technique to do that is to put your valuable content in front of as many eyes as possible via social media updates then awaiting the few who respond. Voila! Relationship begins. If you had to do this on your own opening every account it would push you to consume unhealthy quantities of things unhealthy for your liver.

Ping.fm is a site that allows you to effortlessly post updates to multiple accounts. Watch this educational video clip to find out how it works and how to set it up. It is a time saver for you in an endeavor to slay the Social Media dragon.

If LinkedIn is part of your social media method, operating it properly and really getting payoffs is time consuming and can be confusing. Need help? Click here.

What time savers have you found in order to engage in Social Media without going berserk?

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Manipulate Social Media with Ping – A SPN Exclusive Article