5 Pointers For A Quick and Easy Business Blog
October 21, 2008 by OneIMS · Leave a Comment
Have you ever set aside time to sit down and update your business blog, only to find out you have no idea what to write about? It’s easy to talk with customers and answer questions about your areas of expertise; you feel comfortable and competent “talking shop” with colleagues, but writing a blog brings on an intense case of writer’s block. Sound familiar? Try these time-tested tips for instant blog successes!
1. Answer a frequently asked question. Choose a question that you often hear from your clients and write out a description of the conundrum and your best answer. Chances are, many others will find your expert advice useful and will look to you in the future for business advice.
2. Use a statistic to highlight an issue in your industry. Locate a thought-provoking or surprising statistic from a recent piece of industry research. Use the statistic as the framework for your comments on a topic, elaborating on the relevance of these facts to your clients.
3. Use a numbered or bulleted list of points. Choose a useful topic and share several smaller points about the issue. Use a title like “Top Three Ways. . .” or “The Five Secrets of . . .” Numbered articles attract attention and are easy to read, too. The article you are reading right now is an example of this technique.
4. Tell a story. Let your clients learn from your successes. Use a case study from your previous marketing experiences. Then use the story as a starting point to share more general business advice with your reader.
5. Interview a professional in your field. Choose an expert or industry leader in your field and ask a few questions that might be useful to your readers. Pick a professional who might offer a different perspective than you would.
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The Art of Search Engine Optimization
October 14, 2008 by OneIMS · 1 Comment
If You Build It Right, They Will Come: The Art of Search Engine Optimization
Any movie buff will tell you how Kevin Costner came to build a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield in the modern classic “Field of Dreams.” He was following the instructions of a mysterious voice in his head, a voice that promised, “If you build it, they will come.”
Many modern business owners have ventured into online marketing lured by the same voice: Build an attractive website and the multitudes will swarm to you. Unfortunately, it’s simply not that easy. Online marketers who enjoy heavy traffic and sales on their business websites do so because they have learned how to get noticed first by the consumers who are searching for their products and services. The only way to turn an attractive and informative website into a profitable business website is to master the art of Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of designing a website so that it will appear nearer the top of the list in “natural” searches on search engines such as Google and Yahoo. In our ever-changing technological landscape, SEO technicians continue to develop increasingly sophisticated “tricks of the trade,” making SEO into something of a modern-day art form.
SEO at its best requires online marketers to regularly optimize websites so that they will continue to rank high in search engine search results. To sustain profitability, website entrepreneurs must also constantly stay in touch with the latest advances in Search Engine Optimization. If you want to learn to optimize your business website and to maintain higher rankings and more hits, go beyond the standard SEO strategies and textbook approaches and develop your techniques in the creative art of SEO. To get you started, we offer some of our best practices in the art of SEO:
SEO Basics: Build It Right and They Will Stay
Search engines have the ability to track how much time a visitor spends at a particular website. If you click on a link from Google, but only spend five seconds there before returning to revisit the search, Google technicians might assume that the site you clicked was not relevant to your search. In order to build a site that entices visitors to stay (thus communicating to major search engines that your site content is relevant and helpful) get back to the basics of Search Engine Optimization.
Make sure your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. Visitors will stay longer and click more if they can easily find what they are looking for. Create multiple internal links within your site to guide your visitors in a seamless and satisfying website experience.
Carefully choose the right title for your site. Keep it short so that the entire title will be visible on the search engine results page. Periodically change your title and monitor the behavior of your website visitors when you use different titles.
Make sure your description tag uses targeted keywords and enticing copy that will draw in your target audience. Your description tag is often the advertisement of your products and services that will appear on search engine results pages.
Develop Your “Linkability” With Articles
One of the most creative and innovative ways to optimize your business website is to carry out an ongoing campaign to get others to link to your website by writing and publishing articles that are relevant and compelling to your target audience.
Start with an attention-grabbing title. Draw your readers in by asking a question or making a statement that will activate their curiosity or create a vivid picture in their minds.
Write articles with compelling content that others will read and link to. Write about the issues and concerns that interest your target audience. Find online resources that are strongly related to your industry and submit your articles for publication. Provide a link back to your company website with each article you send out.
Get Creative With Social Media
Many online marketers are experiencing great success by taking advantage of social networking sites. Become an active member of the online community in your field. Blog about topics that interest your target audience. Search for bookmarking sites that are specific to your unique industry and post articles and comments with links to your site. Set aside some time each week to search for blogs and internet forums that are closely related to the products and services you provide. Get involved in the discussions and make others in your community aware of what you have to offer them.
Developing Your Craft As An SEO Artist
You can increase the visibility of your online marketing site by applying basic SEO principles in the design of your website. Further promote your products and services by getting involved in online publishing and social networking. Maintaining a business website that gets noticed on major search engines and receives hits from your target audience requires time, patience, and creativity, but many business owners have found that the results are well worth the effort.
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Marketing Optimization for Maximum ROI
October 14, 2008 by Joe Samuel · 1 Comment
Optimization means “the action of finding the best solution.” Mathematical programming, or optimization modeling, is a branch of mathematical modeling that is concerned with finding the optimal solution to a problem. Initially, optimization was used as a way to mathematically determine the optimal allocation of scarce resources. The concept has been borrowed by businesspeople to aid decision-making.Optimization has been used in the areas of the manufacturing supply chain, airline revenue yields, and financial investment risk assessment. More recently, the concept is being adopted by marketing.
Phrases such as site optimization, search engine optimization, event optimization, and campaign optimization must be familiar. A more recent concept with broader application to marketing is the idea of marketing optimization. Marketing optimization addresses, determining the optimal subset of combination that will maximize profit. Marketing’s primary responsibility to the organization is to generate profitable revenue growth. It would seem that maximizing profit is a relatively easy thing to do: just achieve the full profit potential for each and every customer. Easier said than done.
The sheer number of customers, products, and communication channels creates complexity, often making it difficult to find the right set of customer-product-channel combination that will maximize profit while ensuring customer satisfaction.At the same time, product life cycles are getting shorter, competition is fiercer, market fragmentation and the number of segments are greater, and change is accelerating, adding further complexity to making marketing decisions. Marketing optimization is designed to help address this level of complexity.
Please, contact OneIMS today at 1-888-ONE-IMS1, or send an e-mail to info@oneims.com and let us help you with your Social Media Marketing.
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