With every “evolution” that comes about in the world of online marketing there are a new “breed” of online marketing “experts” (Uhh hhmm) that emerge and proclaim themselves the keepers of the secret keys to your online success.

Yeah, whatever!

Yes there are changes that occur from time to time in the way the search engines manage their search results. There always will be. There always have been.

And yes you have to learn about those changes and adapt and innovate. But one has to do this on a regular basis in business anyway just to stay in business.

I have observed that when changes occur and a new idea is presented, in the online marketing space particularly, one of the most powerful rules of marketing is simply tossed aside and ignored. That rule is “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!” Or stated another way, “If it is working don’t change it !”

I see people in business throw away all their common sense when they get into “online marketing”. They stop all the best practices and start buying all kinds of tools and software and gimmicks and “Secret Internet how to guides” and hire “teenagers” and “students” to handle their marketing.

They would never even consider those actions in the offline portion of their business.

Yet they take these strange and unprecedented actions on an aspect of their business that could easily become far more important in terms of driving in business that their offline efforts.

Look the bottom line is that the standard best practices of SEO and PPC work. In fact the principles of SEO apply even more today with all the changes that have taken place over the last couple of years than they did before.
There are new things you can do now, but they do not change what has worked well the last 3 or 4 years.

McIntosh Marketing are experts as online marketing. I hate to call anyone an expert. I cringe at the thought. But this group is expert at this.

You need to have a real experienced professional marketing organization manage your online marketing efforts. Your business is important! You need to treat it with the importance it has .
Good Luck !

Categories and Tags: SEO Best Practices For Sorting Your WordPress …

Above all else, if you want the best possible SEO results from the content you crank out, prioritize an organizational system and then give your readers a simple way to find what they’re looking for. Spiders will find it useful and your …

Publish Date: 11/12/2010 7:00

http://wpmu.org/categories-and-tags-seo-best-practices-for-sorting-your-wordpress-content/

Coding a Design: SEO Best Practices and Mistakes to Avoid | Web …

For any online business, website has become the foremost important asset. It is really indispensable that it should be designed and developed in a way that it, Daily Resource for Web Designers and Developers.

Publish Date: 10/05/2010 4:40

http://www.instantshift.com/2010/10/05/coding-a-design-seo-best-practices-and-mistakes-to-avoid/

SEO 101 : Back to Basics

Whether you are a webmaster or an internet marketer, implementing the basics of SEO best practices into your overall SEO strategy will go a long way into achieving the results that you desire. This article is courtesy of Tim Smithson, …

Publish Date: 11/12/2010 1:04

http://savedelete.com/seo-101-back-to-basics.html

Photoshop Tricks : Editing Web Templates for Websites

www.photoshop-tricks.com has Templates that you can Purchase & Download – This Video show you how to Use Photoshop Website Templates – How to get around Templates to edit and change things. You can Replace Layers to Customize just about any template….

SEO Best Practices For Internet Marketers

www.podcastinterviews.com Ed Dale shares with David Jenyns some of his SEO best practices. He first mentionns that the more marketers give, the more likely people will sign up for a product. He goes into the specifics by pointing out the advisability…

Article by Carlos Gamez

Image by Kevin Zenghli

Now, with Yahoo Answers being mobile, you can not only help promote your website, but you can do it on the go! You can log in to your account, answer questions, look for new questions to answer, or ask your own questions.  All of these provide excellent opportunities to showcase your knowledge and promote your website.

Is there a land of hope and plenty in this virtual financial dust bowl of the economy?

Yes! It is the land of milk and honey called the Internet.

Look at these stats:

Netflix Third-Quarter Profit Rises 26% on New Users*

Quote:
“Netflix Inc, the mail-order and online movie-rental service, reported third-quarter profit rose 26 percent as the pace of new subscriber additions accelerated. The shares surged.

Net income grew to $38 million, or 70 cents a share, from $30.1 million, or 52 cents, a year earlier, Netflix said today in a statement. Sales rose 31 percent to $553.2 million, beating analysts’ projections of $551.7 million. The company signed 1.93 million new users, up from 1.03 million in the second quarter.”

EBay results beat Street view**

Quote:
“(Reuters) – EBay Inc posted higher-than-expected earnings, helped by double-digit growth at PayPal and a modest rise in revenue at the e-commerce company’s main marketplaces unit.

The company said third-quarter net profit was $431.9 million, or 33 cents per share, from $350 million, or 27 cents per share, a year earlier.”

E*Trade Financial Profit Matches Estimates as Loan Loss Provisions Decline***

Quote:
“Third-quarter net income was $8.4 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a loss of $854.7 million, or $6.74 a share, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. That matched the 3-cent average analyst projection, according to a Bloomberg survey. Sales after loan-loss provisions are deducted totaled $337.4 million, beating the average analyst estimate by 7.1 percent, Bloomberg data show.”

The face of business in America is changing from a “let your fingers do the walking” culture to a “surf the Internet” culture.But this isn’t only an American phenomenon. It is happening in the UK as well

In this post Andrew Redfern, states:

Quote: “It has been predicted that in the run up to Christmas 2010, online sales will be up by 16% to £6.4bn on the same period of 2009. This will bring the total online sales for the year 2010 to £57.8bn compared to £49.8bn in 2009, supporting the trend towards the increase in online shopping which will certainly create a challenge to the dominance of the high street.

The prediction follows reports in June 2010 that online shopping had increased by 22% over the past year compared to 2008/2009. In September, online shopping sales had increased by 24% year on year as consumers started their Christmas and winter clothes shopping early. Chris Webster, head of retail consulting and technology at Capgemini noted an interesting observation that consumers are starting to spread the cost of Christmas over several pay checks and we may start to see an early peak in Christmas shopping spends.”
source:http://www.hitsearchlimited.com/news/9992901/

Even the Halloween shoppers are moving online in droves. Halloween shoppers where last minute buying is a monstous business yet more than 33% of Halloween shoppers will be moving onto the internet to find that perfect costume.

(source stella.louise http://www.savings.com/blog/post/Infographic-Halloween-Costumes-and-Other-Spooky-Spending-Trends.html

And for those of you who have been training all year for the biggest shopping battle of the year, Black Friday, you will be glad to know you can return to your Frappuccinos and scones. This year retailers such as Best Buy, ToysrUs, Walmart, Staples and more will be moving online to offer deals without the danger of concussions and lost limbs.

The recession may be causing offline business owners to see red, but online buiness looks Black as can be.

Article by : Carlos Gamez

Image by:James Cridland

*http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/netflix-quarterly-profit-rises-26-on-subscriber-additions-shares-advance.html

**http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69J5TO20101020

***http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/e-trade-financial-profit-matches-estimates-as-loan-loss-provisions-decline.htm

Now that search results show up as you are typing, it’s going to become progressively more rare that a searcher will search an entire phrase such as “credit card application for people with bad credit”, as once they hit “credit card app” they’ll most likely find all they need from national brands, advertisers and well-ranking, dominating sites.

Now lets look at how this affects a local small business.  I’ll use an example of a car repair shop. Say someone is looking to have some work done on their car in your local area. In an old google search, they would likely search something like “car repair {city}” and hit enter.  This gives you a good chance of ranking for this longer tail phrase, and attract local clients.  Your chances of ranking for just “car repair” are slim to none. Now, as someone starts to search for a car repair shop in their area, they’ll probably get as far as “car rep” before search results start showing up (the sites who rank for “car repair”). Well, good luck competing with Aamco or Pep Boys or any of the other national shops.

Here’s a great quote from an article over on Fast Company:

For example, if you’re Priceline, you’d be pretty miffed at not being able to compete on an even keel with Travelocity for the word “Travel,” which actually is a pretty big word. Words like “Cheap Airfare” or “Cheap tickets” are all very big volume generators for travel. Or let’s say I’m ABCBooks.com. The minute I’m competing with Amazon, I’m done for. By the time you type A, you’ll probably click on Amazon. Not everybody is going to click on Amazon, but there will be leakage–ABC customers will go to Amazon.

Also, don’t forget about ad impressions and clicks (the topic of the above article). With the new instant search, and attendant ads as you type, your impressions numbers are going to skyrocket.  Imagine again if you are promoting a car repair shop and someone stops partway through typing for a “car…pet cleaner”. You just got an impression for your car repair ad from someone looking for carpet cleaner. Your CTR goes down, your ad and account get lower quality scores, you pay more.

Over the years I have heard complaints about people spending so much money on marketing and not getting any sales.  The traffic is there, the product is great and they even put the time and effort into blogging and article marketing.  Sometimes they even go the extra mile and actually pay an online marketing company to drive more traffic, yet still the same results.  So these site owners continue to rack their brains as to what could possibly be the cause of such results?  Or should I say, lack of results?

Poor site navigation is usually the key!

I was reading this article in the “Search Engine Journal” about how imperative it is to have proper site navigation on your website.  It not only explains the obvious reasons of why it is so important to have navigation on your website that works properly but also why it is so important on the back end ranking with the search engines.  I really like how it breaks down how you wish your pages are given authority to the search engines.  With a simple chart to show an example of the break down you don’t even need to know everything about navigation to understand all of the aspects of this article.

Not only does Alan Bleiweiss break down these important factors of integral site navigation but he goes into immense detail of the huge role the user experience plays in this aspect.  In his section “Navigation As a Means of controlling UX”, UX standing for user experience, he covers some really important tips on how your navigation can find users information as well as being able to dictate where people go on your site. It also mentions what not to do on your landing pages for organic visitors and these are just a few things he covers that can start making a difference in converting your traffic into sales today.

So now you understand the dire need for navigation for your online business to successfully convert traffic.  Unless of course, you would rather just pay a reputable online marketing company to do all of this navigational design work for you.   : )

With the google integration, it now means that, depending on the question you might type in Google’s search field, you might now get the answer directly, at the top of the page.

I was just testing it and not only Google gives you the answer but also offers links to the websites from which it pulls the answer. While we should wait and see until this is fully in process, this new feature might turn out to be a source of great bonus traffic for some content site getting listed by Metaweb. Because Metaweb aims  at making the Web smarter, this is another indication that Google will keep prioritizing great content in the serps. So if you are wondering if it is worth to develop content for your site, as part of your SEO effort, the answer is yes as it is an investment that will be definitely be paying off.

Which viewpoint is correct?

I completely disagree with those that promote that all businessmen do their own optimizing. I think the proponents of this idea are absolutley and totally wrong!

At first glance it will appear to be an activity that anyone can do in their spare time.  It seems that way because that is how many so called Internet Marketing “experts” run their businesses, part time!

One simple example…Article Marketing. It takes the writing and publishing of a few hundred articles a month (all with unique content not the same article) to a large number of article sites not just one or two article sites.

That task alone cannot be done in your spare time. It is also an activity that is usually not delivered by part timers simply because of the sheer work involved. Yet, it needs to be done to create valuable high quality backlinks to your website.

Most of the part time optimizers are one man operations or very small mom and pop “otimizers”. They can’t possibly do this type of activity for any number of clients either. Hence the part time nature of their operations.

As a business owner it is vital that you have your attention focused on the delivery or the execution of your services. Of course you must also make sure that there are marketing actions executed daily to ensure the appropriate volume new business coming through the front door.

The problem is you only have 2 hands.

Hiring a professional Online Marketing Expert as an employee of your company is expensive. They should be!

Note: If the person you just hired is working for low wages as an Internet Marketing Expert, drop him quick! Professionals that can execute and deliver are NOT CHEAP.

There is the fact that you can do some SEO yourself. As long as you get all the needed ations done regularly, week after week, month after month.

There are many people that do know a lot, that are experts in Online Marketing. Bill McIntosh is one of the few that not only is an expert in the field but Bill actually coaches and instructs many of the best Internet Marketers in the field today.

His team is available to you now !

Look it is simple. You aren’t going to hire a part time legal person to review your legal issues, you outsource to an attorney. You don’t hire a part-time guy to come in and fix your kids teeth at home using your tools. You go to a dentist.

The same thing applies to delivering Effective Internet Marketing Services and driving in new customers and clients to your business.

Outsource the activity to a Pro and get the results you are looking for.

Article by Carlos Gamez

Director of Business Development

McIntosh Marketing

Image by evelynishere

In today’s economy, ROI is the king of the mountain in direct response marketing, B2B sales, outbound calling, small business branding and effective web marketing. Since every small business needs to see relatively instant return from their marketing dollar, SEO cost is of considerable concern.

While there are many factors in this equation, the question that one really has to determine is what is your marketing strategy as well as establishing your budget to accomplish your sales goals.  Both of these have to be clearly stated before one sets out to lay out a SEO marketing strategy.  A complete marketing strategy encompasses traditional off-line marketing methods with the full and proper use of internet marketing tools, such as keyword and long tail keyword research, social media, landing pages and blogging.

The ultimate determination is what are you willing to spend for a lead, an online sale or member, or a one-on-one interview?  All these are dependent upon your internet sales and marketing plan and budget. Some small businesses are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a good lead. Some are only willing to pay a hundred dollars for a one-on-one interview.

Your SEO costs can then range based on your willingness and the budget to get a qualified lead or online sale. Typical costs are from several hundred dollars per month, on an entry level of basic services, to tens of thousands of dollars for a complete suite of services that lasts a half of a year to a full year. These suite of services range from an in-depth research of keywords and long tail keywords, which can not only affect how you market your web site itself, but how to write your blogs, press releases and article submissions to the hundreds of online directories which have high SEO value.

One of the fastest methods to determining the ROI of keywords and long tails is to do some beta testing with landing pages. You can set a small budget aside and test which hot buttons and titles strike the best conversion. Other inexpensive, but slower ways, can be blogging and PR submissions, both of which have good SEO pricing/value for any small business search engine optimization strategy.

Once you have determined what the value is of the type of lead or response you want, as well as some initial testing, you can establish a safe amount to set aside. Smart companies set aside a percentage towards marketing expenses, determining where to invest those marketing dollars with a monthly review of statistics of hits, conversions, calls and ultimately the sales.  A good SEO specialist can employ many internet marketing techniques and analytics to narrow down the areas of success, so as t strengthen and areas of low revenue so as to adjust or drop altogether.

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

What does it mean for you? Well that you should stop just focusing on Google and make sure your site is optimized for these 2 players as well. Usually if you rank well with Google, you should rank well with Yahoo and Bing, one of the biggest differences being that they give more weight to your domain name than Google. In addition, the Yahoo and Bing traffic is, in some cases, of a better quality than Google’s which, depending on your industry, might result in higher conversion rates.  So whether it’s in terms of SEO or pay per click, it is recommended to develop your efforts toward Yahoo and Bing, especially as they are supposed to keep increasing their share of the search market.