The API (Application Programming Interface) has been an important component for creating applications that hook into or utilize web apps such as Facebook and Flickr. The practice of publishing APIs has allowed web communities to create an open architecture for sharing content and data between communities and applications.
In this way, content that is created in one place can be dynamically posted or updated in multiple locations on the web. Sharing live comments made on Twitter to a Facebook account, for example, is enabled by Twitter and Facebook’s APIs. With it, developers have been able to create some amazing mashups and tools. Some of the most helpful applications on the web wouldn’t be possible without APIs. Here are the list of 10 best APIs on the web.
1. Google Maps API
The Google Maps API is the most used code on the web. It lets you embed Google Maps in your own web pages with JavaScript. The API provides a number of utilities for manipulating maps and adding content to the map through a variety of services, allowing you to create robust maps applications on your website. While most API’s are data servers, with the Google Maps API you take control of an instance of the application itself using JavaScript. To use a Google Maps you need an API key
2. Flickr API
Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of mashups that rely on the Flickr API to add a little bit of visual appeal. With 3-5 million new photos uploaded to the site daily and recently passing the 4 billionth photos, it’s no wonder that developers are excited to use it. It’s a simple call-and-response-based API, but with extensive tailored support for your chosen language. It communicates using REST, XML-RPC or Soap and gets your data back in XML, JSON or PHP. One of this API’s great strengths is the number of third-party developer tools and libraries. For more information on Flickr’s API visit the Official Flickr API documentation page, which offers a ton of information about using the API and links to third-party API kits.
3. Facebook Platform / Facebook Connect
Facebook is the king of the social media network. The site is driven by user contributions, offering coders a rare platform that hooks you directly into an eager audience. Facebook’s bespoke mark-up language – PHP and FBML are use for coding their Apps. With over 350,000 active applications on the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect, that easily makes Facebook’s platform and Connect API among the hottest development platforms on the web today. More information on this can be found at the Facebook Developers site, one of the most complete and well-made and maintained developer sites on the web.
4. Twitter API
Twitter is a community with one question: “What are you doing now?” The API lets you take that data in XML format and combine it with your own code or other API’s predictably; geographic mapping applications top the list, showing the location of group members. The place to start, of course, is the Official API Wiki, which Twitter has packed with documentation, guides, tutorials, known issues, and FAQs for dealing with the Twitter API and OAuth
5. eBay API
eBay’s API is more powerful than ever, and offers plenty of functionality for creating powerful and interesting applications. Normally, users buy and sell items using the eBay online interface, interacting with eBay directly. But with the eBay API, you communicate directly with the eBay database. Of the services in our countdown, eBay’s API is the best-supported. It’s the most comprehensive and complex of the bunch. After registering, you’re able to generate a set of authentication keys for the API’s sandbox to build and test sample applications.
6. Amazon e-Commerce API
Amazon’s E-Commerce Service (ECS), an industrial-strength collection that Amazon describes as “The best way to make money on the internet”. ECS gives you back-end access to Amazon, enabling you to build seamless store fronts into your own website using the “most modern computer language”. The API provides programmatic access to Amazon’s product selection and discovery functionality so that developers can advertise Amazon products to monetize their website. As you might expect, Amazon’s is a security conscious provider, so you will need to create a dedicated web services account at where you will be assigned a unique access key.
7. YouTube
YouTube APIs and Tools enable you to integrate YouTube’s video content and functionality into your website, software application, or device. The video site’s API offers only a handful of functions, which return XML data in response to REST or XML-RPC calls. You’ll need to sign up for a developer account to use the YouTube API.
8. Digg API
Digg is a social news website and offers a comprehensive, complex API that responds to HTTP GET or POST queries by returning data in a specified format. The API offers XML, JSON data formats and scripting with JavaScript or PHP. The Digg API documentation details dozens of end points or data locations and you can access individual stories, comments or data on particular user activities.
9. Delicious API
Delicious, the world’s leading social bookmarking service combines search and tag features to make your favourite sites easier to find. The API is a straight forward REST-based handful of functions. Though it’s not well documented as many other APIs, Delicious is so simple you can see result just by typing a URL into your browser, using your Delicious log-in.
10. FeedBurner API
Rss feed creation tool FeedBurner offers developers an established library of APIs for interacting with the service. FeedBurner is a web feed management provider that provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers.
Currently the library contains three APIs:
The most useful is the FeedFlare API, which enables you to bolt new functionality onto FeedBurner feeds using XML.
The FeedBurner Awareness API allows publishers of FeedBurner feeds to reuse the detailed traffic statistics captured for any of their feeds.
The FeedBurner Management API allows publishers of FeedBurner feeds to create and manage feeds within their FeedBurner accounts.
URL: http://websoftnet.co.uk/blog/top-10-essential-application-programming-interface-apis/
Facebook connect helps to improve your market area
October 19th, 2011 / Author: admin Facebook API (Application Programming Interface) History:
Facebook allows a set of API (Application Programming Interface) and tools which enables 3rd party developers to integrate with “Open Graph”.
Facebook platform statistics as of May 2010:
More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
More than 550,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
More than 250,000 websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month
Facebook launched the Facebook Platform on May 24, 2007, providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features. A markup language called Facebook Markup Language was introduced simultaneously; it is used to customize the “look and feel” of applications that developers create.
By November 3, 2007, seven thousand applications had been developed on the Facebook Platform, with another hundred created every day. By the second annual F8 developers conference on July 23, 2008, the number of applications had grown to 33,000 and the number of registered developers had exceeded 400,000.
Facebook Connect is among one of the widely used High Level Platform component.
Facebook Connect:
Facebook Connect is a set of APIs from Facebook that enable Facebook members to log onto third-party websites, applications, mobile devices and gaming systems with their Facebook identity. While logged in, users can connect with friends via these media and post information and updates to their Facebook profile. Developers can use these services to help their users connect and share with their Facebook friends on and off of Facebook and increase engagement for their website or application.
Originally unveiled during Facebook’s developer conference, F8, in July 2008, Facebook Connect became generally available in December 2008. According to an article from The New York Times, “Some say the services are representative of surprising new thinking in Silicon Valley. Instead of trying to hoard information about their users, the Internet companies (including Facebook, Google, MySpace and Twitter) all share at least some of that data so people do not have to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites.”
Since launching Facebook Connect, the company has rolled out additional features related to the services some of which include: Translations for Connect; Facebook Connect Wizard and Facebook Connect for the Mobile Web.
Facebook Connect cannot be used by users in locations that cannot access Facebook (e.g. China), even if the third-party site is otherwise accessible from that location.
Effect of Facebook Connect on e-commerce:
If you are one of the 500 million users of Facebook, then, you have encountered with the Facebook invitation with the Facebook connect. According to Facebook, 30% of Facebook users actively engaged with third party website through Facebook connect. Facebook connect is the next generation API development platform.
Various websites get benefits for get benefit after providing the Facebook connect option, as there are a lot of users also come to their store, which are Facebook users also. There are maximum chances of being a customer as a Facebook user, as Facebook is the largest social networking site throughout the world. These are the features which a store owner gets after providing “Facebook Connect” option.
1. Alternative to sign up option
2. Provides social context around the world as well as exposure to the whole world
3. Enrich website personalisation
4. Customer communication gets improved
Major Facebook Connect user’s websites:
Currently, one of the major e-commerce website “Amazon” is providing the “Facebook connect” option to their user for connecting their customers. By connecting to your profile and social graph, Amazon can recommend products that match the interests of you and your friends beyond click stream and purchase data it has from on-site Amazon behavior. (You can access this feature by clicking the “We have recommendations for you” link at the top of your Amazon page.)
Once you are connected you will the recommended products based on your friends like.
Similarly, a lot of websites are offering the option of Facebook Connect in order to customise as well as improve their market area for their products.
Is Facebook is right for your e-commerce?
Here, are some important facts which would let you know, whether Facebook is right for your e-commerce, or, not?
1. Site registration / Authentication
One click sign up eliminates the friction in the process of sign up. Most Facebook users are logged in and the login information are kept in the memory; enough for getting sign in directly to any e-commerce store directly through Facebook connect.
2. Personalisation
Rather than build a feature that relies on friends’ activity on your site, be like Amazon and find ways to leverage the latent data you have access to from the social graph. Take cues from keywords in friends’ profile data to recommend products for the connected user and gift ideas.
3. Social sharing
The “Like” button is perhaps the easiest way to encourage “passive word of mouth.” Facebook Connect enables sharing beyond just liking products and brands, including posting a purchase, sharing a product review, or, any other content of interest on your site.
4. Customer Service
Offering the option to receive customer service notifications through Facebook, rather than regular email, may help your “signal” get through the noise of the already overflowing inbox, as a large number of Facebook users check their social networks constantly. Some sites have already used Twitter for this purpose. However, consider how these communications will be managed. You will need to find a way to “Connect” that data to the rest of your customer communication record.
The Bottom Line:
Facebook connect may be the shiny object in the e-commerce field, however, e-commerce professionals must be realistic and stick to the personalisation benefits it deliverers. Millions of fans on Facebook do not guaranty you about the selling of your products, but, it will give exposure to the market for products in your store for sure. Your features must be on-brand, on-product and on-customer, then, only you would get complete benefit of Facebook Connect.
URL: http://www.globonetics.com/blog/
Facebook allows a set of API (Application Programming Interface) and tools which enables 3rd party developers to integrate with “Open Graph”.
Facebook platform statistics as of May 2010:
More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
More than 550,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
More than 250,000 websites have integrated with Facebook Platform
More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month
Facebook launched the Facebook Platform on May 24, 2007, providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features. A markup language called Facebook Markup Language was introduced simultaneously; it is used to customize the “look and feel” of applications that developers create.
By November 3, 2007, seven thousand applications had been developed on the Facebook Platform, with another hundred created every day. By the second annual F8 developers conference on July 23, 2008, the number of applications had grown to 33,000 and the number of registered developers had exceeded 400,000.
Facebook Connect is among one of the widely used High Level Platform component.
Facebook Connect:
Facebook Connect is a set of APIs from Facebook that enable Facebook members to log onto third-party websites, applications, mobile devices and gaming systems with their Facebook identity. While logged in, users can connect with friends via these media and post information and updates to their Facebook profile. Developers can use these services to help their users connect and share with their Facebook friends on and off of Facebook and increase engagement for their website or application.
Originally unveiled during Facebook’s developer conference, F8, in July 2008, Facebook Connect became generally available in December 2008. According to an article from The New York Times, “Some say the services are representative of surprising new thinking in Silicon Valley. Instead of trying to hoard information about their users, the Internet companies (including Facebook, Google, MySpace and Twitter) all share at least some of that data so people do not have to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites.”
Since launching Facebook Connect, the company has rolled out additional features related to the services some of which include: Translations for Connect; Facebook Connect Wizard and Facebook Connect for the Mobile Web.
Facebook Connect cannot be used by users in locations that cannot access Facebook (e.g. China), even if the third-party site is otherwise accessible from that location.
Effect of Facebook Connect on e-commerce:
If you are one of the 500 million users of Facebook, then, you have encountered with the Facebook invitation with the Facebook connect. According to Facebook, 30% of Facebook users actively engaged with third party website through Facebook connect. Facebook connect is the next generation API development platform.
Various websites get benefits for get benefit after providing the Facebook connect option, as there are a lot of users also come to their store, which are Facebook users also. There are maximum chances of being a customer as a Facebook user, as Facebook is the largest social networking site throughout the world. These are the features which a store owner gets after providing “Facebook Connect” option.
1. Alternative to sign up option
2. Provides social context around the world as well as exposure to the whole world
3. Enrich website personalisation
4. Customer communication gets improved
Major Facebook Connect user’s websites:
Currently, one of the major e-commerce website “Amazon” is providing the “Facebook connect” option to their user for connecting their customers. By connecting to your profile and social graph, Amazon can recommend products that match the interests of you and your friends beyond click stream and purchase data it has from on-site Amazon behavior. (You can access this feature by clicking the “We have recommendations for you” link at the top of your Amazon page.)
Once you are connected you will the recommended products based on your friends like.
Similarly, a lot of websites are offering the option of Facebook Connect in order to customise as well as improve their market area for their products.
Is Facebook is right for your e-commerce?
Here, are some important facts which would let you know, whether Facebook is right for your e-commerce, or, not?
1. Site registration / Authentication
One click sign up eliminates the friction in the process of sign up. Most Facebook users are logged in and the login information are kept in the memory; enough for getting sign in directly to any e-commerce store directly through Facebook connect.
2. Personalisation
Rather than build a feature that relies on friends’ activity on your site, be like Amazon and find ways to leverage the latent data you have access to from the social graph. Take cues from keywords in friends’ profile data to recommend products for the connected user and gift ideas.
3. Social sharing
The “Like” button is perhaps the easiest way to encourage “passive word of mouth.” Facebook Connect enables sharing beyond just liking products and brands, including posting a purchase, sharing a product review, or, any other content of interest on your site.
4. Customer Service
Offering the option to receive customer service notifications through Facebook, rather than regular email, may help your “signal” get through the noise of the already overflowing inbox, as a large number of Facebook users check their social networks constantly. Some sites have already used Twitter for this purpose. However, consider how these communications will be managed. You will need to find a way to “Connect” that data to the rest of your customer communication record.
The Bottom Line:
Facebook connect may be the shiny object in the e-commerce field, however, e-commerce professionals must be realistic and stick to the personalisation benefits it deliverers. Millions of fans on Facebook do not guaranty you about the selling of your products, but, it will give exposure to the market for products in your store for sure. Your features must be on-brand, on-product and on-customer, then, only you would get complete benefit of Facebook Connect.
URL: http://www.globonetics.com/blog/
New Trend of Web Designing
September 1st, 2011 / Author: admin With the change in the technology the trend of internet marketing and advertising have changed alternatively. These days new patterns of web design trends are invented, but let’s start from the beginning. Previously websites were static that means just a page with images and links, after some time this was revised with the new pattern of web design. Advanced designing software’s like flash and Photo-shop produced more creative and attractive websites. Flash websites were divided in two different types, semi-flash website and fully flash websites.
Semi flash websites are those websites with a small part in flash and rest in basic html coding, such as a website with flash header and the body in html code. Whereas fully flash websites are those website which are completely made of flash no html coding is required. These types of fully flash loaded websites take more time to download and require high speed internet connection. Still there are plenty of websites online with flash integration. As the web design trends changed people came to know that flash websites are very difficult to load in slow net connection.
However flash website was also considered as big no for SEO, that’s the reason why flash website were not so famous. With the change a new web design trend came into existence which was very famously known as Content Management System also known as CMS. CMS have many providers like WordPress, BlogSpot, Joomla, Drupal, etc… with the help of these CMS the website editing part has become easier and can be altered as per requirement within a short span of time. Features such as theme/ template change, alignment change, image change, content adding, editing or deleting has become so easy and simple that any person with basic internet knowledge can deal with it.
Web design trends are still changing with the intention of providing more advance facility to website owners and website designers.
URL: http://www.leadingdir.com/blog/changes-in-web-design-trends.html
Semi flash websites are those websites with a small part in flash and rest in basic html coding, such as a website with flash header and the body in html code. Whereas fully flash websites are those website which are completely made of flash no html coding is required. These types of fully flash loaded websites take more time to download and require high speed internet connection. Still there are plenty of websites online with flash integration. As the web design trends changed people came to know that flash websites are very difficult to load in slow net connection.
However flash website was also considered as big no for SEO, that’s the reason why flash website were not so famous. With the change a new web design trend came into existence which was very famously known as Content Management System also known as CMS. CMS have many providers like WordPress, BlogSpot, Joomla, Drupal, etc… with the help of these CMS the website editing part has become easier and can be altered as per requirement within a short span of time. Features such as theme/ template change, alignment change, image change, content adding, editing or deleting has become so easy and simple that any person with basic internet knowledge can deal with it.
Web design trends are still changing with the intention of providing more advance facility to website owners and website designers.
URL: http://www.leadingdir.com/blog/changes-in-web-design-trends.html
Google Analytics
August 18th, 2011 / Author: admin It is an amazing fact that when businesses spend thousands of pounds getting a new website designed and built, and then never monitor how it’s being used and how effective it is at generating sales for them.
And with powerful free analytics tools available like Google Analytics, there’s really no excuse.
As well as all the obvious data it gives you that most people know about – how people reached your website (Traffic Sources), most popular pages (Top Content), and countries your visitors are coming from (Map Overlay) – there are lots of lesser-known metrics that can actually help you save money.
Here are the top 3 methods:
- how much money your website is taking, or
- what proportion of visitors reach your key pages
For non e-commerce sites, your key pages ought to be the pages you want people to reach – your desired ‘calls to action’, such as booking on an event, filling in an enquiry form, or ordering a brochure. For these websites, where buying something online is not possible, such key pages are as close as they can get to an online conversion, and prove that a web visit was valuable to the business.
For e-commerce sites, by enabling E-Commerce tracking on your Google Analytics account, and adding some simple code to your e-commerce system, you can track really useful data such as the average order value and the number of visits to the website it usually takes, before a person buys.
With both metrics – Goals and E-commerce – the most crucial figure it gives you is the conversion rate: the percentage of visitors to your website that buy or reach one of your key pages. Keeping a close eye on this figure is the quickest way to tell if your website is working or not.
No matter how beautifully designed your site is, or how well written the copy is, if visitors are not reaching the pages you expect them to, it’s failing to be a lucrative shop window for your business. That means you need to stop, and rethink the content and navigation of your website, and experiment with new designs.
Weighted Sort in Analytics, is a nice little feature, that allows you to identify keywords that are driving a substantial amount of traffic to your site, but that have high bounce rates (when visitors only look at one page and then leave your site – indicating they’ve come to the website by mistake or aren’t finding the content they expected here).
It’s a good way of identifying:
For some reason, it can take up to a few minutes before the Weighted Sort is calculated and applied, but be patient and you’ll soon see that the line turns orange and the order of rows in the table changes. If you then click ‘paid’, you’ll see only the keywords you are paying to advertise against.
You’ll now see the keywords that you need to worry about first – not just those that have a really high bounce rate but that might only send 1 or 2 visits, but instead those that send a good amount of traffic, and that have a high bounce rate.
Try improving the landing page or altering the keyword and see if you find it improves.
Often people tell me it’s difficult to know whether this spend is worth the money. Because of personalised and localised search results pages, gone are the days where it’s easy to see if you are on the first page of Google or not. And even if you are, does that result in more traffic to your website, and is it traffic you want?
Using Google Analytics to keep track on the unpaid keywords used to find your website, can be a good starting point to find out how your SEO specialist’s work is benefiting you (or not).
Like Weighted Sort, you’ll find it in the Traffic Sources>Keywords area of the Analytics report, but this time you’ll need to click the ‘non-paid’ link at the top.
By searching for those keywords you’ve been paying your specialist to optimise, you can check if they’re really driving more traffic to your website (use the calendar to compare with this time last year or this time last month).
You should also consider if it’s good quality traffic – if the bounce rate or your conversion rate for these keywords is much higher than your site average, it’s pretty safe to say it’s not good quality traffic.
If the results don’t look good, at least you’re now armed with evidence to take to your SEO specialist, and able to ask some pretty searching questions.
So these are the top 3 ways you can use Google Analytics to save you money. If you haven’t got Google Analytics on your site, the good news is it’s free to get and easy to install. If you already have it, but – like so many website owners – never find the time to look at it, think again. Spending just half an hour exploring these 3 features might result in you saving hundreds of pounds for your business.
URL: http://www.templedigitalmarketing.co.uk/2011/3-ways-google-analytics-save-money/
And with powerful free analytics tools available like Google Analytics, there’s really no excuse.
As well as all the obvious data it gives you that most people know about – how people reached your website (Traffic Sources), most popular pages (Top Content), and countries your visitors are coming from (Map Overlay) – there are lots of lesser-known metrics that can actually help you save money.
Here are the top 3 methods:
1) Measure your website’s overall effectiveness – Goals and E-commerce
By setting up Goals (for non e-commerce websites) or E-commerce in Google Analytics, you can quickly see:- how much money your website is taking, or
- what proportion of visitors reach your key pages
For non e-commerce sites, your key pages ought to be the pages you want people to reach – your desired ‘calls to action’, such as booking on an event, filling in an enquiry form, or ordering a brochure. For these websites, where buying something online is not possible, such key pages are as close as they can get to an online conversion, and prove that a web visit was valuable to the business.
For e-commerce sites, by enabling E-Commerce tracking on your Google Analytics account, and adding some simple code to your e-commerce system, you can track really useful data such as the average order value and the number of visits to the website it usually takes, before a person buys.
With both metrics – Goals and E-commerce – the most crucial figure it gives you is the conversion rate: the percentage of visitors to your website that buy or reach one of your key pages. Keeping a close eye on this figure is the quickest way to tell if your website is working or not.
No matter how beautifully designed your site is, or how well written the copy is, if visitors are not reaching the pages you expect them to, it’s failing to be a lucrative shop window for your business. That means you need to stop, and rethink the content and navigation of your website, and experiment with new designs.
What’s a good conversion rate?
As always, it depends on your industry and the nature of your website – is it a site focused on e-commerce, lead generation, or information giving?- These average UK retail website stats from Coremetrics suggest that just under 5% is the average.
- These global stats from Fireclick which are broken down into different industries, indicate around 2% is the average, across-the-board figure.
2) Weighted Sort – check which Google Adwords keywords aren’t worth the money
If you’re spending money advertising on Google Adwords, you want to gather as much information as possible to work out where to focus your money. There are of course tools within the Adwords interface that can help here, but they rarely show what’s happening once people have clicked on the advert and arrived at your website.Weighted Sort in Analytics, is a nice little feature, that allows you to identify keywords that are driving a substantial amount of traffic to your site, but that have high bounce rates (when visitors only look at one page and then leave your site – indicating they’ve come to the website by mistake or aren’t finding the content they expected here).
It’s a good way of identifying:
- if certain keywords you’re advertising on, are sending you low quality or inappropriate traffic
- pointing out landing pages that might need work.
For some reason, it can take up to a few minutes before the Weighted Sort is calculated and applied, but be patient and you’ll soon see that the line turns orange and the order of rows in the table changes. If you then click ‘paid’, you’ll see only the keywords you are paying to advertise against.
You’ll now see the keywords that you need to worry about first – not just those that have a really high bounce rate but that might only send 1 or 2 visits, but instead those that send a good amount of traffic, and that have a high bounce rate.
Try improving the landing page or altering the keyword and see if you find it improves.
3) See which unpaid keywords are sending you traffic – is your SEO spend working?
More and more people are paying thousands of pounds to SEO specialists, in an effort to improve their organic rankings in search engines (the spots on the Google results pages that haven’t been paid for.)Often people tell me it’s difficult to know whether this spend is worth the money. Because of personalised and localised search results pages, gone are the days where it’s easy to see if you are on the first page of Google or not. And even if you are, does that result in more traffic to your website, and is it traffic you want?
Using Google Analytics to keep track on the unpaid keywords used to find your website, can be a good starting point to find out how your SEO specialist’s work is benefiting you (or not).
Like Weighted Sort, you’ll find it in the Traffic Sources>Keywords area of the Analytics report, but this time you’ll need to click the ‘non-paid’ link at the top.
By searching for those keywords you’ve been paying your specialist to optimise, you can check if they’re really driving more traffic to your website (use the calendar to compare with this time last year or this time last month).
You should also consider if it’s good quality traffic – if the bounce rate or your conversion rate for these keywords is much higher than your site average, it’s pretty safe to say it’s not good quality traffic.
If the results don’t look good, at least you’re now armed with evidence to take to your SEO specialist, and able to ask some pretty searching questions.
So these are the top 3 ways you can use Google Analytics to save you money. If you haven’t got Google Analytics on your site, the good news is it’s free to get and easy to install. If you already have it, but – like so many website owners – never find the time to look at it, think again. Spending just half an hour exploring these 3 features might result in you saving hundreds of pounds for your business.
URL: http://www.templedigitalmarketing.co.uk/2011/3-ways-google-analytics-save-money/
Small business success with Social media
August 18th, 2011 / Author: adminSet out your aims
It’s important to think about what you’re expecting from your social media activity. This way you can measure how well it’s working. You might want to:- gain new customers
- increase customer loyalty and repeat business
- improve customer satisfaction
- or raise brand awareness.
Offer something compelling
You’ve got to give your customers and potential customers a reason to follow your activity on social media. What’s in it for them? Why should they bother?And now for some tough love…
Talking about yourself all the time and promoting yourself isn’t a good enough reason. In fact, that’s likely to turn them off.
So what is it?
Exclusive offers, discount vouchers, entry into competitions or just being able to hear first about the latest products or services could be enticing for your customers. It really depends on who they are and what they want from you.
If you’re in the technology industry, giving people the chance to help develop a bit of software or a web app can be surprisingly attractive. Knowing that they’ve got the chance to voice their opinion and help shape a new product is a big draw for this crowd.
It could even be a bit of free advice or knowledge sharing. For example, if you’re a marketing consultant, you’ll probably want to give out advice and share information, research and the latest news, so your fans see you as someone useful and worth following.
Regularly monitor it
This is twofold. Obviously you need to be regularly keeping an eye on your posts, comments and messages and respond to people quickly.But you should also monitor what people are saying about your company, or the type of service/product you offer, and reach out to them to start conversations.
This is easier on Twitter where you can follow people and see what people are tweeting about, without having to get their explicit permission.
You can keep an eye on tweets (and activity on Linked in or Facebook for that matter) using a web app like HootSuite or you can just search for company-specific or industry-specific keywords in Twitter and save those searches so you can check back on them regularly.
Keeping an eye on discussions that mention you or that affect you, means that:
- You know what people are saying about you and can re-tweet and thank people who say nice things or recommend you.
- You can quickly see if anyone’s said anything negative about you and respond positively with an attempt to resolve the situation if appropriate (this is just an online extension of good old fashioned customer service.)
- You might see opportunities to introduce yourself to potential customers, or giveaway some free advice and information to help them (remember not to leap straight in with a sales pitch though – you wouldn’t do it at a face to face networking event so why would you on social media? People need to get to know you and trust you first).
Build relationships
Something that you, as a small business, should already be great at!Every time a potential customer comes into your shop, cafe, restaurant, or calls you on the phone or meets you at an event, you make an effort to start a dialogue. You try to be helpful without being pushy and try to find out more about them, right?
It’s the same on social media.
Don’t go straight in for the hard sell in every reply to an enquiry, and don’t just self-promote in your posts.
Companies doing it well, use social media to ask questions, invite feedback, help other people with their own questions, and generally use it as another channel for customer relationship management – not just another advertising channel.
As you already know, building valuable customer relationships takes time and people might have to come back to your site 3, 4, 5 or more times before they buy anything.
Promote it
Like any business, website or web app for that matter, creating it is only step one. No-one will use it if they don’t know it exists, so you need to promote it.Exactly the same applies to your social media site.
Whoever your target audience is for your social media site, tell them how to find it and why they should sign up.
For example:
- include it on receipts or thank you cards after a sale
- include it on business cards
- put the address on your existing adverts, posters and flyers
- add a link from your website.
Measure success
The beauty of digital marketing channels like social media are that their effects can be measured much more easily than offline activity such as newspaper adverts, flyers and PR.How many times have you paid a few hundred quid to advertise in a local magazine? And how many times have you known what return on that investment you’ve received?
Well the good news is that setting up a social media site is likely to cost you less and you’ll have a much better idea of what that money has achieved.
How you measure it will be dependent on what your aims were at the beginning, but evaluation could include:
- Aim: to gain new customers or increase customer loyalty.
- Could be measured by: If you have a website, track how many visits to that website have come from the social media channels. And track how many are new visitors or returning customers. Most free web analytics tools will tell you this information, like Google Analytics. Or a less hi-tech approach could be to post a time-limited discount voucher on the social network and ask people to print it off and bring it into your premises to redeem it.
- Aim: to improve customer satisfaction.
Could be measured by: A customer satisfaction survey before and 6 months after your social media activity began. - Aim: to raise brand awareness.
Could be measured by: A short survey carried out in your local area to determine what proportion of people in your target audience has heard about your business. Again, you’d want to do this before and around 6 months after your social media activity began to show the change.
URL: http://www.templedigitalmarketing.co.uk/2011/secrets-social-media-success/
Digital Marketing
August 18th, 2011 / Author: admin What is a digital marketing strategy?
A digital marketing strategy is a plan to use digital or on-line tools as a part of your overall marketing strategy. It need not be a separate strategy of its own; indeed it should be an incorporated part of your marketing and business plan. However recognising that digital marketing channels exist and require a unique approach is valid.
So what is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is simply drawing the worlds existing and potential customers’ attention to you, your products and the message you are promoting at the time. It is also a form of interaction with the public – sometimes customers, ex-customers and potential customers.
Digital Marketing is the promoting of brands, products or services, using all forms of digital advertising channels to reach consumers. This now includes Television, Radio, Internet, mobile, social media marketing and any other form of digital media.
What is so unique about this approach?
Unlike many other forms of marketing, digital marketing is two-way and should involve a lot more people than just the marketing team. Ideally you need almost everyone in the company involved at some level or another.
Crowd Sourcing and Social Marketing
A factor overlooked or in the very least not fully harnessed is that of crowd sourcing, using numbers of people to promote your products, services and brand. And guess what – the best crowd is already on your payroll – your staff. With the right policy and influencing you can engage a significant percentage of your staff in the promotion of your messages. Using networks either in LinkedIn, Facebook or others social forums can be handy to spread the message of your company globally.
Train your people – Social Media Marketing
Not in the traditional sense, because by the very nature of social media and social networking , many already know how to use the platforms (although offering basic training to those that are not confident can only help) – but to encourage linking, promotions, SEO and other techniques that they can use in their tweets, blogs and profiles that both raise their profiles and your brands at the same time.
Types of Digital Marketing Tools
Any digital publishing or broadcasting technology or platform could be a digital marketing tool. The common ones are those already mentioned in this article. Types of digital marketing include:
Time – the unspoken factor
Unless you have an unlimited budget, time to show results will be a lot longer than expected. Sure many social media channels are “free to access2 but never underestimate the time taken to establish a protocol and your place as a recognised expert in your field. Using twitter for example, it may well take 6-9 months just to get established, and 1-2 years before any returns are generated – its a long term gain, but can result in quick results when established. Getting established on social media is no exchange for a good sales strategy – one needs to complement the other. It can take several people 2-3 years to be fully established and integrated with your client base and potential customers.
This is not about quick results today – it is about quick and sustainable results in the future.
MYTH – Social Media Marketing is free
NEVER think of any marketing activity as free. the challenge is to recognise where the cost will be. And in the case of most social media it is in time and people resources. For example you may well end up running some sort of social networking group, this can take hours of management every day. its not a “build it and they will come” situation – they MAY come – but to get them interacting in a way that enables your business rather than disables it is quite another matter.
Integrating it all up
This final step is where many organisations miss the point. Many users of social media tools use their mobile devices, so why have all of your links that are being promoted and published only visible on desktops? Ensure that your website and any promotional copy are mobile device friendly. It is in peoples “down time that they will try to look. If they find your site talking minutes to load or is unreadable on their handset of choice you have lost them… for good!
One organisation I was working with said that in a recent re-design mobile friendly access was not important – less than 3% of people per months tried to access the site using mobile technology. When I pointed out that when a person finds a site inaccessible they dont go back, and that the 3% per months over a years is nearly 30% of people that will NEVER try again – the numbers start to stack up. Its a valuable part of the market.
The Number One rule of social media marketing:
Make any content you publish easily and quickly readable – or simply don’t bother with a social media marketing strategy at all – it will never yield the returns
So what is a digital marketing strategy? – a strategy for marketing using a diverse range of tools and channels that utilise electronics as part of the communication/ distribution process.
URL: http://rapidbi.com/management/digital-marketing-strategy-for-professional-services-providers/
A digital marketing strategy is a plan to use digital or on-line tools as a part of your overall marketing strategy. It need not be a separate strategy of its own; indeed it should be an incorporated part of your marketing and business plan. However recognising that digital marketing channels exist and require a unique approach is valid.
So what is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is simply drawing the worlds existing and potential customers’ attention to you, your products and the message you are promoting at the time. It is also a form of interaction with the public – sometimes customers, ex-customers and potential customers.
Digital Marketing is the promoting of brands, products or services, using all forms of digital advertising channels to reach consumers. This now includes Television, Radio, Internet, mobile, social media marketing and any other form of digital media.
What is so unique about this approach?
Unlike many other forms of marketing, digital marketing is two-way and should involve a lot more people than just the marketing team. Ideally you need almost everyone in the company involved at some level or another.
Crowd Sourcing and Social Marketing
A factor overlooked or in the very least not fully harnessed is that of crowd sourcing, using numbers of people to promote your products, services and brand. And guess what – the best crowd is already on your payroll – your staff. With the right policy and influencing you can engage a significant percentage of your staff in the promotion of your messages. Using networks either in LinkedIn, Facebook or others social forums can be handy to spread the message of your company globally.
Train your people – Social Media Marketing
Not in the traditional sense, because by the very nature of social media and social networking , many already know how to use the platforms (although offering basic training to those that are not confident can only help) – but to encourage linking, promotions, SEO and other techniques that they can use in their tweets, blogs and profiles that both raise their profiles and your brands at the same time.
Types of Digital Marketing Tools
Any digital publishing or broadcasting technology or platform could be a digital marketing tool. The common ones are those already mentioned in this article. Types of digital marketing include:
Time – the unspoken factor
Unless you have an unlimited budget, time to show results will be a lot longer than expected. Sure many social media channels are “free to access2 but never underestimate the time taken to establish a protocol and your place as a recognised expert in your field. Using twitter for example, it may well take 6-9 months just to get established, and 1-2 years before any returns are generated – its a long term gain, but can result in quick results when established. Getting established on social media is no exchange for a good sales strategy – one needs to complement the other. It can take several people 2-3 years to be fully established and integrated with your client base and potential customers.
This is not about quick results today – it is about quick and sustainable results in the future.
MYTH – Social Media Marketing is free
NEVER think of any marketing activity as free. the challenge is to recognise where the cost will be. And in the case of most social media it is in time and people resources. For example you may well end up running some sort of social networking group, this can take hours of management every day. its not a “build it and they will come” situation – they MAY come – but to get them interacting in a way that enables your business rather than disables it is quite another matter.
Integrating it all up
This final step is where many organisations miss the point. Many users of social media tools use their mobile devices, so why have all of your links that are being promoted and published only visible on desktops? Ensure that your website and any promotional copy are mobile device friendly. It is in peoples “down time that they will try to look. If they find your site talking minutes to load or is unreadable on their handset of choice you have lost them… for good!
One organisation I was working with said that in a recent re-design mobile friendly access was not important – less than 3% of people per months tried to access the site using mobile technology. When I pointed out that when a person finds a site inaccessible they dont go back, and that the 3% per months over a years is nearly 30% of people that will NEVER try again – the numbers start to stack up. Its a valuable part of the market.
The Number One rule of social media marketing:
Make any content you publish easily and quickly readable – or simply don’t bother with a social media marketing strategy at all – it will never yield the returns
So what is a digital marketing strategy? – a strategy for marketing using a diverse range of tools and channels that utilise electronics as part of the communication/ distribution process.
URL: http://rapidbi.com/management/digital-marketing-strategy-for-professional-services-providers/
Safeguard your API Key
August 18th, 2011 / Author: admin- If you’re issuing an API key for an app, give it an appropriate label. That way, you can easily revoke it later if you ever need to.
- Be careful not to expose the key to the public (such as in screenshots, videos, help documentation, etc). Remember that blurring your data isn’t always enough. It’s best to use “cut” functions in your graphics program to remove the data completely.
- Don’t share the key with anybody. Not even your mom. And don’t hide a copy under your door mat. The bad guys already know to look there.
URL: http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/keeping-your-api-key-secure/
A new tool to promote your Business
July 28th, 2011 / Author: admin An Online Business Directory is an instrument that accepts submission of business sites or e-commerce (electronic commerce) websites, representing a company. E-commerce web sites that sell products and services via the Internet, include amongst others, online florist or an online apparel store.
Before the advent of the Internet, business owners were entitled to several options for inclusion in the list of directories, including yellow page books, industrial directories. Yellow pages wass used as the main source of advertising for small businesses. Though the cost of yellow page advertising increases every year, there are people who still purchase yellow pages directory to look for any store machinery or services.
General business directories provide a valuable service for people who seek help for their location. Specific industry companies list of directories in a particular sector, such as textiles, pets, computer, etc. With the wide spread use of the internet, all options of promoting a business are available online. Most of the catalog companies also offer free inclusion to the business sites.
Online business directories are categorised, and inclusion in such directories helps a business get more visibility along with listing where their competitor too exists. The business directory categories are divided into different states, cities and countries. A business listed in such directories gets more targeted audience and in addition to that, the conversion rates will increase. As a result of this, you will make more sales and increased revenues.
Appearance of your business in a business directory may take time as approval time varies from one directory to other. To avoid the delay one may opt for premium business listing. Option of premium business listing is available with almost every business directory.
When you submit your site, make sure that you select the most appropriate category. Some of the business directory allows you to submit to a specific category. There are other directories that allow you to submit high-level categories for free. Despite this, you must submit to the subcategory, which belongs to the type of business.
URL: http://articlesbeep.info/business-directory-new-age-instrument-to-generate-business-leads
Before the advent of the Internet, business owners were entitled to several options for inclusion in the list of directories, including yellow page books, industrial directories. Yellow pages wass used as the main source of advertising for small businesses. Though the cost of yellow page advertising increases every year, there are people who still purchase yellow pages directory to look for any store machinery or services.
General business directories provide a valuable service for people who seek help for their location. Specific industry companies list of directories in a particular sector, such as textiles, pets, computer, etc. With the wide spread use of the internet, all options of promoting a business are available online. Most of the catalog companies also offer free inclusion to the business sites.
Online business directories are categorised, and inclusion in such directories helps a business get more visibility along with listing where their competitor too exists. The business directory categories are divided into different states, cities and countries. A business listed in such directories gets more targeted audience and in addition to that, the conversion rates will increase. As a result of this, you will make more sales and increased revenues.
Appearance of your business in a business directory may take time as approval time varies from one directory to other. To avoid the delay one may opt for premium business listing. Option of premium business listing is available with almost every business directory.
When you submit your site, make sure that you select the most appropriate category. Some of the business directory allows you to submit to a specific category. There are other directories that allow you to submit high-level categories for free. Despite this, you must submit to the subcategory, which belongs to the type of business.
URL: http://articlesbeep.info/business-directory-new-age-instrument-to-generate-business-leads
The 11 misconceptions of SEO
July 28th, 2011 / Author: admin There is so much misinformation floating through the internet regarding search engine marketing and optimization that it’s important to shed some light on a few common errors and misconceptions. The following list highlights some of the most critical issues involved in determining the success or failure of a web site’s search engine optimization and marketing strategies.
1. Lack of “Search Friendly” Content.
Every week I review web sites with no real search engine indexable content. Web pages composed mostly of graphics, flash and other bells and whistle are commonly over-looked by the search engines. Search engines determine what content is of value per web page based on the text used on that page. A truly optimized site should contain at least 200 words of keyword-dense text. There is some debate among experts on exactly how many words should be used, but generally 200 words will suffice. As a point of reference this paragraph contains about 200 words. It is equally important for text content to contain keywords that match the page titles. For example, a site selling peanut butter owned by a company called “ACME Foods” might have a title of “Acme Foods, Inc. Wholesale Food Products”. We have to consider how many people are likely to search for the term “Acme Foods, Inc. Wholesale Food Products” it is much more likely that people will search for the term “peanut butter”. Knowing this, we can say with confidence that it would be a wiser choice to title a page, “Peanut Butter, ACME Foods” and the page content should reflect this same keyword strategy.
2. Insufficient Link Popularity.
Search engines make every attempt to qualify the results which are displayed in search results. One of the ways that they do this is by tracking the number and quality of the incoming links to a web site. A site with a large number of incoming links from quality sites is given a higher ranking in search results. This is an important consideration that is sometimes over-looked by those attempting to market web sites. Services that promise to link your site to thousands of other sites are far from productive; in fact they can sometimes do more harm than good. Most search engines these days consider services like this to be spam, so called “link farming” and often give sites with these types of links a low ranking or drop them all-together from the search results. Incoming links to a site that compliment it and are relevant to the site contents are golden and can greatly boost a site’s ranking. Google’s page ranking system is a good example. A site with a page rank of 1 if given a link from a site with a page rank of 8 can see its page rank boost to 4! Link popularity is one of the most time consuming and difficult aspects of search engine optimization. It’s no wonder that many of the search engines give so much importance to this web site measurement.
3. Lack of Keyword Research And Updates
So, you have a web site. Do you know what pages in your web site are generating the most interest? Do you know what terms people are searching for that result in them finding your site? Probably not. Let’s use the peanut butter analogy again. You own a web site that sells peanut butter. You spend some money on paid search advertising, logically; you assume that the key phrase “peanut butter” is a prime candidate to target. What happens? usually one of two things, one, the term peanut butter is such a popular search term that thirty million other web sites are competing for the same key phrase. Two, the term peanut butter is so unpopular that it’s unlikely that it’s searched for more than once in this lifetime. Proper keyword research can solve these problems. Let’s say for the sake of argument that keyword research is performed and that it is determined that a significant number of people are searching for “organic peanut butter”. It just so happens that our peanut butter company manufactures a whole line of organic, all natural peanut butter. We have discovered a niche. The right amount of people searching for the specific product that we want to sell. It’s the perfect match. So, what must be done to capitalize on our findings? First we optimize our web pages for our target keyword, we change the title, and the content so that they include the term “organic peanut butter”, then we scrap all of the paid search advertising that wasn’t working and focus on targeting our “organic peanut butter” market. The point is, successful search engine marketing relies on constant research and updates the internet is fluid and evolving. What works today might not work tomorrow, we have to be able to identify strengths and weaknesses in our internet marketing campaigns and must be prepared to research, update and adapt.
4. Designing First, Optimizing Later
I have seen this mistake repeated hundreds of times. Even experienced web designers fail to consider the results of design decisions on search optimization until it’s too late. What is the point of spending thousands of dollars for a well “designed” web site if nobody ever sees it? Consult a search engine specialist early in the design process. Even if your web site marketingstrategy relies heavily on paid search advertising a consultation with a professional optimization expert may expose flaws in your site’s layout. Points in the flow of information that tend to cause users to lose interest or become confused may become apparent, better to address these issues early on.
5. Relying Too Heavily On Paid Search Advertising
This is a mistake made by Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. The fact is that most businesses, small and large aren’t getting it right.
The rationale is that since search advertising can be purchased it isn’t necessary to focus on search optimization techniques. On the surface this might make some sense, you can buy certain keyword phrases that people are searching for, so why bother optimizing your site for the search engines? For a company with a huge internet advertising budget this means spending huge amounts of money to drive traffic to their sites, when, if their site had been properly optimized from the beginning, these costs might be half as much for the same amount of viewers. For many smaller businesses trying to compete in the internet marketplace simply becomes overwhelming. While paid search advertising is a highly effective means of targeting an audience, organic search optimization greatly increases the chances of success for any web site. Make sure that the site you are advertising is one that people can find easily without the assistance of a paid search campaign.
6. Not Supporting the Conversion Process
A few weeks ago my wife decided that she wanted to buy some Australian made baby clothes that we can’t find here in the states. So being the internet savvy father to be, I decided to have a look on the internet for the particular brand she was interested in. I surf to a search engine and type in the brand name. A few seconds later I’m greeted with a list of web sites that supposedly have what I’m looking for. I click on the first site in the list. I find myself at the site of a clothing importer based out of California. There are links to several categories of clothing, none of which seem to have anything to do with babies, eventually after a lot of searching I find a link on the children’s clothing page for infant garments. The infant garments page has a few images of clothing but not the brand I’m looking for. I look to see if there is way to search for clothing by brand name. There isn’t. I look to see if there is a list somewhere on the site of brand names carried by this distributor. There isn’t. I look to see if there is a toll free number to call. There isn’t. The internet optimization part of my brain is boiling by this point, so to add insult to injury I go back to the children’s garments section of the site. I click on a link to purchase a bright green jacket. I’m confronted with a page that is requiring me to fill in a bunch of personal details. Ok, so I fill in the details and click submit. Now I find myself back at the bright green jacket page. Apparently now I’m qualified to purchase something. I click the “check out” button. The web page goes blank. I know that this is the result of bad programming. I know what’s going to happen next. “Error 404 page not found”. Has this type of thing happened to you? If you have ever tried to purchase something on the internet, I’m sure it has. This is an illustration of a web site that is well ranked in the search engines but has not taken the time to create a site that is designed for its users. I was forced to hunt through the web site to try and find what I was looking for. The flow of information was counter-intuitive. There was no online support. All-in-all the whole site was a joke. I would be surprised to learn that the site in question made any sales at all, ever. There were several points in this online experience that I felt like giving up. In the industry this is known as ”abandonment”, This is a critical point in what is known as the “conversion process”, the act of turning web site viewers into online purchasers. This is an issue that should never be underestimated. In fact it is the number one factor that determines a web site’s success or failure. A web site with a million dollar marketing budget and millions of visitors will not succeed unless it serves to understand its user’s needs and anticipate its viewer’s questions.
7. Graphics Used For Text Links.
Web designers often use graphics to represent a link in a web site. There are many reasons for this choice. Unfortunately for web designers, the major internet browsers display web pages in different ways. Since fonts display differently on individual computers and in different browsers, it is a much simpler proposition for designers to create graphic links than it is to attempt to create cross-browser text links. The downside to this work-around is that search engines have no idea if a graphic link relates to a specific web page or a link to download the latest Britney Spears MP3. For search engines to understand what a link is truly representing, they need to find words in plain, good old fashioned text. If a web site must use graphics for navigation it is important to include a set of plain text links somewhere on the web page, usually at the bottom of the page.
8. Use of Frames.
Search engines have a hard time indexing sites that are created in frames. Framed sites use several html files to display one page. Search engines are often confused by the frames method of creating web sites, usually only indexing the first html file within the framPages that aren’t indexed will never show up in search engine results. Also, many people that use the internet regularly for research and purchases, so called “power users”, tend to avoid sites built with frames, especially those sites which require the user to scroll content in separate frames. Simply put, frames are bad.
9. Splash Pages.
Entry pages that instruct the user to “Enter”, usually decorated with a large graphic or a flash animation. The index page of a web site is the one that search engines read first. More often than not the only readable content on this type of page is a link that says, “skip intro” Splash pages lack indexable content, usually contain no links and often contain a “redirect” to the real home page. Search engines do not like redirects, they want the real thing. Avoid splash pages unless you aren’t serious about being found by search engines.
10. Submitting To 10,000 Search Engines
I sometimes have a difficult time believing that these services are still making money, more importantly that people still think that they work. The fact is that a handful of search engines account for about 90% of all the web traffic generated and the rest comes from people typing in a web site’s URL indirectly into their browser’s address bar. The amount of viewers generated from these Mega-Search Submittal services is so negligible that it’s hardly worth consideration. Don’t waste your time or your money.
11. Not Clearly Defining Action Points
Another mistake that is repeated quite is often is the failure to clearly define what the objectives of a web site are. What are the main goals of a site? Who will the primary audience be? What actions are desired of the site’s visitors? If these questions aren’t answered prior to designing a site they will reflect a poor user experience in the final result. Action points or calls to action are a terminology handed down from the traditional marketing world. They serve to define a desired action and are often supported by persuasive sales copy. Though the basic concepts are the same as traditional marketing, calls to action can take many different forms on the internet. Often they appear as links or as part of a shopping cart. The nature of a web site determines its type of action point. The most important thing to consider is that without them, viewers have little or no idea what the purpose of your site is. Imagine an infomercial running a half hour long advertisement on television, yet the commentator says nothing during the whole ad, just stands there holding a cardboard box, you are left trying to guess what’s inside, the advertisement offers no explanations or means of contacting the company involved. Pointless isn’t it? This is exactly what a web site without clearly defined points of action accomplishes; nothing. It’s an exercise in futility.
Sourced from: http://www.seoarticles.net/eleven-seo-mistakes.htm
1. Lack of “Search Friendly” Content.
Every week I review web sites with no real search engine indexable content. Web pages composed mostly of graphics, flash and other bells and whistle are commonly over-looked by the search engines. Search engines determine what content is of value per web page based on the text used on that page. A truly optimized site should contain at least 200 words of keyword-dense text. There is some debate among experts on exactly how many words should be used, but generally 200 words will suffice. As a point of reference this paragraph contains about 200 words. It is equally important for text content to contain keywords that match the page titles. For example, a site selling peanut butter owned by a company called “ACME Foods” might have a title of “Acme Foods, Inc. Wholesale Food Products”. We have to consider how many people are likely to search for the term “Acme Foods, Inc. Wholesale Food Products” it is much more likely that people will search for the term “peanut butter”. Knowing this, we can say with confidence that it would be a wiser choice to title a page, “Peanut Butter, ACME Foods” and the page content should reflect this same keyword strategy.
2. Insufficient Link Popularity.
Search engines make every attempt to qualify the results which are displayed in search results. One of the ways that they do this is by tracking the number and quality of the incoming links to a web site. A site with a large number of incoming links from quality sites is given a higher ranking in search results. This is an important consideration that is sometimes over-looked by those attempting to market web sites. Services that promise to link your site to thousands of other sites are far from productive; in fact they can sometimes do more harm than good. Most search engines these days consider services like this to be spam, so called “link farming” and often give sites with these types of links a low ranking or drop them all-together from the search results. Incoming links to a site that compliment it and are relevant to the site contents are golden and can greatly boost a site’s ranking. Google’s page ranking system is a good example. A site with a page rank of 1 if given a link from a site with a page rank of 8 can see its page rank boost to 4! Link popularity is one of the most time consuming and difficult aspects of search engine optimization. It’s no wonder that many of the search engines give so much importance to this web site measurement.
3. Lack of Keyword Research And Updates
So, you have a web site. Do you know what pages in your web site are generating the most interest? Do you know what terms people are searching for that result in them finding your site? Probably not. Let’s use the peanut butter analogy again. You own a web site that sells peanut butter. You spend some money on paid search advertising, logically; you assume that the key phrase “peanut butter” is a prime candidate to target. What happens? usually one of two things, one, the term peanut butter is such a popular search term that thirty million other web sites are competing for the same key phrase. Two, the term peanut butter is so unpopular that it’s unlikely that it’s searched for more than once in this lifetime. Proper keyword research can solve these problems. Let’s say for the sake of argument that keyword research is performed and that it is determined that a significant number of people are searching for “organic peanut butter”. It just so happens that our peanut butter company manufactures a whole line of organic, all natural peanut butter. We have discovered a niche. The right amount of people searching for the specific product that we want to sell. It’s the perfect match. So, what must be done to capitalize on our findings? First we optimize our web pages for our target keyword, we change the title, and the content so that they include the term “organic peanut butter”, then we scrap all of the paid search advertising that wasn’t working and focus on targeting our “organic peanut butter” market. The point is, successful search engine marketing relies on constant research and updates the internet is fluid and evolving. What works today might not work tomorrow, we have to be able to identify strengths and weaknesses in our internet marketing campaigns and must be prepared to research, update and adapt.
4. Designing First, Optimizing Later
I have seen this mistake repeated hundreds of times. Even experienced web designers fail to consider the results of design decisions on search optimization until it’s too late. What is the point of spending thousands of dollars for a well “designed” web site if nobody ever sees it? Consult a search engine specialist early in the design process. Even if your web site marketingstrategy relies heavily on paid search advertising a consultation with a professional optimization expert may expose flaws in your site’s layout. Points in the flow of information that tend to cause users to lose interest or become confused may become apparent, better to address these issues early on.
5. Relying Too Heavily On Paid Search Advertising
This is a mistake made by Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. The fact is that most businesses, small and large aren’t getting it right.
The rationale is that since search advertising can be purchased it isn’t necessary to focus on search optimization techniques. On the surface this might make some sense, you can buy certain keyword phrases that people are searching for, so why bother optimizing your site for the search engines? For a company with a huge internet advertising budget this means spending huge amounts of money to drive traffic to their sites, when, if their site had been properly optimized from the beginning, these costs might be half as much for the same amount of viewers. For many smaller businesses trying to compete in the internet marketplace simply becomes overwhelming. While paid search advertising is a highly effective means of targeting an audience, organic search optimization greatly increases the chances of success for any web site. Make sure that the site you are advertising is one that people can find easily without the assistance of a paid search campaign.
6. Not Supporting the Conversion Process
A few weeks ago my wife decided that she wanted to buy some Australian made baby clothes that we can’t find here in the states. So being the internet savvy father to be, I decided to have a look on the internet for the particular brand she was interested in. I surf to a search engine and type in the brand name. A few seconds later I’m greeted with a list of web sites that supposedly have what I’m looking for. I click on the first site in the list. I find myself at the site of a clothing importer based out of California. There are links to several categories of clothing, none of which seem to have anything to do with babies, eventually after a lot of searching I find a link on the children’s clothing page for infant garments. The infant garments page has a few images of clothing but not the brand I’m looking for. I look to see if there is way to search for clothing by brand name. There isn’t. I look to see if there is a list somewhere on the site of brand names carried by this distributor. There isn’t. I look to see if there is a toll free number to call. There isn’t. The internet optimization part of my brain is boiling by this point, so to add insult to injury I go back to the children’s garments section of the site. I click on a link to purchase a bright green jacket. I’m confronted with a page that is requiring me to fill in a bunch of personal details. Ok, so I fill in the details and click submit. Now I find myself back at the bright green jacket page. Apparently now I’m qualified to purchase something. I click the “check out” button. The web page goes blank. I know that this is the result of bad programming. I know what’s going to happen next. “Error 404 page not found”. Has this type of thing happened to you? If you have ever tried to purchase something on the internet, I’m sure it has. This is an illustration of a web site that is well ranked in the search engines but has not taken the time to create a site that is designed for its users. I was forced to hunt through the web site to try and find what I was looking for. The flow of information was counter-intuitive. There was no online support. All-in-all the whole site was a joke. I would be surprised to learn that the site in question made any sales at all, ever. There were several points in this online experience that I felt like giving up. In the industry this is known as ”abandonment”, This is a critical point in what is known as the “conversion process”, the act of turning web site viewers into online purchasers. This is an issue that should never be underestimated. In fact it is the number one factor that determines a web site’s success or failure. A web site with a million dollar marketing budget and millions of visitors will not succeed unless it serves to understand its user’s needs and anticipate its viewer’s questions.
7. Graphics Used For Text Links.
Web designers often use graphics to represent a link in a web site. There are many reasons for this choice. Unfortunately for web designers, the major internet browsers display web pages in different ways. Since fonts display differently on individual computers and in different browsers, it is a much simpler proposition for designers to create graphic links than it is to attempt to create cross-browser text links. The downside to this work-around is that search engines have no idea if a graphic link relates to a specific web page or a link to download the latest Britney Spears MP3. For search engines to understand what a link is truly representing, they need to find words in plain, good old fashioned text. If a web site must use graphics for navigation it is important to include a set of plain text links somewhere on the web page, usually at the bottom of the page.
8. Use of Frames.
Search engines have a hard time indexing sites that are created in frames. Framed sites use several html files to display one page. Search engines are often confused by the frames method of creating web sites, usually only indexing the first html file within the framPages that aren’t indexed will never show up in search engine results. Also, many people that use the internet regularly for research and purchases, so called “power users”, tend to avoid sites built with frames, especially those sites which require the user to scroll content in separate frames. Simply put, frames are bad.
9. Splash Pages.
Entry pages that instruct the user to “Enter”, usually decorated with a large graphic or a flash animation. The index page of a web site is the one that search engines read first. More often than not the only readable content on this type of page is a link that says, “skip intro” Splash pages lack indexable content, usually contain no links and often contain a “redirect” to the real home page. Search engines do not like redirects, they want the real thing. Avoid splash pages unless you aren’t serious about being found by search engines.
10. Submitting To 10,000 Search Engines
I sometimes have a difficult time believing that these services are still making money, more importantly that people still think that they work. The fact is that a handful of search engines account for about 90% of all the web traffic generated and the rest comes from people typing in a web site’s URL indirectly into their browser’s address bar. The amount of viewers generated from these Mega-Search Submittal services is so negligible that it’s hardly worth consideration. Don’t waste your time or your money.
11. Not Clearly Defining Action Points
Another mistake that is repeated quite is often is the failure to clearly define what the objectives of a web site are. What are the main goals of a site? Who will the primary audience be? What actions are desired of the site’s visitors? If these questions aren’t answered prior to designing a site they will reflect a poor user experience in the final result. Action points or calls to action are a terminology handed down from the traditional marketing world. They serve to define a desired action and are often supported by persuasive sales copy. Though the basic concepts are the same as traditional marketing, calls to action can take many different forms on the internet. Often they appear as links or as part of a shopping cart. The nature of a web site determines its type of action point. The most important thing to consider is that without them, viewers have little or no idea what the purpose of your site is. Imagine an infomercial running a half hour long advertisement on television, yet the commentator says nothing during the whole ad, just stands there holding a cardboard box, you are left trying to guess what’s inside, the advertisement offers no explanations or means of contacting the company involved. Pointless isn’t it? This is exactly what a web site without clearly defined points of action accomplishes; nothing. It’s an exercise in futility.
Sourced from: http://www.seoarticles.net/eleven-seo-mistakes.htm
Internet marketing
July 28th, 2011 / Author: admin Site optimization is the first step internet marketing because post this, everything is done in complete accordance with it. Great content and discerning navigation is the basic formulae of site optimization. Search engines consider keyword density and gauge how explicitly the content matches a specific search term. Hence, it is advisable to pick up specific keywords and to create specific pages for every key phrase you think would get chosen by search engines. In addition to this, do not overlook the significance of attaching exclusive title and Meta tags. Ensure to incorporate all the words in the body of the page at a higher density to other words.The next step involves the tedious task of getting search engines to start noticing and indexing your site. As for instance, in case of Google, it is important to link your site to at least one other indexed site. The other way of getting this thing done is paid inclusion, where you pay the search engines to index your site on a priority agenda. It can be an appropriate deal for people requiring urgent acceleration at recognition of their site; however it is not always necessary. Other such lucrative options of linking are participation in forums related to your targeted market. In fact, this does a dual benefit to your site, first, it creates the awareness of your business within communities you may like to reach, and second, it helps you with the generation of incoming links to your site. Latter benefit is quite important for search engines to pay particular attention.
Third important action that many companies are taking these days is implementation of online marketing partnerships with high-profile online businesses. The technique of offering percentage of sales to high traffic websites turns out to be much more fruitful than the conventional idea of making payments to them for advertising on other sites. Moreover, such options of placing banners and offering sales percentage largely result in very low marketing costs and the referring sites place greater stress on their side to make sure that the associated company gets top placement whenever they were low on paid inventory. A similar effective medium-term strategy is to offer valuable content to sites which deal with the same target market as yours.
Post all these activities, the best option left is paying for online advertising, where site owner gets the lucrative opportunity of focusing on specific target people, enabling you to have much better return on investment than simply advertising to everyone. However, this may be quite tricky in the beginning but the investment you make is surely nothing in comparison to the amount of business you generate. For this purpose, Googlecan be an intelligent choice, because of their globally accepted online presence. Yahoo and MSN are other two leading search engines that offer excellent paid link systems and they keep getting better all the time. These three primary search engines are now offering targeting to specific demographics, a trend that is most likely to become the favored method to target online customers, once the competencies for this category of targeting matures.
BUT TO VIRTAPAY, WHAT DO U USE API FOR
Who is the API for? How do I use it?
To get a better understanding of the API, who it’s for and how to use it, visit the API Details page. To create your own API key, visit the API Access page.IMPORTANT: The API is intended for users who know how to program web services. If you choose to create an API key, keep it a secret. Never share it with anyone you don’t trust. If your account has an API key, anyone who has that key will have the power to access your account, and even send payments. Again, be sure to keep it secret, like you would any password.
What functions does the API allow?
Version 1.0 of the API has the following functions available:- Get your account balance.
- Post a payment from your account to any VirtaPay user.
- Get transaction details on any transaction in your account.
What benefit will the API bring to VirtaPay users?
Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing that yet. But, we hope to see many new services begin to integrate VirtaPay payments using the API. This could include “get-paid-to” websites, currency exchanges, marketplaces for both physical and digital items, use of VP$ as an in-game currency, and more. The API opens the door for web services to integrate VirtaPay payments in a way never before possible.How will developers know what people want?
Coming soon, we will post polls to find out what services our users want most. These polls will be shared with developers who want to create services based on the API.In addition, we will soon begin accepting submissions from developers who have created services that use the API. We will review these submissions and notify VirtaPay users (using the blog) about the services we think you’ll like the most.
So, if you’re a web developer who already knows what you want to create using the API, http://www.virtapay.com/r/ekundayo2 . There are over 150,000 VirtaPay users waiting to start using your new service.
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