3 Weeks Warning to Business Owners by Google to Save Their Listing

Business Owners by Google to Save Their Listing

Google has taken many steps to stop link spam and it not only crushes link networks but a large number of businesses are also hurt. It includes many networks who offer link exchange services to the clients but now the situation is changed to great level. Now it would be the wastage of money to buy links before realizing the right condition. On the other hand there are certain businessmen stating that they have got emails from Google asking them to make legitimate progress and save the listing by avoiding illegal means.

It is reported that these mails are legitimate and are coming from Google. The subject line of these emails is “Action Required: You have three week to save your Google Places Listing”.

Jade Wang explained from Google that they are making changes in Google places for Google Maps and Business. So on the basis of these changes, Google is asking business owners to submit reliable information about them. So they are asked to review and confirm their information in Google places accounts. Her further added;

Don’t worry if you have received this email. You should login and review your business information, change it or update it if necessary and then press submit. It is required to perform this step to save your listing and to stay in Google Map on or before February 21, 2014. Otherwise you have to undergo the process of PIN verification and Google Places. There might be certain reasons of it and some might be;

  • · It is possible that Google is testing a new variable which is looking to add in the algorithm with the name of “response time” and wants to see that how quick business owners respond it.
  • · Google does not believe on its algorithm, actually it is said that Google wants to weed out bogus businesses so it needs help.
  • · It can be a test to know that how many SEOs are still following the updates and wanted to remove those who are no more active from its SERPs.
  • · Google is trying to refine its list by removing irrelevant listings and keep only those who pick the phone when you call them.
  • · It is not an effort only to provide the right results and information to the users but the quickest one in performing it. There are people who take too much time on their queries so they can get quick results in less time with the help of these updates.
 
 
Author Bio:
Asjad Afzal
CEO
YourSeoCompany Australia
http://www.yourseocompany.com.au/
support@yourseocompany.com.au

3 Digital Marketing Tips In Shaping Your Business

3 Digital Marketing Tips In Shaping Your Business
Just like your body, you need to give your business a good shape in order to entice more customers, thus giving your company the chance to grow. There are many ways in which you can improve your digital marketing campaign system. It's time to gear up your site and get it into shape. I want to share to you the 3 digital marketing tips that will certainly revamp your website and help you achieve your marketing goals for 2014.

Here are 3 digital marketing tips that may help you in shaping your business and keeping it on track.

Watch out your Analytics
Analytics is the complete data regarding the statistics of your website. It is important for a business owner to track down the analytical data of his website. There are various websites which offer analysis of a site and allow its owner to know the different important data about his site. Knowing them can the owner of the business a lot because they will see if something is wrong about their website. An example is that when the owner observed that the traffic is exceedingly going down, maybe there is a need for him to create blogs to other channels that will redirect it to his or her website. Other than that, problems with social, search ranking, mobile, etc. may also be known by Analytics.

Focusing your Efforts
Giving efforts for your business to grow is vital. You need to offer your time for advertising and marketing so that more and more customers will come and purchase your product. But all of these efforts will be useless if you don’t have focus. You need to know who your audiences are and who the potential buyers of your product are.

For example, you are selling dental supplies. Your qualified leads (people who have the intent to purchase your products) are dentists or dental students. Why would you want to advertise these things to engineering students?

Therefore, when marketing or advertising, be sure that you discuss the information about your product on potential buyers and not just for any people out there. If the qualified leads are high, then there will be more sales for you.

Better Nothing than Junky Something
Putting something on your website doesn’t mean that it is already good. It should do something there and not a just a piece of thing standing on your site. An example is the contents on your site. Having high-quality contents in your site is an advantage for your marketing strategy. If you have content in your site that is not essential, it is best to change or remove it completely. It will just disappoint your customers and they may think that your site is not reliable. This is also true, especially if all of the things on your site are not right. You will not gain their trust and therefore more and more customers will stop from subscribing your product.
I hope these tips help you in achieving your marketing goals!

This article is written by Dorothy Matthews.

New Choices for Domain Names for Your Website

Choices for Domain Names Infographic

In the spring of 2014 a vast range of new domain name extensions are going to open up, with industry specific extensions becoming available after the dot, such as .photography, .london and .wedding.

It's likely that in time what's after the dot could become as important as what's before the dot and it allows for the whole of your domain name to have meaning.  Some of the most popular domain extensions that will be available are:
  • .photography
  • .london
  • .web
  • .services
  • .ltd
  • .blog
  • .hotels
  • .football
  • .wedding
  • .training
  • .media
  • .holiday
The Business Week article - New Domain Names are in the Works has more information on the latest domain names.

This gives you a wealth of extra choice in deciding what you want to name your website and it's likely that these extensions will be become important for SEO (appearing high with search engines) too.

Given that there's more choice in what to call your website, how do you go about deciding on your domain name?  The infographic gives some suggestions that are important to consider when deciding what to name it, both from a user-friendliness perspective and from an SEO perspective, whether you're looking to launch your website locally, nationally or internationally.

The "New choices for domain names for your website" infographic was designed by Allison Carmichael at Indigoextra Ltd, a creative multilingual web design and SEO company.  Allison has 2 boys and created the infographic to compare naming a new baby with choosing the name of your website.  It wouldn't surprise me if people put as much thought into both!

Allison lives in Montpellier, South France and is a film fanatic of all genres (although there's only a few French films she likes) and is home educating her two boys.  For work, Allison is the Art Director of Indigoextra Ltd and runs the graphic design team.

Does Online Advertising Really Work?

Online Advertising

Does online advertising really work? Yes it does.
A lot of people still doubt whether online advertising really works and whether it is of any benefit to their business. Some still opt for old school methods placing adverts in the yellow pages or by relying on word of mouth. Although beneficial to some degree, it's not as effective or cost effective as advertising online. Besides with the growth of the internet and the worlds heavy dependence on it, it makes sense to be where everyone is searching for their solutions.

Unfortunately for the people who have yet to venture down this path, with this current economy where word of mouth and the yellow pages just aren’t enough, they are being forced (positively) to consider alternatives.

Why doesn't it work?
Of course there are people who have tried online advertising and concluded it doesn’t work. This is probably due to a lack of knowledge and expertise when it comes to online advertising. To get the best from your advertising it takes a trained professional to manage your account, although the idea sounds costly, it would save you a lot of money in the long run.

Where to advertise?
Of course advertising will not work if you are advertising in the wrong place. There are a vast amount of platforms to advertise through but the for runner is Google. It makes sense when millions of people take to google daily looking for products, solutions and businesses. Google operates on two networks, the search network (where people are looking for your product or service by googling keyword terms) and the display network (ads and banners that appear on websites, related to your business). There are clearly obvious differences. Firstly, the search network is full of people actively searching for what your business offers, whether that be a solution to a problem or a particular product. the display network is considered interruption marketing because you are displaying ads to people on other websites who may not be interested in your products or service at all. The hope is you grab their attention and they decide you have something to potentially offer.

Be specific
Advertising will also not work if you are general. On the search network (keyword based) if you are not specific enough with your keywords, likely-hood is you will pay a lot of money for traffic (clicks) which may be of no value to you at all. For example, advertising that you sell cheese by using the keyword cheese is far too general. However advertising that you sell Stilton cheese is more specific. The more specific you can be the more reliable your traffic will be and you increase your chances of qualifying leads more often. On the display network aim for high volume traffic websites again will only be detrimental. Advertising that you sell cheese on a garden furniture website is probably not going to benefit your business, rather choose food related websites or recipe blogs.

With that said, if your product is considered an impulse buy, you can do very well from advertising in irrelevant places but there is no guarantee.

The solution and answer is pretty simple. Online advertising does work, if, you advertise in the right place and in the right manner. According to Sound Solutions Internet online advertising can help increase your revenue 10 fold. Investing into the right market place can be very benefical for your business.

Mike Lewis - I'm a retail business owner who uses Google Ad words. I have had a lot of success and would highly recommend it.

SEO Trends in 2014

SEO Trends in 2014

Web content is still in demand however with more focus on social media, will SEO still be needed? The answer is yes. However, there will be changes on what works and what brings more audience. SEO will not die out, but will evolve based on marketing trends. Here are some trends predicted to be on rise this year for SEO.

Mobile SEO
More people are online via mobile phones and tablets. With that, website developers are focusing more in developing better mobile navigation as well. How does this affect SEO and content? You’ll notice that search a particular keyword or phrase gives different results from a mobile phone than a desktop browser. Search engines have evolved and adapted to this demand by considering couple new variables available through mobile users. For example, most mobile phones can gather user’s geographical location. Search results will focus on content that are location or geography-based. When searching for “Yoga course” while you’re in Bali, instead of showing the top website with most keywords and backlinks, it will show among its top results, websites for yoga centers that are in Bali itself. There will be more demand for content and SEO that mentions geographical context.

Social Media’s influence
Social networks and sites have becomes last year’s main tool for marketing. This year, it will grow more and social media’s influence on SEO will be more noticeable as search engines will update their algorithms based on this demand. More people are opening Facebook pages rather than a brand’s homepage. Why? It contains more updated content and gives better representation of a business’ reputation and overall image. Notice when you search a keyword or phrase online, at the first set of results, it will most likely include facebook pages that mentions the keyword you search. Unlike before, Facebook pages will only show up if you include the word ‘facebook’ in the search box. Same goes with other social media sites like Pinterest and Google+.

Google’s Hummingbird
Google has evolved with by creating its latest algorithm ‘Hummingbird’. Comparisons on SEO results now result on what answers the search query, rather than relying on backlinks and content with too much keywords. With this, SEO has evolved from keywords to information. For example, when searching for a medical keyword or phrase, results page will now display websites that provide more information, with longer content, rather than those simple articles than spin words into a prolonged introduction or overview. Search the word “cancer”, and notice that the first page shows cancer society sites, medical websites and latest news about cancer, rather than “about cancer articles from content archives. There will be higher demand for quality content that actually gives core knowledge rather than spinned articles that only repeats keywords again and again.

Content Spinning will eventually die out
Recycled information and spinners will not work as effectively as before. Website owners who hire spinners to cut costs will only drive there page ranking down. Readers will demand quality fresh content, and search engines will do that as well.

Link Spamming
With the greater focus on quality content, tools that bombard backlinks will no longer be an effective SEO technique. Low quality and high quantity backlinks will only kill a website. What will work this year will be articles with less but high quality backlinks that lead to relevant information-rich websites.

Experts and Authors
With the observed changes in Google’s search algorithm, and the demand for content that answers search queries, there will be an increasing demand for authors who are experts in their own niche. Brands will hire more writers who have more experience and can give precise answers on their articles. There will be a new wave of authors and those who are experts in their own skill will be the SEO writers this year.

Daniel Mathews is a representative of Hotelscan.com. Hotelscan.com helps to find the best hotels in Kuala Lumpur.

The Heart Of Successful Entrepreneurship

The Heart Of Successful Entrepreneurship
Love your consumers and they will definitely love you back. In the world of entrepreneurship, there is no other way to be successful and to stay ahead than to captivate not only the eyes and the hearts of clients, but to also win over their trust. Your business may be wrapped up in gold and silver and the packaging may be perfect, but what determines the longevity of your business is your capability to respond to what your consumers need and want.

Surely, there are millions of online giants out there, but never should you think that you are not capable of reaching their position. Like you, they have started small once and one thing you should do is learn from their mistakes and triumphs because if life is a continuous process of growth and learning, so is entrepreneurship. It is never stagnant and you must never be complacent. Your main goal should be to properly deliver what your clients want and keep them happy. Your clients are the mirror of your business. If you are doing great, your clients are satisfied, but if it is the other way around, prepare for their frowns and grumps of dissatisfaction.

Online Engagement
The best thing about social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter is that they can be your channels and they can be your bridge to a better and brighter future. But first, you must also determine the goals and the target of your business before you choose a site that can be the best marketing strategy for your company. A lot of people have been successful because of these and all you have to do is strategize. Instagram, for example, is the major reason behind the success of many online clothing shops. Since a lot of Instagram users are engaged in looking for stuffs that can be bought online, a lot have taken this as an opportunity and created their own online clothing accounts.So if you are planningto create a web page of your own, look for a way to have a strong presence in the Internet, and make sure that the channels you’ll use are appropriate.

Reviews
The review of your online visitors/clients is a very important factor in determining your chances of succeeding online. Of course, no one wants a negative review, especially if there are comments from clients infuriated by your lousy service. This bad publicity could be a major factor that can bring your business down. In the first place, you should never give your consumers reason to despise your web page. Instead, you must provide them the best service you can offer and never forget to listen to what they have to say. Through this, you will be able to improve your company and maintain loyalty from your consumers. Also, once you here negative comments from them, you should not respond angrily because you must maintain professionalism at all times.
Listening is the heart of any successful relationship and it is your key to the longevity of your business. Through listening and giving the best of what you can offer, you’d get so much more in return—the trust and loyalty of your consumers. 

Dorothy Matthews is one of the people behind Big Drop, a responsive web design company  that will meet your expectations and suit your originality.

Choosing between PPC and SEO

seo, ppc, pay per click, marketing, france, ppc advertising, french, multilingual, Choosing between PPC and SEO

If you’re entering a foreign marketplace like France, then choosing whether to use PPC (Pay Per Click) or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to promote your business can be difficult.

This infographic gives some guidelines about when to choose SEO and when to choose PPC.  If you’re promoting your site in a language that you don’t speak particularly well, then PPC is obviously the easier route, as it means that you only need to translate your PPC ads and your site (yes, if you’re targeting France, then it’s still essential to have your site in French, even with PPC).

Let’s assume you speak the language fluently.  If so, then PPC generates immediate results on the day you place the ad, however if you stop paying for the ad then the results disappear just as immediately.  SEO on the other hand takes a while to start, but if done well will generate organic traffic for years to come with just a minimal top up.

If you go the SEO route, it’s essential to use a company that’s familiar with the latest Google algorithms.  These days links have to be high quality and relevant to be effective.  As the infographic shows, it’s not always necessary to choose between them and you can use SEO for some keywords and PPC for others.

The infographic was written by Martin Woods, the SEO Director of the French SEO Team at Indigoextra Ltd.  Based in the UK and Montpellier, France, the team offer SEO in English, French, German and Spanish.

When he’s not unravelling the ever-changing puzzle of SEO, Martin loves unravelling and creating cryptic crosswords and has written over 500 crosswords for The Big Issue in the North, a homeless charity.  He home educates his two boys and also enjoys skiing, reading and walks in the beautiful countryside that South France offers.

Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking

SEO, seo tips, search engine optimization, keywords, website, technology, internet,
If you are reading this article then it is safe to assume that you have a website and you are looking to improve its position on the search engine results pages. If this is the case then the first thing you need to do is perform an SEO audit. You will have to research into a current template/plan and follow it to check your SEO.

An SEO audit is a set of checks that you can do to see how well your website is optimized. It involves checking things such as keyword relevancy and broken internal links. Once you have completed your SEO audit, it is time to start fixing your website’s SEO. If you fix the SEO problems then you will rise higher and faster through the search engine results pages. Here are a few tips to help you fix the things you highlight in your audit.

Is your internal website navigation good, usable and bug free?

Your websites navigation needs to easy to use. Your navigation system must be intuitive and must be easy to see. For example, you should make sure that the search bar is at the top of the page, and that any small sitemaps are on the footer.

You must have at least three internal links coming from every page, and the anchor text to the internal links should be optimized. For example, you could have a link back to your homepage on every page, and you could call the link “home page”. But why not vary it a little on each page, such as having “back to our Home page” or “Go back to home page”.

The navigation should be bug free. In other words, you should be able to click a link and have it take you to the page it describes. The link should be clickable and should never lead to the web page freezing.

Are your pages too heavy?

Every web page that a person looks at must be loaded onto their computer. Thanks to broadband Internet, your web page should take less than three seconds to load. If it does not then there may be too much to load, and you are going to have to lower the weight of your page. You may have to make images smaller, lower the weight of elements, or spilt certain parts of one page so that it makes two. The longer it takes for your web page to load then the lower you will rank on the search engine results pages.

Some people create very good web pages that are very attractive and very salable, but the trouble is that some people (especially those with 3G) are going to have to wait longer for it to render (appear) and load. Some people simply do not have the patience for such things, and why should they? The Internet is so bogged down with crappy content that most pages people visit will be abandoned within seconds.

Does your website have relevant keywords within it?

This is a tricky subject, which is why it is a good idea to do a lot of keyword research. You need to find out what sort of keywords your target audience are using to search for your web pages. You should also check to see what keywords your competitors use, because they too are aiming to attract your target audience. You should research the correct keywords for each of your pages, since each page is most likely going to differ from all the others.

You should use keyword tools to check to see if a keyword is used a lot, but you should also think about keywords that come to your mind. What would you type into a search engine? You also need to be aware of what you would write and what your target audience would write. For example, you may choose keywords such as “X for sale”, but remember that as a buyer, you may actually search for “Buy X” or “Where to buy X”. Try to put yourself in your target audiences shoes and use a little bit of common sense and gut instinct.

Where can you get your information from?

For a start, you should never take the word of things you read from articles and websites online (an odd thing to say within one of those very articles). The fact is that a lot of online content has not been created by true experts. A large portion of it has been created by people who are making up plausible lies. The rest of it is created by well meaning (but misinformed) fools.

There is some very good advice to be found online, but you must take it all under advisement (with a pinch of salt). Your best place to start is with Google itself. They have a lot of tutorials on their Google webmaster section, and even some forum answers from their staff which are very handy.

Books are an okay place to look, but you really (really) need to get a book from a company that is highly respected for being correct. There are some books out there that look like they know what they are talking about, but that are filled with misinformation. Try an updated version of the “For Dummies” books. Make sure you go for the updated versions, because the version they printed around three/four years ago is already out of date. For example, social media is hardly mentioned.

John Kravz is a representative of proessaywriting.com that provides excellent help on your writing assignments such an critical essay.

The Importance Of Web Design For Small Businesses

Website Design in Toronto
In the modern world, firms and individuals are increasingly using the internet to enhance their businesses. Website design/development is one of the most essential services required on the internet by both individuals and firms. Web design and development requires special skills because potential customers can be disappointed by the layout and design of the website. There are several firms offering website design in Toronto and in other parts of the country. However, not all the firms provide quality and professional website development.

A good working website should not only have an incredible layout and design but also provide the relevant information about the services and products your business offers so that it can attract more traffic and potential customers. Business owners and individuals should hire website designers who will create user-friendly websites that are easy to navigate. While hiring website designers, it is important that you see their portfolio and you should determine whether they have experience in website design.

Website design is a process that involves strategic planning, meeting customer needs and demands, actual site designing and development, testing, publishing and re-evaluation. Designers should involve customers at each phase of the process so that they can provide their input or suggestions. Website design is a vast field made up of services such as search engine optimization, graphic and logo design, website development and maintenance, web applications, internet marketing and custom software development.

Website Development
Website design requires dedication, a sense of purpose, creativity and professionalism. Experience is also very essential in web development. The process of web development entails designing a website, creating web content, liaising with the client and scripting. Web development may also include a non-design element known as coding. The input for website designing should come from a team of experts like an interface designer, an online marketing strategist, an information architect and a creative strategist. The team is responsible for developing a great website that will improve your business.

Website design may fail for several reasons such as lack of trust-building elements, message mismatching and website design shortcomings. If website visitors do not trust your capability, then they will not transact with you. Some examples of trust-building elements include use of original images, professional-looking design and third party validation. Online marketers and interface designers are responsible for determining what works or fails when it comes to trust-building components. Web designers can create a site that does not provide the relevant information to customers. If the information does not meet the expectations of customers, then the website will not achieve the business objectives.

Website development has its shortcomings especially if the designers take shortcuts. Some of the shortcomings may make the website to be incompatible with some browsers or mobile phones or web pages may take a lot of time to load and some links may be broken. Such websites may require redesigning which is expensive. Website designers should create fast, amazing and interactive websites. The designers should also create perfect websites on budget and time.

Graphic and Logo Design
First impressions mean a lot to business owners. A website may require illustration, animation, freehand drawing and photography. These forms of graphic designs will determine whether your business flourishes or sinks. Logos and graphics speak directly to potential clients about the brand you are selling. They also inspire trust, familiarity and reliability. Logo design is the foundation of branding because logos capture the essence of the firm and its core values. In today’s competitive business environment, firms must have logos and graphics on their websites and other products.

Internet Marketing
Having a running business website is just half the battle. A website should have ample traffic. To achieve this, a business may consider hiring internet marketing services. Internet marketing can take the form of search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click or link building. SEO improves the ranking of your website on search engine results thereby increasing traffic to your website. Pay per click (PPC) is highly efficient in increasing traffic to a website although it comes at a cost. Internet marketing requires creativity and dedication. The marketing team should be able to mix aspects of web design/development with advertisement, for better results.

Each and every strategy used should not only increase traffic to a particular website but also increase business sales. By hiring a full set of web solutions and services, a firm or individual will have a web presence and better platform for marketing their brands.

This post is written by Larry Smith, the Director of Marketing at Cloud SEO, who is an expert in Online Advertising and SEO and a specialist in the management of Google AdWords Advertising Campaigns.

4 Questions To Ask An SEO Company

4 Questions To Ask An SEO Company

Ever wondered why your site never received as much visitors as your competitor's or why your ranking never improved? Well, you'll be glad to know that you aren't under some evil spell and that you could be getting as many visitors as your competitor or even more but only if you get the right SEO company to work for you. By 'right company' am referring to a company that is all about taking care of your business' needs and ensuring you achieve your goals. Didn't think companies like that exist, did you? Well they do and this read is going to help you find one for yourself.

In the midst of all the struggle to get the best SEO services, a number of quacks and incompetent SEO agents have cropped up. These breed of unscrupulous and unprofessional crooks prey on unsuspecting webmasters who are looking for a quick fix. Better hope you don't fall for their tricks; you'll be in for one rough ride. Enough about the crooks, how do you find a reliable SEO company? Here are some few questions to ask your prospective SEO agent;

1. Who are your current clients?
If you are dealing with a reliable company, then you will be provided with a list of clients. This shows that they provide high quality services and thus easily attract clients. Along with the list of current clients, you should also ask for samples of previous or current projects. An agent that refuses or is reluctant to provide any of the above should be avoided or better yet scrapped off the list of potential SEO companies.

2. What are the tactics that you employ?
Unless you want your site penalized and/or banned, you are best off keeping away from SEO agents that use dubious strategies and techniques. And since few agents will be willing to admit that they do use these unethical methods, such words as 'trade secrets' will be flung around to avoid or change the subject all together. Do not fall for this trick, keep firm and get a precise answer.

3.How regularly will you send reports?
You may not be able to interpret the graphs or make sense of the figures produced but your agent has an obligation to provide regular reports on the progress of the optimization project. Not only are you part and parcel of the project, but you also deserve to be kept in the loop. As for the reports, they need to be comprehensible; even if it means creating reports that have been made more comprehensible for you.

4. How long will it take before I see the results?
While some companies will go about claiming to provide results in the shortest time, let's not forget that good SEO takes time. Professional company however will provide you with a time frame for each different technique. For instance, while paid ads may provide results almost instantly, it takes longer for SEO to yield results. An experienced SEO agent is aware of this and won't be afraid to explain what to expect and why.
In the SEO world, the more you know, the better for you. Hopefully this read will come in handy on your search for the best SEO company.

This post is written by Larry Smith, the Director of Marketing at Cloud SEO, who is an expert in Online Advertising and SEO and a specialist in the management of Google AdWords Advertising Campaigns.

Web Hosting Consumer Tips

Web Hosting Consumer Tips

Introduction

Having your own website equates to having a superb web hosting service, for very obvious reasons. A web hosting provider that could assure you of continuous services, without downtime could very well spell great success to your website. A few minutes of downtime could mean lost sales. If you are concerned about business survival and online presence, you need to choose the best host provider that could answer to all your needs. What comes to mind is, how do you this?

Guidelines on Choosing a Web Hosting Service

  • The Lure of the Free Domains
There are many hosts today that offer free hosting service. They look very enticing, since you can just plunge in and your site is ready in a flick of a finger. This can lure the most naïve among us, and it may take a while before you start asking questions – “What if your site becomes successful? Will the free service still continue?” Always remember that even if the domain provided by them is free, the web host still retains ownership of the domain name. What this means is that in a few months or years from now, though the present arrangement may sound appealing ---there may be may be need for you to ask some serious questions. For instance, who owns the domain? Even if it is free now, the host still retains ownership of it. This means, that a few years down the line when your site may have become successful, there may be a need for you to buy the domain name. Either you buy it or you go both ways – you get stuck with it or it gets deleted from cyberspace.
  • Bandwidth Problems
Most newbies who are on the lookout for online presence often ignore disk space and bandwidth requirements when it comes to public domains. Just because it is free, this very critical feature is often disregarded when making decisions on what host to choose from. Problems may crop up later on or if in case your site becomes popular. At this juncture, you go running to your host to inquire if they may have an additional disk space that you can pay at an equitable price. Good if they do, and bad for you if they don’t!
  • The Unlimited Storage Fallacy
We get to see many flyers and come-ons online that tend to get the attention of many netizens. It is the concept of unlimited storage, that is dangled around us like some carrot on a stick. This is a fallacy, a creation of their mindless think-tanks --- since there is no such thing as unlimited storage. If you read the fine prints on their terms of service, exceeding their prescribe amount of storage will mean a violation of your agreement. Hence, your account can be terminated for cause.
  • Required Back-Up of Files
To seduce consumers into their fold, many hosting companies give off guarantees to protect your data. These come-ons come with stipulations that they have a reliable backup plan to ensure that all your documents are protected. While this may be true for some companies, it is still prudent if you do your own backups, especially if you opt to use a public server. Doing your own backup of documents would mean having an off-site alternative, so that your files are safe even if the public server crashes, as they are wont to do. It is also advisable to only enter into a short-term contract with hosting companies, so you can get out right away in case problems arises in the future.

Conclusion

Finding a good host is often times hard to do. Even professional webmasters can still fall prey to a web host that suddenly goes under. Hosting is a complex business and can experience both ups and downs in the trade. If you get lucky in finding a good host, stick it out with them through good or bad times. But if they go down for more than 24 hours, you should research other hosts in preparation to moving out. There are pros and cons to using private and public servers. The choice would eventually depend on your specific needs and budget.

Social Media's Role In Reputation Management

Social Media's Role In Reputation Management
It hasn’t escaped the attention of the savvy business that online reputation management is becoming more and more important pretty much by the day. With almost everyone now turning to the Internet before making any real spending decisions, it’s hardly surprising that what’s said about you and your brand online counts for more now than largely any other form of feedback. There were once only select service industries that were dependent on positive online feedback – the same now extends to every business and service across the board. But here’s the real kicker – a full 23% of people admit that they will take to the web to say bad things about a brand if need be, but less than 10% will sing the brand’s praises when absolutely delighted with their services or products. As such, the vast majority of online feedback has the potential to be negative and paint a picture of a brand that’s neither balanced nor fair – especially where everyday social network gossip is concerned.

This makes it hugely important to tap into the power of social media for positive reputation management and promotion – here are a few tips from the pros on how to go about this:

Optimize Social Media Pages

If and when it gets to the point that entering your brand name or other keywords returns a list of results where several are negative, you’re in trouble. The last thing you want is for the first thing people to see about your brand to be negative comments and reviews in Google. In order to prevent or treat this, optimize your social media pages and create more pages to optimize, in order to get these higher in the rankings and push the negative feedback further down while you go about addressing it.

Choose Social Media Carefully

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking the world of social media begins and ends with Facebook. Not only is this not the case, but Facebook might not be the best platform for you to choose – not even close. Take into account the various platforms out there in accordance with the target market you’re trying to reach, in order to tailor your decision accordingly. The power of Pinterest and LinkedIn for example cannot be overstated for a great many business areas.

When You Find Praise, Run With It!

Without getting carried away and coming across as desperate, it’s never a bad idea to spread the good word about you and your brand every time something positive is said about you. If you happen to find some really glowing feedback in a dark corner somewhere that most folk won’t come across, bring it to light on either your primary page or via social media. Likewise, be sure to draw further attention to any glowing praise you receive by responding to it or leaving your own comment thanking the reviewer. In addition, don’t ever be worried to reach out to your target market and actually ask them to leave you a positive review. Assuming of course you haven’t let yourself down and did a great job living up to expectations, some will be more than happy to do so.

Embrace the Criticism

It might not appear so on the surface, but negative criticism can actually be better for your business over the long-term. Not only does it show you where you need to improve, but you can turn any negative into a positive by following it up and responding to it in order to win over the part responsible party and anyone else coming across it.

Listen and Learn

And finally, the most important thing of all to take away from social media in terms of reputation management is constructive feedback as to where you’re going wrong and what is going down well with the punters. Don’t weigh up what you read against your own biased views of the business, take them as the most valuable insights you will ever have as to how you can better your operations.

Author Bio
Rocky John Tayaban, for the past 8 years, has been helping small and large companies all over the world in their online marketing. At the moment, Rocky is the managing director of iSolutions Media - a search engine marketing firm in the Philippines. Follow him on Twitter @SmartOnlinePros to stay updated on all the latest in social and search.

The Easy Fundamentals Of Building Car Websites

The Easy Fundementals Of Building Car Websites The Internet is full of acronyms these days, and SEO, short for search engine optimization, is one of them. However, it's not just another set of letters that have no real meaning. When it comes to the building blocks of SEO for auto dealerships and their car websites, there's a few specifics that marketers should keep in mind.

Avoid These Mistakes
Auto SEO has a lot to do with optimizing for local buyers. But's not just about a single geographical area. For example, neighborhoods and suburbs are also important. Secondly, consumers aren't just concerned with make and model. As a salesman, you might know which cars have what features, but consumers don't. They might be shopping for an SUV with four wheel drive or a luxury sedan, so don't forget about keywords that describe vehicles rather than just naming them.

Lastly, smart SEOs recognize the value of targeting car buyers based on the stage of the buying process. People who are searching for a vehicle are comparing features and look at options, which ties into the previous though. As they move through the process, consumers will want real choices, which your dealership may be able to provide them. Obviously, there's a lot of keywords that you can focus on, but you don't want to try to do everything at once, especially when you're doing SEO yourself. Instead, consider the keywords that will have the highest conversion and focus on that. You can always tweak or adjust your campaigns in the future, but you don't want to spread yourself too thin when you're getting started.

Getting Social with Content
The obvious way to avoid low-quality content is to create content that visitors will find useful. Car dealers have a specific advantage because there's so much that consumers don't know about cars. First-time buyers will especially find comparisons and feature guides useful. Plus, a car blog is the perfect way to advise drivers on keeping their vehicles in the best condition for resale. In locations where snow is a concern, dealers can populate their blogs.

This content is perfect for sharing on social media, too. An article or image that goes viral brings traffic to your website, and those visitors can become customers. Social media has become increasingly more important. Google counts retweets, shares and +1s when ranking pages in the SERPs. Furthermore, Google shows results from its own social network, Google+, above organic results in the search engine, so it's vital that you promote content from your dealer website and blog on Google+.

Embracing Your Identity
Authorship is another opportunity of which you should take advantage. When you link to your Google+ profile from your website or blog and place the link of your site in your profile, you've claimed your site as an author. When you post content to your site, your Google+ profile picture will appear next to that content in the SERPs along with links to your profile. This visually separates your content from others on the results page. This is important for salesman because it shows a real person associated with the content. If yours is a trusted name, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of it?

SEO is a big task, which is why so many dealers hire on a freelancer or even a team of SEO pros to help with the job. An SEO may be able to see where your campaigns are lacking or provide knowledge gained through experience in other industries. Of course, this comes at a price. Whether you're simply paying cash or spending your time on SEO, it's important to get it right.

    By Andrew Handley
    I write weekly articles for a car blog. I've had experience with car dealerships and maintenance business websites, as well as car hobby communities.

    Ancient SEO Practices Letting Your Site Down

    Despite the number of hugely popular search industry blogs available to read, such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, and aggregator sites like Alltop.com, there are still many SEO services providers and business owners living by old SEO habits and attitudes. To the informed SEO professional or business owner, the dynamic nature of the industry is something to live with and adapt to if you want to be a success.It is no secret that doing today what you were doing five years ago in most businesses isn’t going to work.

    Why Don’t People Change?

    Ancient SEO Practices Letting Your Site Down One only has to look at the opinion many people have of Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam, to understand why many stick to old SEO practices. It is probably going too far to suggest that some think SEO is one big conspiracy, but there is definitely a lot of cynicism related to exactly what Google’s motives are and what they’re trying to achieve. The people who see Google as a business purely in it for themselves tend to be the ones who stick to the old-school SEO strategies. Some just dislike Google, period, while others have implemented things like Google authorship and seen their search traffic plummet. Although there are likely to be other factors involved, it is human nature to blame what you’ve done differently on any negative consequences. What are these old-school strategies and attitudes people can’t let go of?

    Rank Matters

    This problem can be laid exclusively of the door of those SEO providers who still try to rank highly and take out Google advertising for terms such as “Number 1 Ranking in One Month.” Seriously, if every holistic SEO agency or freelance SEO professional could take the money wasted on companies that peddle such messages, the industry would be thriving and the return on investment clients see would skyrocket. SEO is about increasing business revenues and extending your brand reach across the internet, not achieving the highest possible ranking for keywords that might not even be relevant to what you do.

    Link Numbers Rule!

    How often in life do we hear the words ‘quality over quantity,’ but fall foul to the desire for something we can measure objectively without much effort? The main offender here is inbound links. For years, people obsessed with how many links they could build in the shortest possible time, before Google finally got wise and started focusing on quality links between great content and websites. Still, people continue to build links in bulk believing this is the way, only to then have to spend time getting familiar with the disavow links tool later.

    Keyword Density Equations

    There are still websites out there that still promote the myth that is keyword density, despite industry giants such as Moz.com reporting as far back as 2008 that keyword density is irrelevant. Content mills like Textbroker and Hotype are still getting writers to write to keyword density and telling their clients it is important, so it is no wonder this myth persists. If you’re thinking of any of these while pursuing SEO, you’re wasting time and in all likelihood, money aswell. Forget them, and instead focus on the things that can make a positive difference.

    Danny loves marketing, and although his specialist area is print and radio advertising, he understands the value of digital marketing and that the industry is going to shift more in this direction in the future.

    A Guide To Online Success

    A Guide To Online Success
    Being successful online is sort of a skill in itself. There is so much competition nowadays that it is becoming progressively difficult to separate yourself from the pack. You have got to be proactive and have a grasp of both the market and your own company strengths. If you have this then you will be able to target the correct market and thus make money from what you offer. In addition to the traditional method of creating a website, there are other ways to promote such as social media and emailing. All of these must be explored as well as optimizing your website and securing a strong and memory filled domain in order to ensure that that your site is fully efficient and functional. This article will highlight what it takes to be successful online and how there are many options that need to be covered in order for this to be the case.

    A Well Designed Website

    This is of pivotal importance, your website has to be well designed, clear for the user and must work efficiently. To many this seems plainly obvious but there are so many companies out there who create websites for the sake of creating one rather than as a credible way of increasing the prominence and success of their company.
    We live in a world dominated by the internet and thus it is increasingly important that company infiltrate this market and invest money at the same time. Employing a team of web developers isn't a bad idea, after all this is their job and the can make sure every feature works properly and it is designed in a way that can embrace your company image and ethos. Being successful online is a long term process and you have to have the product and presence to ensure that clients keep coming back. If you are successful in ensuring this, then the likelihood is you will have a fruitful time of it on the web.

    A Strong Platform

    There are many companies out there that offer domain platforms from which you can create your website, selecting the correct one for the right price is becoming very important. JaguarPC hosting services is one of doing it, the offer large memory and monitoring services for their customers at a good price. The list however is endless, there are so many different companies out there that may suit your needs better so it important to ask around and get what is best for you.

    Use of All Available Resources

    Facebook and Twitter are both so popular nowadays and using this as a tool to promote your company website can be a great way to increase your profit margin. Setting up your own profile and also paying Facebook to advertise are bother brilliant ways of raising awareness of what you have to offer. If you are credible about making money online then you have got to raise your company profile and show the world what you can do, above are three of the best and most efficient ways of doing this.

    Andrew is an author with a love for modern technology, especially the internet. He has a degree in business and writes extensively about both technological developments and business strategy.

    SEO Tips For Marketing Your App

    Search Engine Optimization SEOIf you have developed a great app then you need to start marketing it in order to increase sales and make sure you are earning some money with your app. It is a really good idea to learn some basic SEO to guarantee that search engines rank your new app higher and people will be more able to find it.
    Here are some essential SEO tips to help you out.

    Make Sure You Have Strong Online Presence

    The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have a strong online presence even if you are only going to publish this one app. Make sure you brand your app by building a website to talk about the app and by joining social media platforms in order to market your app. This is important because the more there is overall talk about your app the more you are going to get people interested. So before you publish your app start building an online presence.

    Be Wise With The Listing

    When you are listing your app on the marketplace it is really important that you include links to your webpages as these will help improve your search engine ranking. Many major companies are really bad at using their links as part of the listing process and you really shouldn’t do the same mistake. So link directly to your landing pages and make sure your app name is included in this landing page to improve your ranking even more.

    Search The Keywords People Use

    When you get people using your app it is really important that you look into their use of the app and see if you can find some keywords based on this information. For instance, if you have an app about cooking recipes you should look what are the recipes people using your app are using the most and then take advantage of this recipe as a keyword to get more people interested in your app.

    Always Link To A Marketplace

    When you are including a link to buy your app you can’t make the mistake of forgetting to use the name of the marketplace and your app name. What this means is that instead of linking with the anchor text of “Buy here for iPhones” you must mention your app name “Buy X here for iPhones”, with X obviously being your app. Search engines pick this up a lot better than if you don’t use it. The same goes for always mentioning the correct marketplace in your app’s anchor text as well.

    Talk About Development

    You can also get more views and more people talking about your app if you blog about the development process. So from the moment you download an Android software development kit to the moment you publish it is a good idea to blog about the process and get people interested on your product.

    Get People Talking

    You also want to promote as much organic marketing as possible because this is really the best form of SEO for any app. Marketing Land suggests using social media and encouragement to get people to link and talk about your app as much as possible.

    Gary is a big technology geek and he loves to find out how people can market their apps better in order to get into the app market. When he isn't reading SEO tips he likes to spend time learning to speak French.