BCA

By Ina R. Seno

Before diving into keyword research, type this phrase in your browser’s  search box, “SEO services in Michigan.” Your search engine will pick this up and  show all the relevant or related websites. The words you typed are really  keywords or more accurately a keyword phrase. The sites displayed are the result  of SEO methods performed on those websites. The better the SEO method used, the  higher your rank will be in its pages.

One significant portion of SEO is  choosing the important keywords or keyword phrases through research.

The Meaning of Keyword Research

Keyword research is the method by which you look for the correct keywords for  you to optimize your site. It’s not as easy as you think. It takes a lot of hard  work and diligence to accomplish.

For example, you want to list down the  keywords you can use for violin lessons. You can use Google AdWords Keyword  Tool. It’s used by many people and it’s free. When you get to Google AdWords  Keyword Tool, type violin lessons and a list of suggested keywords are  displayed. Look at the columns on your right side.

One of the columns has Global  Monthly Search Volume as its title. This column informs you the number of  Internet viewers who search for that particular keyword every month. Select  keywords with greater than 2500 search volumes. This will guarantee that there  is a market for that keyword who are really typing and looking for it.

Jot down  the keywords that you have chosen. More importantly, after selecting the  keywords you have to know how many individuals are competing for that keyword.  You can use the free version of Traffic Travis to know the competition for each  word. Utilize keywords with easy competition and those are the ones which you  should use in your blog posts and articles. This will gradually increase your  rank in the search engines.

Keyword Stuffing

Never use the same keyword too many times in a single blog post or article.  Keep the keyword density below two percent. Your blog post or article can get  penalized by the search engines and decrease your ranking. This method was  utilized before to increase the ranking of sites by stuffing articles and blog  posts with keywords. The article loses its meaning. It’s important to bear in  mind that you’re writing for the human readers and not search robots.

Generalization

If you don’t choose the right keywords through research, the search engines  will not know where to locate your site and determine how high it will rank in  its pages. If these significant points are too much to understand, don’t worry,  that’s a natural response. To make the entire process easier and hassle free for  you, find an SEO company that not only handles your keyword research but the  whole SEO method.

For the whole package of SEO solutions, contact us, Michigan SEO Firm. We provide the complete SEO services and  not just keyword research. Your satisfaction, guaranteed.

By Roses Mark

Due to arrival of Social Media everything has altered. An online community of  Twitter or Facebook users can make or break your business with their mobile  platforms. Your company or service may be getting hundreds or thousands of good  or bad reviews on the new mobile sites like Gowalla or Foursquare. Social  Network management is growing exponentially.

Social Media tools help integrate activities

It’s in a more efficient manner manages outbound & inbound interactions  along with other small business marketing activities. They rationalize and  strengthen how to participate in significant conversation happening around in  different platforms like blogs, networks, and other public or private web  communities and sites.

SMM tools also helps you integrate activities with your other business  marketing campaigns. Here are five tools that can make your life easier:

1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is your best (free) tool if you’re looking to administer all your  personal social profiles. TweetDeck allows you to connect across Twitter,  Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Google Buzz. You can update all or  specific networks with the same status at one time.

TweetDeck is probably best when dealing with four or five accounts at a time,  though the dashboard is generally easy to use.

2. CoTweet

CoTweet is a brilliant tool for small businesses or division of larger  businesses that thrive social media duties among team members and have a  customer-service approach to engagement.

CoTweet allows follow-up messages to be assigned to specific managers. This  can make responses more pertinent as team members with upbeat knowledge bases  can handle appropriate questions and comments from followers.

3. HootSuite

HootSuitefree version allows you to add five networks and supports Facebook,  Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, MySpace, PingFm and WordPress.

HootSuite is best for actively-managed accounts because its design focuses on  streams, which are housed in customizable tabs. You have the elasticity to  organize tabs by account, network or content, making it easier to monitor a  definite type of feed.

4. Spredfast

Spredfast has everything you need for agencies managing social media with  high ROI demands.

Its biggest advantage over other SMM tools is analytics. Measurement is  determined by the amount of content distributed, how many people were reached  and whether the intended audience was engaged.

5. Engage 121

Engage121 is best in its class at encircling monitoring, broadcasting and  engagement.

The tool is extremely customizable and can support just about any site with a  community presence. Permissions may be set to allow & approve a message from  corporate before it is distributed to area followers, maintaining a local voice & brand consistency at the same time.

The process needs be sustained to maximize opportunities

In conclusion, follow these procedures and you will be successful in social  networking and marketing that will drive profits in your business. Using  networks includes making use of a process. Therefore, you need to remember to do  this on a regular basis so that you take full advantage and attract more  followers in the future.

Roses Mark is a Social Media enthusiast and an Internet entrepreneur. Spent  over 10 years working professionally with Internet business employers worldwide,  he frequently writes articles involving new-age, social media and personal  motivation. You can find him all around the web via Facebook, Google & on  Twitter as @Socialcubix

Social media marketing has gained its place at the table. eMarketer estimates 80% of companies with at least 100 employees will use social networks for marketing this year, up from nearly three in four last year. By 2012, usage will be even greater, and, in turn, efforts are becoming more sophisticated.

Most companies now recognize a well crafted social media strategy is a vital part of the marketing mix. In fact, a study from Jive Software and Penn, Schoen & Berland found 78% of executives thought a social business strategy was somewhat or very important to the future success of their business.

Despite this realization, most executives are still only in the tentative stages of making social strategy a priority.

The survey of executives who have final say or significant input on social business strategy found that only 27% listed social business as a top strategic priority. Nearly half (47%) admitted a social plan was necessary but not a strategic priority and 19% said social business strategy was simply not necessary.

Meanwhile, executives were also not overly optimistic about their current social strategy efforts. Only 17% felt their social strategy was ahead of the curve. About four in 10 (42%) felt their social strategy was just keeping up and 33% felt they were behind.

A different study from Forbes Insights and Coremetrics showed a similar amount of enthusiasm for social strategy. Only 11% of US and UK executives surveyed at large businesses listed social media strategy as a leading priority in 2011—tied for last place with mobile marketing. Social media strategy will receive a small boost in 2012, though, with 19% of execs listing it as a leading marketing priority for the coming year.

Many companies may be using social media marketing, but those that choose not to focus on a social strategy risk falling behind the curve in integrating social media with their overall marketing goals. Recognizing the importance of strategy alone isn’t enough; companies should start implementing a plan.

For complete data charts and story, go to e-Marketer.com

Social media marketing has been top of mind among marketers and is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Earlier this year, eMarketer estimated that worldwide social network ad revenues alone, not including money that companies spend developing presences on social networks or hiring staff to manage them, would reach $5.97 billion in 2011, a 71.6% increase over 2010.

Already, firms worldwide are seeing returns on their increased investment. According to a survey by office services firm Regus, 47% of businesses successfully used social networks for customer acquisition in 2011, a 7 percentage point increase over 2010. The US followed closely behind the average, at 43%.

China saw the greatest gains in customer acquisition from social networks among all countries studied, increasing from 44% in 2010 to 65% in 2011.

Biggest impact in developed markets

The survey had one other interesting finding: Social networks made the biggest impact for companies that are operating in developed markets. A significantly higher percentage of companies that used social networks for customer acquisition in developed markets, including the US, the UK, Japan and Canada, saw a revenue increase over the previous year vs. those companies that did not use social networks to acquire new business in developed markets.

Companies in developing markets like China, Mexico and South Africa experienced revenue growth whether or not they were using social networks to acquire new business, probably as a result of rapid overall economic expansion.

Reliable source of customer acquisition

As companies continue to chase revenue in both developed and developing markets, competition will force marketers to increase investment in new platforms to reach customers. Social networks are proving to be a reliable source of customer acquisition and increased revenues in both, but can provide a necessary edge over competitors in developed markets.

For complete data charts and story, go to e-Marketer.com.

Mobile still doesn’t measure up as “important” to most marketers, according to an April 2011 survey by King Fish Media sponsored by HubSpot, Junta42 and Maxymiser. But that could change as more marketers get on board with a mobile strategy. More than six in 10 North American marketers plan to have one within the next year, compared with just a third who already do.

Advertiser reports on mobile tepid

When asked specifically about the ROI of their mobile advertising programs, a plurality of North American companies said they were doing about as well as expected. A quarter of respondents said mobile advertising wasn’t meeting expectations, however, compared to just 13% who said results were better than they had hoped.

Another 27% of companies were not sure how mobile advertising measured up, either because they were not keeping track or for another reason.

There is less measurement of campaigns

The survey also asked companies about their overall mobile marketing campaigns, beyond only advertising. Mobile marketing was still slightly more likely to underperform (10%) than to outperform expectations (8%) among companies that currently have or plan to have a mobile marketing strategy. But here, companies were doing even less measurement of their campaigns.

Just over one in three companies with a mobile strategy said they hadn’t measured its success, and nearly as many could not evaluate performance for some other reason.

At the same time, the report noted that ROI was becoming more important for mobile marketers looking to increase or maintain budget. Two in five marketers with a mobile strategy will have to prove the value of their campaigns in order to continue them, though about a third will continue to track ROI without requiring it to be positive.

Still a small share of marketers budgets

Mobile still commands a fairly small share of marketers’ budgets, but eMarketer estimates total mobile advertising spending in the US will reach $1.1 billion this year, up 48% over 2010.

For complete data charts and story, go to e-Marketer.com

Finding new customers is the greatest business challenge for small businesses, according to a February 2011 survey by Bredin Business Information, and small businesses are turning to a wide variety of online marketing channels to do so.

Small-business owners were most likely to say they used websites to find new customers (85.8%), followed by email and search marketing, each used by about three-quarters of respondents. Notably, every online marketing channel showed a dramatic increase in usage between 2010 and 2011.

With a confidence interval of ±5%, the survey results can be used directionally to indicate a great level of experimentation among small businesses using digital marketing, according to Bredin.

Businesses are disappointed

But at the same time as small businesses have expanded their use of online marketing, respondents in 2011 indicated they were much less satisfied with the effectiveness of these channels. Website, email and search were rated most effective for customer acquisition, but even these had dropped since the prior year.

A rush of small businesses to new marketing channels can mean that less experienced respondents are now reporting on the effectiveness of their efforts, which would naturally be lower than those who have been using a channel for many years. In addition, some small businesses could be overreaching by trying to tackle too many channels at once, without the necessary time and resources.

“There is a fair amount of learning that has to happen for each small-business owner to know how to use and how to measure online marketing tactics,” Stu Richards, CEO of Bredin Business Information, told eMarketer. “In many cases, businesses are struggling, and there’s an opportunity to educate SMBs.”

E-mail and websites highest in effectiveness

Small businesses surveyed in April by email marketing software provider Constant Contact also reported that websites and email were highest in effectiveness.

Respondents to the survey were more optimistic about the effectiveness of many channels, especially social media like Facebook.