“Should a blog be part of your marketing plan?” the answer is yes. 

There are tens of millions of blogs on the internet these days, with the majority being personal blogs, where the blogger is writing about their favourite football team or what they did that day. But blogs are becoming evermore a part of the online marketing world.

Your business can achieve numerous things with a blog,

• Open up a new line of communication with your clients.
• Easily connect with your clients, both current and potential.
• Give your business the opportunity to educate your clients about ways you can serve their needs.
• Reach new clients that might not otherwise hear of you.
• Help you focus your business plan on what your clients want.

If you approach your blog in the right way it has the potential to be seen by a greater audience than you originally perceived. There are many hungry blog readers on the web looking for information to enlighten them.

Your blog will increase your connectability with your clients, by increasing the information flow you increase the clients knowledge of your business model and raise their awareness of your service or product. This is aided by the ability for visitors to leave comments, which help you to manage your market strategy to suit your business.

Using this new form of communication both parties will benefit, clients can get a larger perspective view of your service, educated clients mean more specific instructions which help you better assist them.

You must consider that maintaining a blog wont do much for your business unless you do it well. it must be informative, written well and it needs to be promoted wherever possible. A blog wont solve your problems overnight, it takes a while for it to gain readership and become a useful tool for your business.

Duplicate content - How to get De-indexed 

Have you ever heard of the duplicate content penalty? this is a penalty which is used when Google, yahoo, msn and other search engines find content that is mostly identical to that of another site or sites.

Spamming search engines has been in practise sine we have had search engines. a few years ago it was possible to be at the top of search engines for big money keywords just by having the keyword repeated a million times on the page, that was then and this is now. these days search engines have got wise and use a algorithm that thinks for itself to a certain extent. Today’s search engines main goal is to provide the most relevant results to its users.

Search engine providers have been pulling out all the stops to remove spammy sites and duplicate content from their index. there are two main forms of duplicate content which cause the most concern to search providers.

One is a website that just lists the very same page hundreds of times over with  a few words changed.

The second type of duplicate content is MFA blogs (made for adsense), these blogs simply consist of copy and paste material from high traffic sites like digg.com and a page full of adsense units.

The moral of the story is to basically come up with your own unique content that is relevant to your site.

Duplicating your own content 

I have spent many hours lamenting over this subject and decided to blog it, here is my theory regarding duplicate content, the main problem occurs when a fairly new site makes a blog post or article and someone finds the text and submits it to a authority site, Google then spiders the authority site and index’s the re-submitted duplicate before the original gets spidered,

Duplicate content

You can define duplicate content as several copies of the same text in different areas of the internet. the problem occurs when search engine spider bots come across this information and cross-references it in its index, search engines are only going to want to display 1 version of the same text in order to maintain relevant results for its end users. usually all other copies are added to the supplemental index or worse still not even being added to the index.

Doing the right thing

Primarily, search result providers want to do what’s right and give credit to the original author for the content they write.
 

Determining the original author of the content

Consider we have 4 copies of the same article on posted on different domains. How is Google going to determine which is the original copy?

Here we have 4 copies of the same article. Date is the date when the content was first discovered/indexed, Pagerank equals Google’s determination of the value of the page. The smaller pages pointing to each larger page represent incoming links from other websites.

Pay-per-click verses SEO

There are really only 2 main ways to get visitors to your website from search engine users. The first would be to implement a Search engine optimisation (SEO) plan. Second would be to use pay-per click advertising. Here we will highlight the pros and cons of each.

What is SEO & PPC

SEO is the process of fine tuning a webpage so that it meets the specific standards of major search engines, so that the site in question can be determined as relevant by the algorithm used by any particular search engine, most commonly Google.

PPC is paying for a sponsored placement at the top of returned results for keywords or search terms that the advertiser or you decide would generate the most leads to your site. 

You can opt for either option or both dependant on your niche or product. Each have good points and bad points, which will be outlined below.

Set-up time and costs

A pay-per click campaign can be setup within a few hours, development and implementation of a site’s search engine management plan may take months in many cases. Therefore using PPC could prove to be beneficial for new websites, short term sales promotions or one time events, as there are less initial costs involved and results can be seen instantly.

Long term value

Every click that comes from Google cost you money, regardless of whether it generates a lead or not. if your clicks are costing you $1+ this could prove to be a costly venture. with more and more new advertisers joining Google adwords, this only means that the cost per click will increase as the popularity of your keywords grow. SEO, when implemented by ethical and professional people will remain forever and once positions are achieved regular maintenance will ensure your site remains on page 1. this way you wont need to pay for people just browsing your site. 

Risk

Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, solely for the purpose of generating a charge per click for the advertiser or generating revenue for the owner of the adsense units which your advertisement is appearing. Using this method, your competitors can rapidly increase your budget.

Summary

The Benefits of SEO

• Targeted Traffic
• Promotion that doesn’t sleep
• Increase brand visibility
• High ROI
• Higher Sales
• Faster, smaller pages
• Long term positioning
• Cost-effective
• Accessibility
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Navigable by the engines
• Usability

The Downside to PPC

• Click Fraud
• Continuous Expenses
• Rising Expenses
• Complicated to Implement
• Changing Positions within results
• Too many Keywords
• Low ROI
• Constant Maintenance

Another Reason why SEO is more cost effective than PPC is the labour costs involved in the setup of the majority of campaigns are equal if not greater than those of a well executed search engine management campaign.

Getting your site indexed in Google is probably the most sought after goal of every company who has a website. Since Google controls around 57% of the worlwide search audience, it is really at best that for a business to really be given a chance at the online stage, it should be listed at least in the top 5 pages of its desired keywords in Google.

So here is what we have for you to get you started

Websites are all created for a purpose. May it be to entertain, inform, or sell goods and services; a website’s success will depend on how good it is in following the RULES.

Yes, that’s right. There are important rules or guidelines that should be played if you are to have a shot on turning your investment into a gold mine. Rules imposed by the power-players of the Internet universe: the search engines. It still gives me the chills when I think of them as gods of the Internet, Google being the supreme ruler.  Most of these rules were non-existent before. And because of this the search engines were subjected to abuse, manipulation and trickery. Fortunately for us (and unfortunately for some),  search engines wisened up (thanks to Matt Cutts), thereby again tipping the scales in favor of relevant results. 
 
No website becomes successful without the blessing of the search engine gods. But fear not! Though it may seem that they are so distant and they hated us. Search engines did not leave us to crawl and rot in the dark. All you have to do is look.

Google isn’t really hard to please. It doesn’t ask for something that is impossible to give. Scribed below are things to consider if you are to remain in Google’s bosom:

1. Quality content
Content is king! And this will still be the truth in years to come. There is nothing more pleasing to search engine gods than to optimize your site such that it offers unique well-written content. A search engines aim is to serve up what it believes to be the most appropriate and relevant website for any given query to the end user. 

2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation
A proper semantic structuring of your mark up helps search engine big bosses understand the content of your webpage. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight to the content within the heading elements.

Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content.

3. Titles and Meta Data
Title tag and Meta data are still essential to your pages. These are the ones that were subjected to abuse in the past.  And because of this their potency isn’t as powerful as before when it comes to influencing page relevancy. Still, everything must be done if vying for Google’s love.  Meta Keyword tags provide little or no effect in influencing page rank. Though stuffing this with a lot of your keywords might trigger Google’s wrath and be stricken by lightning. What you put in your Meta Description tag spells the difference in a visitor checking out your site, and may then convert into sales or anything, or simply make a potential visitor be enticed by your competitor. Meta description tags can do magic. Titles however still carry a lot of weight. The title is a declaration of your page’s contents might be. Use this divine weapon wisely.

4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use
Success for Google’s love begins here. Try to put yourself in other people’s shoes. What keywords would you use to find your products or services? What does your competitor use? There is no need to guess. Powerful magics of “keyword research tools” abound. Great tools come free. You need but only search.

After the refinement of your keywords, apply their power to the following tools:   Title, Meta Description Tag, Meta Keywords Tag, Header Tags <H1> <H2> <H3>, Text or content, Alt tags, and links.

5. Quality Inbound Links
The search for quality inbound links is the one that will take longer to do and would also take long before taking effect. This will also be the one to help you in the long run in climbing the steep Google Page Rank. But heed my advice: there are good links and bad links. Good links are links from other web pages that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page. A lot of quality links will grant you favor from the gods.

Google loves us. And it doesn’t want us to fail. That is why it gave us these guidelines. We need only acknowledge its authority, walk straight and not turn to aggressive and unethical means. And definitely, we will see you at the top.

Following the Google guidelines and playing it safe is a real investment for long term results. Enjoy!

One thing is for sure with world wide web, traffic can measured as monetary currencies which eventually can give anyone a high rise in the society. Well once you have established your website, it is very much likely that you have spent a lot on it or at least spent. Migrating all your local information into the online community as we may as to having a website of your own.

Once it is, you have now established better credibility of your local business and even more expanded your market reach by letting anyone from practically anywhere to see your website. But is it really that simple?

The answer is a big NO!

How many individuals do you think would go to your site? and how many of them would convert into a sale or some sort? Immeasurable at this point. Well Getting Traffic that matters is really the key. Most people would go to your website if

a.) They saw an advertisement on TV (Very Costly)

b.) You probably know that person and gave them your link or business card with your website on it.

c.) Someone who really needs what you offer searches for it and found you.

Which do you think is the most important visitor you would have had? The answer is C! Search Engine Marketing has been growing exponentially and businesses today are starting to adapt quick. Why? Because it is more cost-effective and it reaches more audience than tv or print.

So there traffic that matters… if you have something which someone else needs, reach them through search engines, think like them, see facts on how people look for information. Advertise strategically and cost-effectively.

When you garner traffic that matters, it gets you back that investment you started from which in those times you have never realized yet how powerful a sales tool the WWW is.

Trying to fool Search Engines isn’t a sensible option for any business. An ethical company tries to make sense from the guidelines of Google, Yahoo, MSN, ect. We believe in simple seo and usable, accessible website designs. Successful SEO requires constant analysis and modification over time. Using these techniques we ensure stable long term search engine placement and visibility.

We have excellent testimonials that proves our solution works!

SEO involves hard work, plenty of creative thinking, big ideas and long hours. Using white hat methods will help your site move up in the search engine ranks without the fear of looking over your shoulder the whole time wondering when Google is going to ban your site for unethical practices. Using low budget companies will undoubtedly mean they are cutting corners, corners that will eventually shave whole chunks out of your revenue via lost earnings. Or even get your site banned from search engines for using spam or black hat methods. We only use 100% ethical practices in our business plan. We make websites better. We optimize websites, build and design websites, promote them, host them and manage them, all for a monthly fee. In fact, we handle everything to help you generate more sales through your website.