WSI Marketing, Surf, Search and Social

Search Engines evaluate who is linking to your website to determine how relevant your website is within your industry. Pages that are linked to more frequently are weighted higher by search engines and are more likely to be visited.

Inbound links or “back links” are considered a vote of confidence for your website. Therefore getting “quality links” is an integral part of ranking higher than your competitors on the search engines.

Quality Links:

* Come from popular websites in a related industry.
* Links from higher ranking pages are worth more than miscellaneous links.
* Links that appear higher up in a page are more valuable than links that appear on the bottom of the page in the footer.
* Pages that have large numbers of links may be diluted and less authoritative.
* “Anchor Text” matters. The actual words that link to your webpage are important. For example, linking the phrase “internet marketing Carleton place” to my website is more effective for me than linking the words “Click Here”.

Where do Quality Links come from?
Sadly there is no silver bullet. A certain amount of links will develop naturally over time, but unless you have a very popular site to begin with, playing the waiting game won’t work. Buying links for a link farm typically doesn’t work well either. Those links are typically low quality and can get you into trouble over the long run due to their dubious source.


The first step (the only step I’m going to cover in this post) is to locate sources of quality links. I want to focus on the low hanging fruit:

* Websites that already link to you
* Websites that link to your competitors

In each case it is safe to assume that websites that link to you or your competitors probably link to sites that are relevant to you. Because those sites are relevant to your market, it is safe to assume that sites that link to THEM are also relevant to you and are probably also good link prospects.


There are a variety of methods for tracking down specific links to your site and to the sites of your competitors. The most efficient method is to use professional software that is designed for that specific task. Two that we user are Wordtracker and Web CEO. Keep in mind that there is a learning curve to use them correctly. There is also the associated expense of purchasing the tools, and the time to follow through with the results. I’ll cover that on an upcoming post.

Seeing as how we’re right at the beginning of a new year, we thought it fitting to have our first free webinar of 2011 dedicated to starting the year off right. Coming up on Wednesday, February 2nd 2011, you can join us for a free webinar entitled “Online Reputation Management: 3 Steps to Balance Risk and Reward!”

This particular webinar is specially geared to ensuring that your online brand is ready to effectively leverage the digital marketing realm this year. After all, expert planning and a strategically implemented social media strategy can drastically transform any company’s online presence. It has the capacity to launch a local, small-scale business into an international brand name!

However, on the other hand, a company who chooses to ignore its online presence and what customers are saying about them online can be equally damaging. As many online advantages as there are for your brand, there are just as many disadvantages and risks as well!

So, on February 2nd join us for a webinar, where we’re set to discuss:

* 3 steps to effective ORM
* What “ORM” really means – the ins and outs of online reputation management
* How to protect your brand against trademark / company name violations
* Crisis management strategies

There are 2 free sessions available!

Here are the registration details:

Session One

Date: Wednesday February 2nd, 2011

Time: 1:00PM – 2:00PM EST

REGISTER NOW!

Session Two

Date: Wednesday February 2nd, 2011

Time: 1:00PM – 2:00PM GMT

REGISTER NOW!

Over the weekend one of my family members asked me a question “What’s the benefits of using Twitter?” I have decided to put a short post together outlining some of them. I mostly use Twitter for researching and to promote my content. Usually when I have written a new post, I post a description with a link of the post I have made.

Find some benefits of using Twitter below:

• Researching: Research industry specific topics. Great way to get topics for new Blog posts;
• Communication Tool: Follow and be followed. Start a conversation;
• Twitter Feed reader: Yep thats right. You can subscribe to the people you are following’s RSS tweet feeds;
• News: People post news topics as they happen. Real time information;
• Recruitment: I follow some of these (http://twitter.com/NewYorkWebJobs);
• For Fun: What are you doing right now? Post it on Twitter and see other people’s responses;
• Competitive Intelligence: Find out what your competitors are up to. Be the spy;
• Engage with your target audience: Tell your Pizza fan club about the new Pizza you have made;
• Build a reputation: Post regularly about your topic;
• Build credibility: Become an expert in your topic;
• Build trust: Keep on doing the above;
• Promote your “content”: Share what you have posted, new website, pizza you have made, etc;
• Promotion: Promote your pizza;
• SEO Boost: Gain traffic to your website, blog, etc;
• Ask Questions: Most searches on the search engines starts with a question. Ask your question to your followers;
• Receive answers: Real time results are the best!;
• Press releases: Post about any press releases;
• Internal communication tool: Tweet that your secretary should come to work now;
• External communication tool: Tweet to your friends that you have been fired;
• For conferences: You can even have a conference on Twitter if you want to;
• Re-enforce Your Brand: Tell the world about your Pizzeria;
• Marketing Opportunities: Promote your pizza special on Wednesdays;
• Networking Opportunities: Maybe someone wants to buy your Pizzeria;

Found a post with 101 Twitter resources that can help you on your Twitter path. Find a couple below:

• My Tweeple – Manage your following and followers.
• The Twitter Blog – Follow their official blog.
• Explore Twitter – Learn more about Twitter.
• Twitter Search - Search in Twitter.
• TwitterVerse – What is Twitter doing lately?
• Tweetmeme – Twitter meme.
• The Twitter Blacklist – Spammers are everywhere. Protect yourself.
• Twitterholic – Shows popular Twitter feeds.
• YouTwit – Put Twitter status on Google maps.
• Twitterberry – Mobile client for Blackberry.
• Email Twitter – Mobile client.
• Twoble – Mobile client for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.
• TwitterMail – Tweet via email.
• OutTwit – Use Twitter from Outlook.

When used strategically, Twitter can prove to be a very powerful tool in your company’s digital marketing strategy. Visit our site to read more about how social media can build your credibility and reputation online!

If you want your website to be a success online, you will need to think and plan strategically about your website visitors and what action you want them to take. Most websites don’t do this. This is what will set you apart from the rest. Your website is your business image to the world open for everyone to see.

Do you want your website visitors’ first impression about your business to be good? If you answered yes, find some tips below to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy and to help you make your website stand out from the rest.

Business website tips
Customer: Always focus first on your customer. When a new visitor arrives on your website for the first time, they are usually looking for something or answers to help solve a need that they might have. This could be anything from buying specific products or solving a problem. It is vital that you must understand what your best customers are looking for and then make sure you can address them clearly on the specific page that they arrive on.

Image: Design your website around your customer and the services or products that you offer. If you are selling to Generation Y, use a trendier look that integrates social media elements and if you are selling to Baby Boomers, design your website with a high contrast with larger font sizes. Your website design should about be consistent with your industry and branding. If you are selling to corporate customers, then you will need a polished and professional look.

Action: What do you want your websites visitors to do when they arrive on your website? Contact you? Sign-up for a newsletter? Your website pages should always have a clear path to action. Keep it short and simple with clear call to actions (CTA). Too many possible actions and your visitors will leave instantly. Make the decisions that they have to make on your website easy. Make it visible and clear for your arriving visitors. Design a single primary action into your website pages.

Trust: People have always been cautious of buying online. Write the content of your website to address the needs of your visitors in a language that they will understand (no technical jargon). Also, make it easy to contact you with a phone number and an actual street address. You can include a shipping procedure, privacy policy and a refund policy on your website. Include a trust building “About us” page that includes more in-depth information about your company and what you do.

Websites that get good results are focusing on the needs of their visitors. Always remember that it’s not about you but about your visitors!

Visit our site to learn even more digital marketing tips, techniques and best practices that will work to enhance your online brand!

I wanted to thank every one who has been following me, and I apologies for not posting over the last few month but have had some personal issues but I’m back up and running. So I will do my best to give you some good material to read with content you can take away and use.

thank you

Bruce Allen