SEO and Sem – are They Same?

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SEO and Sem – are They Same?

An internet marketing campaign is used to increase the traffic of a website and to convert genuine and prospective viewers to clients and buyers. However, if you want to go a step forward to ensure your revenues then you must have a thorough knowledge of what exactly the visitors are searching for. This brings us into the arena of SEO and SEM.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a technique that is related with researching, locating and presenting a website within search engines that has a fantastic return on investment.
Unlike traditional advertisements it has a higher hit rate at a lower cost thereby increasing the popularity of internet marketing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of constructing a website so that it becomes evident to the various search engines.

Search Engine Marketing is rather used in a much broader sense. People rely on them just as the sailors of the past used to rely on the pole star. An interesting fact is that this dependency has made the market of search engines soar higher than before. There are many SEO UK companies that cater to such needs. It is all about generating the right traffic in the right direction. Making some extra effort can always help you gain the largest possible customers. It may appear to some people that both SEM and SEO is just the same thing. But it is not so. We may say that SEO is the subset of SEM.

Know the differences between SEM and SEO

• If you are looking for higher returns then a SEM professional should always go for a quality landing page instead of considering the whole design. But this is not so with SEO. A SEO UK service provider may need to make some major changes regarding the design of a page in order to get the spiders crawl them more.

• In SEM it is feasible to design different landing pages based on your products or your services. It increases the ROI in SEM. This is not possible in SEO as the home page is the most powerful one and the sub pages including the product specifications may not get a higher ranking.

• With SEM campaign targeting the market becomes very easy. It may be national or international depending on the products. You have the flexibility of promoting your business according to your needs. This is not so with SEO, as preparing different target pages are impossible.

• SEM campaigns generate very fast results whereas SEO may take a longer time to respond.

• The advertiser has a full control over a PPC campaign. He has the liberty to choose the keywords and pays only when someone clicks. SEO visits are free of charges and most visitors trust the results of a search engine.

• SEM campaign can limit your business to your budget. Once the limit is reached the ad will stop displaying on the site. SEO can have a long term effect even after optimization is done.

Give Your Social Media Friends What They Are Looking For

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Give Your Social Media Friends What They Are Looking For

I’m sure you’ve heard all the talk: It’s very important, these days, to have some sort of social media presence. If you’ve signed up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or some of the industry forums, get ready to invest a lot of time in them if you want to get some kind of traction whatsoever.

Pay close attention to how people interact with each other on these sites and then follow suit. Once you see how everyone is interacting and you feel comfortable, join the conversation and provide lots of useful information and free advice. You’ll be surprised how much people will appreciate your contribution. But keep in mind the pace of social media. It is fast and if you don’t keep up, you may fall behind.

What kind of information would people like to hear from you?

Some suggestions would be…

Product information: Keep people up to date about the latest product releases and new features.

Customer Service: Post solutions to common problems, tell what the best practices are, and give tips for using products. Solve someone’s problem publicly if they post it publicly. It will show that you stand behind your product and that you’re enthusiastic about helping others solve problems.

Customer Testimonials: Have some of your customers give testimonials about the positive experiences they have had with your products and how they’ve conquered certain circumstances using your products.

Deal and Specials: Offer special deals and specials just for your social media friends – but no hard-sells. If your site is good, it will speak for itself. One of the biggest reasons people Friend, Follow, or become a Fan of your business or organization is to learn more about deals and specials.

Questions and Research: Questions targeted toward your customers is a good way of getting feedback and research data about your products. This research can provide you with valuable information in regards to which path you should take your business.

Share your expertise: You want readers to know that you are an authority in your industry. Offer them valuable information by answering general questions regarding happenings in the industry. Don’t answer every question by indicating that your product would be the perfect solution. Gain the confidence and trust of your readers, which will eventually lead to sales.

It is rare that people search for social media sites looking for something to buy, so when they do come across valuable information and good service, it is greatly appreciated. Don’t just hop on the social media bandwagon because it seems like the thing to do at the moment. Have a reason for being there – always provide value. Keep the “social” in social media, keep the conversation going, listen and respond positively.

What Do They Mean When They Say Social Media

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What Do They Mean When They Say Social Media

According to WikiPedia social media is the use of electronic and Internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings. It offers a fantastic way for you to build an Internet business compared to even just a couple of years ago. Let’s take a little closer look at social media and how you can get the maximum benefit from it with your own Internet business.

The key thing with social media is how it allows interaction between you and your website visitors. I also want to say at this time I hope you have a blog set up and are utilizing it to create social media. Blogging is a fantastic platform that allows interaction in many different ways between visitors and the content you are trying to present.

For example, the way you post an article on the blog today can be totally different than creating web pages were in the past. You can integrate pictures, audio, video, and other things to make your blog seem more exciting and alive

How you create interaction with your visitor is by allowing them to post comments on your blog, participate in contests, vote on polls, or even add content directly by writing blog articles for you.

This interaction is what creates a feeling of community amongst all of the different bloggers and visitors. People can begin to share their own experiences and stories as links to the theme of your blog.

Networking is a big part of social media. In fact social networking is another term that has come out of this. The idea of networking is not new and has been around businesses and clubs for many, many years.

Network marketing is a perfect example of a business that is built totally around people helping people. In the off line world traditional businesses would get together for Rotary club meetings and various things that allowed them to network with other business owners.

Today there are feeds are available such as an RSS feed to keep subscribers up to date on what is going on in your business. Many people will subscribe to your RSS feed because they want to continue to network with you after they are getting ready to leave your blog initially.

All of this offers a tremendous opportunity for building loyalty amongst readers and repeat visitors were more sales. Social media and social networking makes this all possible for you.

How to Convince Webmasters That They Should Link to Your Site

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How to Convince Webmasters That They Should Link to Your Site

How do you convince these websites that they should link to your website? Here are five tips that will help you to convince other webmasters.

1. Offer something in return

The easiest thing that you could offer is a link in return. However, not all webmasters want to exchange links.

There are many things that you could offer in exchange for a link. This could be a discount for your products, an ad on your website or even a simple hint.

If you find a broken link on a website, inform the webmaster about the link. Tell him that your own website might be a good replacement for the broken link (if it is).

2. Ask your current link partners

If another website already links to you then they might add another link to a different page on your website.

Getting a second link from existing link partners is much easier than getting new links because you don’t have to explain yourself anymore. The other webmaster already knows you and your site.

3. Make friends with people from your industry

Networking can help you to get links to your website. This works best with blogs that are related to your website.

Contact the blog owners and compliment on their sites. Do not ask for a link in your first contact. When you’ve a good relationship with the blog owner, you might inform him about a new product or a new article that you’ve written.

Chances are that you’ll get a link from the blog then. These links from related blogs have a great impact on the position of your website in Google’s search results.

4. Show that other webmasters already linked to your website

It’s easier for people to do something if they see that other people have done the same thing before. If many other websites link to your website, you could mention this in your link request.

If a well known website mentioned your site, that’s even better: “As you might have seen on NYTimes.com, we’ve published a new product. This might be interesting to the visitors of your website.”

5. Offer something that other people don’t have

This is the easiest way to get links. If you have a report with ground-breaking new information or something other that’s very interesting and only available on your website then it will be very easy to get links to the page that contains that information.

Getting links from other websites isn’t difficult if you know how to do it. Further information about link building can be found in our free SEO book. The book explains everything you need to know to get links from related websites, Internet directories and other sources.

Look under **Free Marketing Tools** to get this Free SEO Ebook.

Warmly,

Gary Neame

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Social Networking Sites And Why They Are The Best Source For Generating Web 2.0 Traffic

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Social Networking Sites And Why They Are The Best Source For Generating Web 2.0 Traffic

According to news by BBC, Business 2.0 magazine has named StumbleUpon the number one social media company. It is a net discovery site founded in the year 2001, has member strength of more than 2 million registered users. The Web 2.0 traffic concept has been growing in strength after this evidence of traffic generation and more business companies are trying to shift business from the earlier model of Web 1.0 concept.

Tim O’ Reilly was one of the first to use the term Web 2.0. According to him, it is a web-based software that is updated constantly and mutually. One of the primary concepts of Web 2.0 traffic is remixing; and the more number of people consume it the better it functions.

A group of people has to build up social networks to properly use the service. Web 2.0 is the new trend in web designing and development, and mainly refers to supposedly second generation of online population, that is to say, communities and hosted services, such as social networking sites, folksonomies and wikies. Folksonomies aim at creating collaborative environment, creativity and sharing between groups.

Talking of social networks Digg, Stumble Upon and Propeller are the best places to get started with Web 2.0 traffic. Anything to share you can post it on Digg. Digg’s Alexa traffic ranking is below 200. StumbleUpon has its traffic ranking under 300 and Propeller has its ranking under 2000. The entire ranking is among 2 million plus websites that comes under the shroud of major search engines.

Therefore, when a ‘would be blogger’ is trying to get noticed then it is always advisable to come under the shadow of something big to start with. Build something, put it in the shadow of something already established and let it move on when it grows up.

Web 2.0 traffic needs promotion like every other business ventures. News and blogs are the most important of the elements to attract visitors, and traffic with them. News, videos, podcasts, images all is part of the community build-up process in Digg.

Blogs get comments and through this link baits can be made. Link baits are useful links redirected to the target website through an informative article. Information is shared through communities like Propeller, StumbleUpon and Facebook. No matter what the type of information is, personal or commercial, it can be passed on through social networking sites.

Web 2.0 traffic perception has created hype in the mind of the consumers as well as the executives. It is easy to know the concept, but to implement it is a lot harder. The new web concept can create a new enterprise solution, but – “do you need it?” and if yes then “by how?” are the two foremost things that are creating the confusion. Realistic use within an organization can transform Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0.

When Google started its online community Orkut, it was an instant hit. It zoomed in on millions of netizens all over the world. Facebook, another community, was started in the Google path. It became another craze and in September 2007 it topped the chart in terms of network traffic.

Online communities are nothing but social networks. They follow the new web concept of build a house and let it serve itself. The Bit torrent community also follows the same concept to create its own Web 2.0 traffic. One system acts as a server or seeder and other leech files from it. They are called leechers. When the sharing is 100% complete the leechers become the seeders; the process continues, building collaborative intelligence, the final end point for total development.

Top 100 Fortune Companies: How Are They Using Social Media?

admin    Twitter Marketing     Companies, Fortune, Media, Social, They, Using

Top 100 Fortune Companies: How Are They Using Social Media?

Top 100 Fortune Companies puts together the most respected and renowned names, which also have access to the best resources due to the large budget they have in hands to manage. This has always gave them a boost when it came to traditional marketing, but is it the same when talking about their online marketing strategy  and their involvement in creating a strong online brand? Some say social media marketing  is about using the right strategy and getting it implemented in the right way, and the budget allocated is less important. A recent study carried out by Burson-Marsteller Communications Group gives evidence regarding the involvement of these top 100 companies in online reputation management  as well as shows evidence of the level of engagement they get from their audience. The study refers to the largest four social networking  channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Business Blogs.

According to the results, the percentage chart of Fortune global 100 companies using those four social media marketing channels is the following: Twitter (65%), Facebook (54%), YouTube (50%) and Blogs (33%).

Although there is a difference when it comes to the number of social networking channels they are using, out of the same four.  It seems that when referring to the companies using at least one of the four channels, European companies are leading, 88% of them using at least one, while the US has 86% and Asia only 50%. That is a surprise, since most people assume the US should lead when it comes to social media use.

However the US is leading when referring to the companies using all four social networking sites. As see below, 28% of the US companies are using all four, while only 15% of the European companies are using all four. Whereas 25% of the Asian companies are also using all four channels.

The study also investigates the top 100 companies’ activity on Twitter for one week. The results show 82% of them are tweeting company news, 38% are actually responding to people’s tweets and only 32% are re-tweeting. It looks like large companies are doing a better job at promoting themselves than actually listening and responding to their audience. Their customer service orientation does not seem to be very good when looking at these results. Some of them are missing two very important steps of social media: listen and respond.

Interesting point is that a large number of their followers are re-tweeting their news. The study shows 32% of the tweets coming from Fortune Global 100 companies are re-tweeted.

Their presence on Facebook seems to be better. After analysing the Facebook Fan Pages activity for one week, the study shows that 59% of the companies have posts of their company and 43% have posts from fans. Furthermore, 51% also have likes from fans and 41% have posts with comments from fans. The average number of fans per page is high as well, about 40,884 fans per account.

Since the interaction created on YouTube is covered on larger time span, the companies’ activity for one month has been analysed. Results show that 68% of the companies uploaded new videos and 76% of channels also got feedback from viewers.

The blog activity of the top 100 Fortune companies was analysed throughout a month, revealing a rather low involvement of companies. Only 36% of corporate blogs had posts during that month! The feedback they got from viewers was better, 54% having blog comments.

Last but not least, the research gives an overview of the companies’ average number of accounts per company. Results show that most companies have an average number of 4.2 Twitter accounts, 2.1 Facebook accounts, 1.8 YouTube channels and 4.2 blogs running.

In nutshell based on the results of this study we can conclude that fortune 100 companies are quite actively using Social Media channels to get attention from their audience. More than 85% of Fortune 100 American and European companies are using at least one social media channel and all over the globe more than 80% tweet company news regularly. Their Facebook presence has been very effective, with an average Fan base of more than 40K per account. They are not neglecting the power of videos either, nearly 70% of them upload company videos time to time and their followers do comment on the videos. However they are not utilising blogging that effectively. With the increase in people using social media networks for expressing more and more it is important for all the businesses to start listening and engaging their loyal customers online.

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What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important

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What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important

Everyone wants traffic to their website. However, most people don’t know what it takes to get traffic. It’s a simple process, contrary to what the gurus will tell you. All you have to do is find good keywords, write quality content based on those keywords and then build backlinks to that content.

This is where most people drop the ball. They think if they write it people will come. This just isn’t true. What makes your content any better than the next guy’s What makes Google or any other search engine chooses to show your site in the search engine results as opposed to your neighbor’s

The answer is links. The number of people, places, sites that are linking to your content is what makes the difference between whether your site shows up in the search engine results or someone else’s. Now you just need to know what backlinks are and how to get them.

The first question is very simple, and what I will be dealing with in this article. Backlinks, simply put, are links pointing back to your site or a page on your site. Backlinks can happen in any number of ways. You can write something amazing other people like and want to tell people about and they link to you. You can take the process in your own hands and send out articles or make comments on blogs. There are of course, differing degrees of value between backlinks.

Google counts all the backlinks you have to your site. Some links it gives more weight to, others it gives less to. You will be wise to take on a link building strategy that involves both quality and quantity because both are important. You want to get backlinks from high page rank sites, Google likes these and gives you a little more credit for them. You also want to get links from directories, and other quantity type places. Although Google doesn’t give you as much credit for these you certainly get credit for having a lot of backlinks to your site.

The best possible backlink you can get is one where you have your chosen keyword in the anchor text of the link. This means if you had words in a sentence that someone could click on to go somewhere else, these would be your keywords. This is important because you are trying to rank in the search engine for specific keywords. Each time you have a link with a certain keyword or some derivation of it, you get credit. So never, never, write a link and have the words you click on be “click here” that’s a ridiculous waste of a backlink, unless, of course you are linking to someone you don’t want to give a backlink to.

You can link within your own site, from free places like squidoo and hubpages. There are a million places to get backlinks to your site. It can be the most boring part of online marketing, but if you don’t do it you will never find yourself number one in google and getting all that traffic.

Backlinks: What They are and How to Get Them

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Backlinks: What They are and How to Get Them

Sometimes called inbound links, backlinks are the lifeblood of Search Engine Positioning. In order for a website to be on the top of search engines like Google without the webmaster having to pay big money for advertising, the website has to have a large number of backlinks. Backlinks are links on one website that lead back to another website. The more established, high quality, and high Page Rank the website that contains the link has, the more power it has to help the linked website with its search engine position. If the website that is getting backlinks gets many High Quality and High Page Rank backlinks, the better the chance it has of being in a high position on the Search Engines.

How does a webmaster go about getting high quality backlinks to his or her website? There are many ways this can be done. Some people advocate writing and submitting articles, posting on forums, making comments on blogs. Others talk about submitting their website to various Internet directories. One directory that has an excellent reputation is called DMOZ, or the “Open Directory”. This directory is probably the most respected directory online today. The websites it contains have all been placed there by human editors; there is no “automation” to this directory. The only drawback that’s been discussed about this directory is that it takes so long to have a website included.

Another way that many people build backlinks for their website is to use Social Bookmarking websites. A “Social Bookmark” is a website that usually has a very popular ‘community’ aspect to it. Users sign up and create profiles on the sites that contain photos and information about themselves. They then can save “bookmarks” of favorite websites which can be itemized by ‘tags’, which are one or two word descriptions of what the sites contain, and these bookmarks can be saved to a list that’s private or can be listed publicly, so that everybody can see it.

With the advent of what is known as Web 2.0, gaining backlinks is easier now than in any time in the history of the internet. Most sites now have an “interactive” quality to them nowadays. Readers can often sign in and create profiles. They then are often allowed to post comments on the stories or articles on the website or blog. In many cases, the website or blog owner responds to these comments; thus making this section of the website or blog a conversation.

Backlinking strategies can be easy and fun and the website owner who is working on getting more backlinks for his website can learn new things, meet new people, and have a tremendous amount of fun doing something that was once a chore: building backlinks.

Backlinks

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4 Of The Best Twitter Tips and the Posts They Came From

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4 Of The Best Twitter Tips and the Posts They Came From

Twitter is one of the best micro-blogging (Web 2.0) channels available online that you can use to communicate with customers and leads. You can also use Twitter for marketing purposes to signal important information, new blog posts, services, help desk queries, etc. Twitter search is a great real time search engine built around the messages that are Tweeted by members. If you were looking for real time information on the “Holidays Las Vegas” and what people are saying about it, Twitter Search is the place to find this information. But if you really want to swim with the fearless and benefit from every single move on Twitter, read on.

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Aim for the Retweet

Studies have shown that it is possible to intentionally create a Tweet worthy of a retweet. Ask to be retweeted and add the word “please” can be enough to encourage your Followers to do just that.

Have a Purpose to Your Tweets

“What could be more annoying and less useful than a site where thousands of people are given 140 characters to shout out about what they’re doing at every moment of the day? The amazing thing is that enough people out there think this mindless stream of ephemera (‘I’m eating a tangerine,’ ‘I’m waiting for a plane,’ ‘I want a Big Mac’) is interesting enough to serve as the basis for a viable advertising platform.” as Mark Simon wrote back in September 2007.

Build A Twitter Swipe of Important Tweets & Links

Wouldn’t it be just great if you could find the most useful tweets and links about the hottest most interesting topics online, all in one place? Wouldn’t it be just convenient if you could link that valuable information to the tweeple who posted it so you can have continuous access to his/her tweets by following him/her accordingly?

Actively Grow Your Following

Ask people to follow you at your Twitter URL. This might seem obvious, but most people still aren’t doing it. I admit, it was lost on me until about a month ago. This needs to be on everything – including your business card. Invite people to follow you by including a request, hyperlinked to your Twitter profile, in (1) your email signature and (2) the byline under blog posts.

So remember, while there are many help files, ebooks, blog posts available on the internet online for Twitter, the best Twitter Tips tool I have found is the Twitter Traffic Swarm.

Get more help and resources (including online links to valuable information) when you visit the original post on my blog.

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The Most Popular Twitter Tools And Why They Are So Popular

admin    Twitter Marketing     Most, Popular, They, Tools, Twitter

When it became clear that Twitter is a bona fide phenomenon, everyone jumped on the bandwagon to come up with all sorts of tools and applications.  There are so many out there to choose from, wading through them can be quite a job in itself.  One of the first things many new to Twitter complain about is that once you begin following and being followed, response can be overwhelming. So, many tools focus on organization and filtering.  Others are time savers that let you make the most of Twitter without having to constantly be on it. To help you out, here are a few of the most popular Twitter tools and the cool things they can do for you and your business.Tweetdeck is a kind of overall organizer that connects you with contacts over Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. With the browser you can create groups, filter tweets, and keep up with favorite subjects. The easy to navigate screens spread everything out in front of you so you can reply, direct message, retweet, add to favorites, etc.Twhirl ranks almost as high on popularity lists as Tweetdeck, but also allows you to manage more than one account within one application.  For those with multiple businesses, blogs, or just want to keep a private and a public account, this is for you.Tweepler is a tool that helps you organize your followers and decide if you want to follow them back, or just ignore them.  It gives you helpful stats about followers and generally streamlines the decision making process.Twitpic allows you to post pictures on Twitter.  You can post via your phone, their API, or the Internet.  Useful for both social and business activity, this application pretty much speaks for itself.  After all, a tweet is a maximum of 140 characters, and a picture is worth a thousand words!Twitoria helps get rid of clutter by scanning your account to see who has been inactive for certain periods of time.  It can also help you track down spammers.Twitpay lets you give and receive payments via your Paypal account.  It makes payments incredibly easy and mobile, no need to use your desktop or laptop.Twitter to WP/ WP to Twitter; great for bloggers, Twitter to WP posts your tweets on the sidebar of your WordPress blog.  WP to Twitter sends an automatic update when you post something new on your blog.Twit(url)y tracks the urls that are currently being twittered about.  Use this site to see who’s got the most talked about sites and what’s on the minds of Twitter users.  It tells you who has the most active tweets in real time.MrTweet calls itself “your personal networking assistant.”  Use it to find which conversations are most important and relevant to you. It can help you track your relationships discover new networking opportunities.  These are just a small slice of the incredible tools available to make your Twitter account work harder for you.  Adding just a few of the applications to the already powerful Twitter can make the difference between just doing well, and being a huge success.