Online Marketing for Local Business
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SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads, New Industry Report Says
013 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
SEO is the number one source of leads for both B2C and B2B marketers, beating out both Pay Per Click and social media marketing in a recent survey of online marketers. But more of those surveyed say they plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2012, ahead of SEO and PPC.
The numbers come from the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which was compiled by Webmarketing123, a California-based online marketing agency. The company surveyed more than 500 U.S. online marketers in August and September; about two-thirds of all respondents identified themselves as B2B marketers.
Whether B2B or B2C, both groups of marketers agree that SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. 57 percent of B2B marketers credit SEO as their primary source of generating leads, while 41 percent of B2C marketers said the same thing.
Both types of marketers say that website traffic is the primary way they measure the success of online marketing efforts. Brand awareness was at the bottom of the list for measuring success by both B2B and B2C respondents.
The survey asked a number of budget-related questions, including one about which channels get the majority of the marketers’ budgets. On the B2B side, one-third indicated that SEO gets the majority of their budget. But on the B2C side, more than 42 percent say that PPC gets the majority of their budget — about double the number of B2C marketers who said SEO is their top budget allocation.
Overall, 60 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012; 53 percent plan to increase their budget for SEO and 40 percent will increase their PPC budget.
Those increases in social media spending are likely field by another couple statistics from the survey: 68 percent say they’ve generated leads from either Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, while 55 percent have closed deals from social media leads.
Muhammad Ali’s Lessons for Life
013 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
So, this article has nothing to do with web content, SEO or anything related to online marketing. It’s simply something that I’ve come across that I think has great power to those who follow in Ali’s footsteps, one of the titan’s of positive thinking and believing in yourself….
Ali was not only one of the greatest boxers the world has ever known but he is also known as an incredibly inspiring human being. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would “trash talk” opponents on television and in person some time before each match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. Below I will list some of his most inspiring quotes and how important they can be to the person who takes heed.
1… Fake it until you believe it.
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was”
I’m sure you have heard the “fake it till you make it” phrase before. How you hold yourself and what you say to yourself has a dramatic affect on how others see you and how your mind perceives your environment.
When you are out and about in the world today, hold your head up, pull your shoulders back and speak with clarity. By purposely and consciously acting how you would like to feel, your body and mind will begin to follow the lead you set out before hand. Also, the people you meet will treat you the way they perceive you, thus, reinforcing into your mind the outcome you set out to from the start.
If you want to feel more confident, in control and you want others to see you that way, then fake it. Inside, you might be nervous at first but others will not notice this as they will only be focused on what their eyes can see.
“I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest”
2… Short term pain for long term gain.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
Everything we do in life has consequences and more often than not we tend to opt for the easiest solution ahead of persevering in the face of resistance. Our bad habits are a perfect example of this lesson because they give us instant gratification and yet we never focus on the long term effects they may cause.
It becomes very easy to choose between what makes us feel good now as opposed to what will make us feel good in the future. Take a look at the choices you make each day and ask yourself if you are simply choosing instant gratification over long term pleasure. Most don’t want to put in the effort today because the results may take some time to manifest.
I am all for living in the moment but there are certain seeds that need to e planed today for the to harvest tomorrow.
3… Nobody knows you better than you know yourself.
“I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”
No one can accuse Ali of being a person who lived his life on others terms. What about you? Are you living your life on your own terms? Have you made choices in the past because of what others expected of you and continue to do so?
I made the decision some time ago to live my life on my own terms. I left an extremely well paid job after 12 years because I simply didn’t enjoy it anymore. It was a big decision at the time and I had to listen to my friends and family tell me how I was making a huge mistake in doing so. If I would have listened to them then I would be as miserable now as I was then. It was the best decision I ever made and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.
Most often the time is never right and you just have to go for it. I truly believe that things will always work out for the best in the end if you are willing to fly in the face of adversity, make a decision that feels right and stick with it.
4… You are so talented.
“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself”
Nothing is impossible if you have faith in yourself…nothing. I have found the biggest problem that people have is doubting themselves and their abilities. I have also realized that your mind is the great trickster. How many times have you doubted your ability to accomplish something and avoided the task altogether. Stop listening to useless thoughts created in your mind that limit your growth. You are not your mind, and doubting yourself is absolutely useless because it is absolute lies.
You have enough ability to last you 100 lifetimes but you may never believe it if you give power to the thoughts that limit you. Believe me when I tell you this, you have the power to either entertain or dismiss any thought that enters your mind. Your mind is always thinking, remembering, fantasizing and forever creating stories based upon the information you subject it to. Start to believe in your abilities and begin to discard the negative useless thoughts that limit you.
“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen”
5… Does life just happen to you?
“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”
If we do not consciously create the life we want for ourselves then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over until the lesson is learned. Your life will change as the years go by but will it be because you took control and made the effort to consciously change your life, or will you leave it up to life to do the changing for you.
I have met many people who are not living up to even close to what they are capable of. The worse thing is that they don’t make any effort whatsoever to change their circumstances. They obviously want to have a better life, but it’s as if they’re hoping things will magically get better for them further down the line.
Take an inventory of your life up till this point and ask yourself if you are in the same situation, physically, mentally and emotionally as you where last month, year or even decade. Then ask yourself if your life is being played out on automatic pilot.
Four Of The Most Common SEO Myths
13 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
In the changing world of search engine optimization, SEO, it takes quite a bit of working experience to truly understand how it all works.
The basic premise of SEO is pretty straightforward of course, it’s what web content writers use in order to make their websites more attractive to the search engines, most notably Google. The first point that needs to be noted is that many web copywriters do this ONLY for the ultimate purpose of driving traffic. This can be a big mistake, since visitors to your website who don’t “convert” – turn into sales (or votes, donations, etc.) – are pretty useless, aren’t they?
Interesting, compelling and persuasive web content is what supports the TRUE mission of your website, to improve the bottom line for your business.
Now that we have that critical, and often forgotten, point out of the way we can focus on the SEO benefits that your web content writing creates. Many people have tried to understand and explain how SEO works, but aren’t always correct in their assumptions. This can be attributed to the constantly changing nature of SEO, and which means that the article could be obsolete in a couple months, incidentally. But as of now, here are four of the most common SEO myths that you should know:
More Links Automatically Makes For a Better Ranking
Yes it’s obviously true that a website’s popularity and perceived importance as measured by links is used by the engines to determine its ranking. It shows that others on the web view this particular web content as valuable. However, if your site receives a link from another website which contains NOTHING but links (or close to it), search engines like Google will give these links less influence over the popularity factor of your site, and it won’t do much to improve your rankings. Sites that often fall into this category are those that ask you for reciprocal links, links back and forth between your two sites. And reciprocal links have little (no?) value to begin with; Google knows you are more than likely trying to game the system. The reason it’s impossible to know if there is any worth to these links? Google does not and will never share their algorithm for ranking websites, so we can never be exactly sure what nuances it contains.
Filling Your Site With Keywords And Phrases Boosts Rankings
Keyword stuffing, or using your desired keywords and search phrases an inordinate amount of times within your copy, actually did work “back in the day” – when search engines were less sophisticated and their algorithms weren’t optimized to detect web content quality. And folks did it then to game the system just like reciprocal links (and many other “black hat” ways to trick the engines), and some people still think it has value. But modern search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo are now quite intelligent. They can verify your web content very much like a human does, and they are trained to identify spam and content that isn’t written with any sense of quality or coherent flow in mind. This is often the kind of content that you will get from foreign SEO companies that promise to throw your content up all over the web. When using these firms for your website content and more high profile outlets and sources, this also means that consumers who come across this content online will be associating its poor quality directly with your company and brands, by the way. But keyword stuffing can’t help to improve your page ranking these days. You should never sacrifice the quality of your content for it, most importantly when this content will be used directly on your own website.
You Can Be Penalized For Duplicate Content
Up to this day, many web content providers and online writers hold onto the belief that duplicate content can negatively affect your search rankings. This is actually a myth, one that we at Hat Trick Associates have exposed and discussed with you before. There is no penalty for duplicate content. But also know that the SEO value of content that is not unique to your site will also not HELP your SEO rankings either, or do so in a very minor way. So only use duplicate content if it actually advances your business goals; if the duplicate web content helps you close a sale then it’s worth the effort it takes to share it. Otherwise spend your time somewhere else.
PageRank Correlates Directly And Precisely With The Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
This is a common myth, but not true. PageRank and search engine results are two independent things. The Google Toolbar’s PageRank feature displays a visited page’s PageRank as a whole number between 0 and 10. The most popular websites have a PageRank of 10, the least have a PageRank of 0. Google has not disclosed the precise method for determining a Toolbar PageRank value. The displayed value is not the actual value Google uses so it can only be used as a rough estimate.
PageRank measures number of sites which link to particular page. The PageRank of a particular page is roughly based upon the quantity of inbound links as well as the PageRank of the pages providing the links. Other factors contained within the algorithm include things like the size of a page, how up to date the page is, the key text in headlines, and the words used for the hyperlinks – the anchor text.
The Search engine results page (SERP) is the actual result returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The SERP rank of a web page refers to its placement on the list of search results, where a higher placement equals a better SERP rank.
But the SERP rank of a webpage is not only a function of its PageRank, but also depends on a relatively large and continuously adjusted set of factors (over 200), commonly referred to by content writers and internet marketers as “Google Love”. Search engine optimization is aimed at achieving the highest possible SERP rank for a website or a set of web pages, not the highest PageRank.