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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
For Small Businesses, Online Visibility is a Must
Despite what small business owners think, they might not be doing enough to increase their online visibility.
Online visibility is one of the most important tools in the kit of the small business owner. Whether you operate from a store front, the garage or the bedroom, whether you are in the service industry or selling a product - online visibility is your advertisement. And no business exists without advertising.
A comparative research done in San Diego, California, of 194,000 small businesses, revealed that most of them have a low to medium visibility on the internet. Only a small percentage hit the high mark.
As a business owner, the first step to increase visibility is to have a website. There are rules to what is considered a useful site. It does not, however, always go hand in hand with the aesthetics of the site. Picture is better than a thousand words, they say, but not always in the internet world.
The second step would be to be listed in local directories. The more directories you are listed in, the more people happen to find you.
And that is where the effort usually stops.
In today saturated internet that is not enough. There are ways to increase your presence that go many steps forward. Most of them are not extremely expensive and should be considered your advertisement budget.
Advertising online includes steps to optimize your site for a better search engine placement, so your site will be on the front page of the search engine and not buried in page 35 of Google. (Have you ever been there in your personal searches?)
Advertising on line sometimes means just that. Ads that are placed on result pages of search engines (PPC they are called – Pay per Click), when you pay Google advertising fee only when someone clicks on your ad and goes to your site. It means putting banners and ads inside websites and other solutions as well.
Advertising on line means creating social media pages, and writing on them. It means being present in article sites that link to your site, it means creating a blog and updating it.
Advertising on line means creating videos and placing them in the right places. It means linking all those elements together with everything leading to your business.
Small business owners who have not invested yet in online advertising have the most to gain. The point being is not to be the first, but to be among the chosen few, detached from the crowd.
The shortest and most economical way to achieve all that is to contract visibility experts like Puglisi Consultants http://puglisiconsulting.com/# and their Visibility Acceleration arm http://visibilityacceleration.com/#/seo-visibility/4541420003. You can do some of it yourself, but the field is developing very quickly and there is so much to learn to avoid costly mistakes. From a business sense - isn’t it best to leave it to the experts who constantly update their knowledge for a living?
Online visibility is one of the most important tools in the kit of the small business owner. Whether you operate from a store front, the garage or the bedroom, whether you are in the service industry or selling a product - online visibility is your advertisement. And no business exists without advertising.
A comparative research done in San Diego, California, of 194,000 small businesses, revealed that most of them have a low to medium visibility on the internet. Only a small percentage hit the high mark.
As a business owner, the first step to increase visibility is to have a website. There are rules to what is considered a useful site. It does not, however, always go hand in hand with the aesthetics of the site. Picture is better than a thousand words, they say, but not always in the internet world.
The second step would be to be listed in local directories. The more directories you are listed in, the more people happen to find you.
And that is where the effort usually stops.
In today saturated internet that is not enough. There are ways to increase your presence that go many steps forward. Most of them are not extremely expensive and should be considered your advertisement budget.
Advertising online includes steps to optimize your site for a better search engine placement, so your site will be on the front page of the search engine and not buried in page 35 of Google. (Have you ever been there in your personal searches?)
Advertising on line sometimes means just that. Ads that are placed on result pages of search engines (PPC they are called – Pay per Click), when you pay Google advertising fee only when someone clicks on your ad and goes to your site. It means putting banners and ads inside websites and other solutions as well.
Advertising on line means creating social media pages, and writing on them. It means being present in article sites that link to your site, it means creating a blog and updating it.
Advertising on line means creating videos and placing them in the right places. It means linking all those elements together with everything leading to your business.
Small business owners who have not invested yet in online advertising have the most to gain. The point being is not to be the first, but to be among the chosen few, detached from the crowd.
The shortest and most economical way to achieve all that is to contract visibility experts like Puglisi Consultants http://puglisiconsulting.com/# and their Visibility Acceleration arm http://visibilityacceleration.com/#/seo-visibility/4541420003. You can do some of it yourself, but the field is developing very quickly and there is so much to learn to avoid costly mistakes. From a business sense - isn’t it best to leave it to the experts who constantly update their knowledge for a living?
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Marketing in the Internet Age
It used to be simple; you would hire someone to design a website for you, put some pictures, graphs, numbers, and post it on the internet.
As far as you were concerned – your name was out there, your business advertised, you got your money’s worth.
But things have changed. Throughout the years information kept coming in, into this absorb-all, Ethernet. It kept coming in, but hardly going out. The World Wide Web has becomes saturated with websites.
It only got worse when Google followed a business model of ads, PCP, Adsense and more. Millions all over the world started to figure out a way to make money by providing ad space to advertisers. E-commerce was born when people open information websites to link them to businesses for a cut of the sale.
With a crowded marketplace it is not so easy to get visibility. Research shows that most of the searchers on the big search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) look mainly at the first page of the results. In order to get the clients, you need to be high up on the list, preferably in the first few positions.
How to do that became a highly specialized field. To understand it you have to know how Google, for example, scans the pages of a new website that is posted, what does it see and what it doesn’t. Graphs and pictures are not seen by the scanners for example. While it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is not the case with the logarithms of Google. How those scanners (or spiders in professional language) scan the page is another thing you need to know. Do they start from the top? From the bottom? How do they categorize their scans?
What words, or a combination of words, will bring the most results is another issue. How to place those words so the spiders can read them and categorize your site the way you want it, have another set of rules.
Words matter the most in building sites that will rank high on Google and create the most visibility. Volume of the site – how many pages, is another category. Google is watching very closely and places fines on users that are abusers. That is called the “Google slap”, and when you are slapped, it is not easy to reverse it.
This is what Puglisi Consulting Group (http://puglisiconsulting.com) specializes in, through their Visibility Acceleration (http://visibilityacceleration.com/#/website-visibility/4541419972) company. How to make your site more visible, how to use social media to increase it, how to use e mail campaigns, mobile phones, even old methods of print and radio ads is their expertise. Your website, and your business, will not only be out there, it will increase the visitors, and buyers, coming to your business.
As far as you were concerned – your name was out there, your business advertised, you got your money’s worth.
But things have changed. Throughout the years information kept coming in, into this absorb-all, Ethernet. It kept coming in, but hardly going out. The World Wide Web has becomes saturated with websites.
It only got worse when Google followed a business model of ads, PCP, Adsense and more. Millions all over the world started to figure out a way to make money by providing ad space to advertisers. E-commerce was born when people open information websites to link them to businesses for a cut of the sale.
With a crowded marketplace it is not so easy to get visibility. Research shows that most of the searchers on the big search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) look mainly at the first page of the results. In order to get the clients, you need to be high up on the list, preferably in the first few positions.
How to do that became a highly specialized field. To understand it you have to know how Google, for example, scans the pages of a new website that is posted, what does it see and what it doesn’t. Graphs and pictures are not seen by the scanners for example. While it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is not the case with the logarithms of Google. How those scanners (or spiders in professional language) scan the page is another thing you need to know. Do they start from the top? From the bottom? How do they categorize their scans?
What words, or a combination of words, will bring the most results is another issue. How to place those words so the spiders can read them and categorize your site the way you want it, have another set of rules.
Words matter the most in building sites that will rank high on Google and create the most visibility. Volume of the site – how many pages, is another category. Google is watching very closely and places fines on users that are abusers. That is called the “Google slap”, and when you are slapped, it is not easy to reverse it.
This is what Puglisi Consulting Group (http://puglisiconsulting.com) specializes in, through their Visibility Acceleration (http://visibilityacceleration.com/#/website-visibility/4541419972) company. How to make your site more visible, how to use social media to increase it, how to use e mail campaigns, mobile phones, even old methods of print and radio ads is their expertise. Your website, and your business, will not only be out there, it will increase the visitors, and buyers, coming to your business.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Marketing Power of the Written Word
Using articles as a marketing tool for small businesses, has been known to be a very cost effective way to increase traffic to your site, increase its visibility on search engines pages, and increase sales with relatively small effort and very low cost.
The main objective of your website is to generate clients. And that starts with generating traffic and increasing your visibility on the World Wide Web.
There are many ways of generating traffic and with most of them you keep spending money. Since the internet is such a vast ocean of information, getting visitors to you site, through a ‘back door’, can increase you traffic and what’s more, will convert clicks and visitors to sign ups and sales.
Two things have to be considered when talking about internet advertising; the huge amount of information out there which keeps renewing and updating every second and the short attention span of the reader.
Your site might be the most colorful and eye popping, but it is the content on the page that will make the reader stay. This is the face of your company. A bunch of numbers and specs will not do it anymore.
So, the first way to use articles is to make sure your landing page is tempting.
Renewing the page location on the search engines (SERP) is made up of, among other things, the volume of your site and the new information added. Having a blog on the site and writing in often, is another way to generate a better location on the page.
The third way is ‘the back door’ way, which proved to be very efficient.
Let’s face it, internet took over our lives. It is our key to the libraries of the world and it brings the information back fast. When someone is trying to solve a problem, or make a purchase and types a combination of words, the information that comes back has something to do with the word combination, on top of the words themselves. And what might sit there, at the top of the Google search page, if no other than an article that someone wrote dealing with a similar problem, with the same word combination.
If the title and the sub title are catchy, the searcher will click to read the article – which has a back link to your site.
You’ve created a connection with a highly potential customer.
The more articles of yours are out there, the more exposed your site will become.
There’s an art and a way to those articles to make them affective. You’ll hear talk about mysterious words such as “keywords”, “SEO”, “SERP” and other terms, so you might want a professional write the articles on your behalf.
At Visibilityacceleration.com you’ll find such experts. The mystery will become a mastery of the written word and you’ll see the marketing power of the written article in acti
The main objective of your website is to generate clients. And that starts with generating traffic and increasing your visibility on the World Wide Web.
There are many ways of generating traffic and with most of them you keep spending money. Since the internet is such a vast ocean of information, getting visitors to you site, through a ‘back door’, can increase you traffic and what’s more, will convert clicks and visitors to sign ups and sales.
Two things have to be considered when talking about internet advertising; the huge amount of information out there which keeps renewing and updating every second and the short attention span of the reader.
Your site might be the most colorful and eye popping, but it is the content on the page that will make the reader stay. This is the face of your company. A bunch of numbers and specs will not do it anymore.
So, the first way to use articles is to make sure your landing page is tempting.
Renewing the page location on the search engines (SERP) is made up of, among other things, the volume of your site and the new information added. Having a blog on the site and writing in often, is another way to generate a better location on the page.
The third way is ‘the back door’ way, which proved to be very efficient.
Let’s face it, internet took over our lives. It is our key to the libraries of the world and it brings the information back fast. When someone is trying to solve a problem, or make a purchase and types a combination of words, the information that comes back has something to do with the word combination, on top of the words themselves. And what might sit there, at the top of the Google search page, if no other than an article that someone wrote dealing with a similar problem, with the same word combination.
If the title and the sub title are catchy, the searcher will click to read the article – which has a back link to your site.
You’ve created a connection with a highly potential customer.
The more articles of yours are out there, the more exposed your site will become.
There’s an art and a way to those articles to make them affective. You’ll hear talk about mysterious words such as “keywords”, “SEO”, “SERP” and other terms, so you might want a professional write the articles on your behalf.
At Visibilityacceleration.com you’ll find such experts. The mystery will become a mastery of the written word and you’ll see the marketing power of the written article in acti
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Promotional Social Interactive - FourSquare
Promotional Social Interactive - FourSquare
My reaction to AOL cover story - http://www.switched.com/2010/06/30/testing-times-square-what-is-foursquare/2#comments
FourSquare was developed a short time ago. As a Social Media application it was met with the "So what,who cares" as Twitter and Facebook seem to be the only Social Tools that the masses have taken to.
FourSquare uses Twitter and Facebook to deliver its content and purpose…. WHAT?
That’s right, FourSquare's update "micro blog" posts to both Twitter and Facebook, however if you are an avid Twitter user you already can set your tweets to syndicate on facebook.
What does this mean?
Well this means that FourSquare leverages the followers and Friends to maximize exposure, communication and interaction. The interaction is the new "oooohhh" shiny toy. FourSquare is a location- based application that allows users and businesses to interact and promote on a mobile level that Twitter and Facebook are yet to capitalize on.
FourSquare uses locations and has tips and the coveted "Mayor" status. Let's talk about Starbucks, the location is at, yup you guessed, Starbucks…. so you go to Starbucks, your favorite location and you "check in here" the mobile application logs you in, detects your location and then lets you "micro blog" or tweet what you want. You get points for checking in at that location and all your friends, FourSquare, Twitter and Facebook now know you're at Starbucks, even if your tweet didn't say Starbucks the location and link does. Now that’s direct advertising. In addition to you blasting out your location and hoping someone else nearby sees and decides to stop in and say hello, you can read about tips, deals or specials as posted by that location or other visitors.
Mayor status: Once you have checked into a location, over the course of sixty days, more then anyone else you become the mayor for being the frequent visitor. The Mayor status is an opportunity for the business, i.e. Starbucks by me offers a free coffee or half price Frap anytime the mayor visits the location.
Tips: This little feature can really help you be the winner, let's say you go to Paces Steak House in Port Jeff, NY. The Tips section can tell you to ask for a "Fun Platter".This local treat is not on the menu and unless you ask for it they are not giving it to you. The "Fun Platter" is a mix of Steak, Salad, Seafood, Olives, Fresh Clams and more…now without FourSquare Tips you may have missed out on this opportunity.
Visibility by Puglisi Consulting Group
We know why you should know this…..
My reaction to AOL cover story - http://www.switched.com/2010/06/30/testing-times-square-what-is-foursquare/2#comments
FourSquare was developed a short time ago. As a Social Media application it was met with the "So what,who cares" as Twitter and Facebook seem to be the only Social Tools that the masses have taken to.
FourSquare uses Twitter and Facebook to deliver its content and purpose…. WHAT?
That’s right, FourSquare's update "micro blog" posts to both Twitter and Facebook, however if you are an avid Twitter user you already can set your tweets to syndicate on facebook.
What does this mean?
Well this means that FourSquare leverages the followers and Friends to maximize exposure, communication and interaction. The interaction is the new "oooohhh" shiny toy. FourSquare is a location- based application that allows users and businesses to interact and promote on a mobile level that Twitter and Facebook are yet to capitalize on.
FourSquare uses locations and has tips and the coveted "Mayor" status. Let's talk about Starbucks, the location is at, yup you guessed, Starbucks…. so you go to Starbucks, your favorite location and you "check in here" the mobile application logs you in, detects your location and then lets you "micro blog" or tweet what you want. You get points for checking in at that location and all your friends, FourSquare, Twitter and Facebook now know you're at Starbucks, even if your tweet didn't say Starbucks the location and link does. Now that’s direct advertising. In addition to you blasting out your location and hoping someone else nearby sees and decides to stop in and say hello, you can read about tips, deals or specials as posted by that location or other visitors.
Mayor status: Once you have checked into a location, over the course of sixty days, more then anyone else you become the mayor for being the frequent visitor. The Mayor status is an opportunity for the business, i.e. Starbucks by me offers a free coffee or half price Frap anytime the mayor visits the location.
Tips: This little feature can really help you be the winner, let's say you go to Paces Steak House in Port Jeff, NY. The Tips section can tell you to ask for a "Fun Platter".This local treat is not on the menu and unless you ask for it they are not giving it to you. The "Fun Platter" is a mix of Steak, Salad, Seafood, Olives, Fresh Clams and more…now without FourSquare Tips you may have missed out on this opportunity.
Visibility by Puglisi Consulting Group
We know why you should know this…..
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Using the "No Follow" to generate visitors
Using the "No Follow" to generate visitors
The biggest misconception is Search Engine Marketing is the SEO goof of do "Do Follow" and "No Follow" and it's not surprising. Like most people SEO experts have gotten so narrow in their mathematical equation for site rank they have totally missed a valuable resource.
SEO is just one part of SEM (SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING) in that Search Engine Optimization is one tool to drive traffic to a website. In the business world it's about traffic, no one cares how they find you as long as you get found. While SEO is a valuable tool in that process it has fallen short with the algorithmic decision to abandon "No Follow" links.
SEO Experts decided that because search engines like google have taken the value away from links that follow the "No Follow" the Search Engine Optimizers target only Blogs, Text Links and other sources that provide SEO credibility. Any website that has a "No Follow" has developed into a source of no value. This could not be further from the truth.
AOL, Wikipedia and others are better sources for traffic then any "Do Follow" Link in any blog. The SEO process for a website is valuable and worthwhile for anyone in business for the long run, "Do Follow" links support this process, however websites will rarely be able to compete with sources like AOL Small Business and Wikipedia. These sources have proven to be valuable locations to verify and learn, as such reading AOL Small Business articles and responding to them with positive feedback or add on educational info captures more visitors and higher quality visitors who are more likely to convert to clients or customers. Wikipedia is a top source for information, while academia has tried to undervalue its credibility it has failed miserably. Wikipedia is the source of "two heads are better than one" and so on.
So when an SEO expert starts taking the time to develop a visibility campaign to create and increase traffic, take the time to remind them that you need as many good quality "No Follow" links as you do "Do Follow" links.
Visibility by the Puglisi Consulting Group
The biggest misconception is Search Engine Marketing is the SEO goof of do "Do Follow" and "No Follow" and it's not surprising. Like most people SEO experts have gotten so narrow in their mathematical equation for site rank they have totally missed a valuable resource.
SEO is just one part of SEM (SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING) in that Search Engine Optimization is one tool to drive traffic to a website. In the business world it's about traffic, no one cares how they find you as long as you get found. While SEO is a valuable tool in that process it has fallen short with the algorithmic decision to abandon "No Follow" links.
SEO Experts decided that because search engines like google have taken the value away from links that follow the "No Follow" the Search Engine Optimizers target only Blogs, Text Links and other sources that provide SEO credibility. Any website that has a "No Follow" has developed into a source of no value. This could not be further from the truth.
AOL, Wikipedia and others are better sources for traffic then any "Do Follow" Link in any blog. The SEO process for a website is valuable and worthwhile for anyone in business for the long run, "Do Follow" links support this process, however websites will rarely be able to compete with sources like AOL Small Business and Wikipedia. These sources have proven to be valuable locations to verify and learn, as such reading AOL Small Business articles and responding to them with positive feedback or add on educational info captures more visitors and higher quality visitors who are more likely to convert to clients or customers. Wikipedia is a top source for information, while academia has tried to undervalue its credibility it has failed miserably. Wikipedia is the source of "two heads are better than one" and so on.
So when an SEO expert starts taking the time to develop a visibility campaign to create and increase traffic, take the time to remind them that you need as many good quality "No Follow" links as you do "Do Follow" links.
Visibility by the Puglisi Consulting Group
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