Search Engine Optimization Course Completed
Michael Kling has completed a six-week course in search engine marketing through the HTML Writers Guild. The course covered selecting the best keywords, link-building strategies, analyzing competing websites, syndicating articles, blogging as an Internet marketing strategy, social marketing, and other advanced SEO techniques.
Creating excellent content is the best way to increase your website traffic. That doesn’t mean mass-producing filler articles filled with what’s already commonly known or tons of useless software-generated gibberish. Every company seeking a real presence on the Internet needs a good writer who understands their industry.
Small businesses rush to local Internet marketing
The rush is on for local online marketing. Most people search online for a local business before they pick up a phone book, yet fewer than half of small business have websites or advertise online, according to Nielsen Online.
If Horace Greeley were alive today, he would say: “Go local, young man.”
“There’s an increasing sense of urgency around having an effective online marketing strategy,” a CEO on an online ad agency told Business Week.
The Internet marketing industry is ready to help the mom and pop stores that want in Internet presence. Microsoft’s Bing has beefed up its neighborhood and business listings. Google enhanced and renamed its Local Business Center to Google Places. Businesses in a handful of cities can pay Google $25 a month to have their listing show when Web searchers check their area.
Instead hiring large big-city advertising agencies, small business will want to work with small, local experts who are more affordable, understand their communities and will take the time to meet their needs.
Local search is one of the most underused yet most effective Internet market strategies, said Jon Schepke of http://searchenginewatch.com/3641176″>Search Engine Watch. Out of 16 billion searches every month, one in five is local.
Plus, local searchers are more likely to make a purchase.
In addition to using pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization, he says, businesses need to
- have local listings with the major search engines,
- make sure their information is up to date,
- use photos and videos to promote their brand,
- optimize profiles with customized fields with informative descriptions,
- track online performance with web analytics, and
- encourage customer reviews.
“The marketers who fully embrace local search,” Schepke writes, “are enjoying a competitive edge.
SEO will be tops in 2011
Search engine marketing will beat social media and email marketing as the top digital marketing tactic for 2011. In other words, content remains king.
That’s according a survey by TopRank, an online marketing firm. Out of over 200 readers who were asked what three online marketing channels and tactics they will use next year, 87, or 38%, chose SEO.
Other choices were:
- Social network participation, as n Facebook and LinkedIn, 78 votes, or 34%.
- Blogging 69 votes, or 30%.
- Email marketing and content marketing both received 35 votes, or 15%.
- Pay per click 34 votes, or 14%.
- Video marketing, 29 votes, or13%.
Other choices microblogging, also know as Twitter, social media advertising, and corporate website.
Content marketing, which includes all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content, is a new online strategy.
Although social media is getting plenty of media attention, companies are putting their money into search marketing. According to Forrester Research, companies plan to invest $20.7 billion in pay per click.
Most marketers remain focused on finding the most efficient mix of strategies possible, although there are signs of marketing budgets recovering, according to TopRank.
