Should You Promote Your Website or Facebook Pages?
There are now over 3 million active Facebook Pages users in the world. A growing number of these Pages belong to businesses that are trying to take advantage of Facebook’s potential.
A Facebook Page is a significant investment and for those with many fans, a significant asset. Many people do not know if they should focus on promoting their company on a Facebook Page or just sticking to optimizing their company website.
One drawback is that businesses do not own their Facebook Pages. They are easier to think of as just a leased space in a popular social media interface. As a result, some companies are hesitant to invest their time and resources to developing their Facebook Pages.
Some worry that Facebook could go out of business or change its policies to such a degree that advertising and promoting there would no longer be beneficial. Another reason some businesses are reluctant to create an identity on Facebook is that they are not convinced that their customers would notice or respond to anything they find on a social media website.
All in all, a great website is far more powerful than a Facebook Page. Of course it makes sense to try to tap into Facebook but businesses should put the majority of their efforts and time in making their website content-rich, easy to navigate and effective. Directing your customers to a Facebook page will have little effect on your company if you do not offer anything of value to them.
However, some potential customers may find you through Facebook and pursue more information about your products and services after reviewing what your Page fans have to say about your business. In short, don’t rule out any opportunity that may help your business grow.
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SEO | Lead Generation | Online Advertising | Social Media | Mobile Marketing
Steps to Building a New PPC Campaign
For those people who wish to implement a PPC campaign, there are certain things that you must do in order to succeed.
The first thing you should do is research thoroughly research. This includes knowing your company’s products and services, optimizing your website content and finding out which keywords and key phrases will work best for you to focus on.You should also check out your competitors to what and how they are promoting their products and services. You can often learn valuable lessons on what to do and what not to do to help your business.
Next you can begin to group your content/keyword findings into themes or content blocks. This will be used as the basis of your campaign’s structure to help guide you in your keyword research.
Once the structure is in place, you can begin keyword generation. Use keyword research tools to narrow down your list of targeted words to use. Once your keywords are defined, it is time to create ad copies for them. You should run more than one ad per keyword and be sure that your content is relevant to the keywords.
The final step is developing a landing page destination. You need to select URLS for each of your ads to drive to. The display URL is what will show in your ad copy whereas the destination URL is where the ad will actually drive-normally to a sub-page. With these tips in mind, you will be well on your way to a successful PPC campaign.
It\f you feel overwhelmed or would like the assistance of an experienced expert in the online marketing field, feel free to contact the knowledgeable professionals at www.dbasemedia.com.
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New Partnership Between Yahoo and Twitter
Yahoo integrated FaceBook functionality into its sites at the end of 2009 and this week comes another announcement of a similar deal with Twitter. Yahoo will be paying Twitter for its services and this is exactly the type of partnership that will keep Twitter on top of the real-time data market.
Twitter functionality will become a part of Yahoo’s major properties ranging from Yahoo Mail to News, Sports, Finance and Search. Yahoo sees this partnership as a key part of its social strategy of working with successful brands instead of competing against them.
Yahoo is hoping that the partnership will help to get Yahoo users to begin to organize their digital interactions with the company by sharing what one does on Yahoo with other users.
Yahoo Buzz is not as popular as Yahoo had hoped so this alliance with Twitter may be just what the search engine giant needs to compete in the social micro blogging arena. Yahoo was slow coming out of the box when it came to the online social game and in addition to this deal with Twitter, Yahoo is also working on deals with MySpace and LinkedIn.
It remains to be seen how this latest partnership will affect SEO and online marketing professionals. The effects could really give companies that are already utilizing social media advertising an edge over their peers that are slow to get into the ever-growing social networking world.
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Mobile Marketing Popularity Growing Fast
Online advertising is the most popular way to advertise but mobile marketing campaigns are a new way of advertising that’s growing very fast. Many advertisers are already reporting that they get high response rates using this method. Many agree, that a mix of both online and mobile marketing are going to be more cost effective ways to advertise when compared to traditional methods offline.
Since Mobile Marketing is so new, some businesses are still on the fence about whether they want to use it, some fear that their customers will see their ads as spam, but in a way it’s not much different to email marketing. Think about it, if you have ‘opt-in’ subscribers, they want to receive your offers, they are subscribing to them.
When starting a mobile marking plan. Consider marketing by targeting your campaigns specifically, either geographically or industry based. SMS marketing is proving to be the most popular way to advertise and it’s extremely useful to reach their potential customers right away since most adults today carry their cell phones with them at all times and that about 85% of all text messages sent are actually read.
For consumers on the go, receiving SMS messages will be much like receiving emails. You’ll be able to subscribe to a newsletter via SMS on sites so you can get your offers to your phone instead of your email account. This is especially useful for people on the go.
If you’re interested in learning more about mobile marketing, contact www.dBaseMedia.com for a consultation today.
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Cracking Into the Male 18-24 Demographic
Break Media is a premier entertainment community for men and they have recently announced key findings on its research focused on helping advertisers understand men’s behavior online.
According to the research, over two-thirds of men cannot live without the internet when compared to TV, supporting the notion that the internet now rivals TV as the prime destination for content consumption, research and broadcast entertainment.
More than 500 males aged 18-24 were polled who access the internet at least once per month. Sixty-three percent of the men polled say that they also own a smartphone and one in four use their device to connect to the internet. Forty percent say that they are online for over 22 hours a week and one-third says that they cannot live without online entertainment.
The full 59% of the men also said that they notice online ads. Forty seven percent have made a purchase as a result of an online ad and 35% like ads that allow them to play some sort of a game.
The results clearly show that young men are very much engaged with the internet and that it is an important part of their everyday lives. Online advertising campaigns that wish to target this particular demographic should certainly pay attention to this important data and create ads to reach this large pool prospective consumers.
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Online Presence is Being Increased by Small Businesses
Microsoft adCenter has released the result of a survey that examined the search marketing behavior of 400 small business owners in the United States. The findings tell us that most of the businesses surveyed invest in web sites but fail to take even the simplest steps to enhance their online presence.
It was found that 59% of small businesses do not use paid search marketing and of those, 90% have never tried it at all. These are astounding numbers.
Seven in ten small business owners said that they would rather try to do their own taxes than start a paid search marketing campaign. These results are quite surprising, especially considering today’s poor economy. The small business owners who do use paid search marketing are very satisfied with 72 percent saying that their sales have increased.
Most of the survey takers said that they think it costs both time and money to conduct search marketing campaigns-both of which they have little of. Nearly all surveyed said that they think keywords are too expensive and one-third of them said that they feared that they would need to employ an agency to carry out the campaign for them.
Microsoft’s QuickLaunch program offers free consultation with a search expert for advertisers who set a minimum month budget of $500. However, choosing an experienced online marketing company is also a good idea since that is their primary focus and they will usually be prepared to take a specialized approach to a company’s needs.
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SEO | Lead Generation | Online Advertising | Social Media | Mobile Marketing
Succeeding In Online Advertising
There are a few key factors that can help your small business succeed online. It is very important that if you are selling a product that you establish the quality and value of the product to your customers.
The value perceived by the public that is placed on any product is what determines the final selling price. If you choose a price that is slightly lower than this perceived price, you will be much more likely to sell that product.
You should also plan to give away plenty of bonus gifts in order to enhance the product. For example, if you are selling a case for an iPod touch, give the buying customer a free screen protector and/or a cleaning cloth.
This will be a good way to ensure that those paying customers come back to your site in the future. These little perks are inexpensive but make the customer feel as though they are getting more for their money.
Advertising techniques vary by industry but many utilize the same basic principles. If you know a secret to succeeding online then by all means keep it a secret. News spreads like wildfire across the internet and it doesn’t take long for your competitors to notice if you’re performing better than they are.
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Internet Advertising Revenues at all Time High
Internet advertising revenues in the United States remain strong, topping $23 billion at the end of 2008. In spite of a tough economy, interactive advertising’s continued growth confirms that marketers know the value in reaching consumers on the internet where they are spending money in record numbers.
Retail, financial services, computing and automotive remained the four biggest verticals among internet advertisers last year. Consumer packaged goods notably increased its share of total internet ad revenues by 60% over last year. The web is now the third largest ad-supported medium in the entire world, marking its increasing significance to marketers and consumers alike.
More and more people are turning to the internet as their first way to make a purchase today. It is highly convenient and the prices offered online often meet or are lower than the prices asked in conventional retail stores for most goods.
These trends are expected to continue to rise over the next several years as more and more people are connected to the net and with the rise in the number of people who own smartphones.
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SEO | Lead Generation | Online Advertising | Social Media | Mobile Marketing
Overlooked Types of Advertising Media
There are literally hundreds advertising techniques to use to promote a company. It is unfortunate that many businesses overlook some rather good advertising methods because they do not think that they work.
Billboards are another often overlooked method of advertising. People drive a great deal so your ad could be seen by tens of thousands of people each week.
Bench advertisement is also effective. Having your ad on the side of a bench near a bus stop with a street lamp illuminating it day and night could draw thousands of visitors to your business.
Flyers that offer coupons attached that are placed on cars are very often cashed in by drivers. This is a very cheap way to draw new customers to any type of business.
Motel rooms are great sources of advertising. Many hotels and motels offer advertising opportunities to local businesses by allowing them to advertise inside the rooms.
No matter what type of business you are running online, you need to do whatever it takes to draw visitors. Taking your advertising off-line and taking advantage of different advertising techniques like those mentioned above can help attract even more traffic and sales to your business.
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Effective Keyword Research for Bloggers
Popular blogs are usually ranked well in the search engines thanks to their structure, fresh content and relevance. One essential factor that also helps blogs reach more popularity is the use of keywords. If you do not use the words or phrases that people are using when they search, you may be missing a whole lot of traffic.
Keyword research, an obvious indicator of the influence of technology, is a form of market research because it informs you about what people are interested in and what words they use to find what they are looking for.
It goes even further actually because keyword research tells you the actual language that people are using when they are seeking information about specific topics. This information is priceless if you know what to do with it.
If you select the right words, you will potentially receive more traffic, subscribers and money, not to mention influence. Choose the wrong words and yours may just become another unread blog on the internet. If you want to improve your rankings as a result of your blog driving traffic to your website, you have to know your audience and find the proper niche for your blog.
Post topics that people want to read about and promote products on your blog. It may be one of the best mediums for promoting your business and spreading the word about your new and existing service and product offerings.
There are numerous free online research tools that tell you how popular certain keywords are. Use them before you begin blogging and be sure to note how high popular keywords and search phrases that you will likely include in your writings are.
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SEO | Lead Generation | Online Advertising | Social Media | Mobile Marketing
