SEO Training and Internet Marketing Courses Offered in San Francisco Bay Area
The Bay Area Search Engine Academy has scheduled their SEO classes and internet marketing training to start in February 2010. The classes are open to anyone who wants to learn search engine optimization or internet marketing for their business.
Livermore, CA (PRWEB) January 19, 2010 — The Bay Area Search Engine Academy has opened registration for their upcoming SEO classes and internet marketing training for businesses. Registration is limited to fifteen people in each of the classes being held in San Ramon and Santa Clara (near San Jose), California.
“We keep the classes small so each of the students gets lots of individual attention during the course of the week,” Thomas Petty said. Petty is the President of the Bay Area Search Engine Academy, and will be teaching both hands-on workshops. “We teach a lot of advanced techniques, but anyone can learn them. We want to make sure everyone understands it so they can put it to use as soon as they leave the classroom.” Read more
Brand Research Firm, Polaris Marketing Research, Is Keynote Speaker at the Georgia Society of Association Executives Luncheon
Brand research expert, Debra Semans, senior vice president of Polaris Marketing Research, is the keynote speaker at the GSAE luncheon.
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) January 17, 2010 — Polaris Marketing Research, Inc. (polarismr.com) announced today that senior vice president and brand research expert, Debra Semans will be the keynote speaker at the Georgia Society of Association Executives (GSAE’s) luncheon on January 20, 2010. Her topic, “Top Ten Branding Mistakes You Can Avoid,” is timed to coincide with the Society’s rebranding efforts.
The luncheon is the feature of the organization’s quarterly meeting and draws about 200 executives from non-profit organizations, professional and trade associations and their corporate suppliers. The meeting will be held at The Centre at Arbor Connection in Douglasville, Ga., and the luncheon will begin at 11:30. (gsae.org) Read more
Web Analytics – The Missing Piece
The ultimate goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to drive traffic to your site. Many people don’t know why, but they aren’t achieving this goal.
The key is staying current and evolving with the times.
Way back in the good old days, SEO was a lot easier and we saw results quickly. What do I mean “we saw results”? We ran a ranking report and we were able to see what words held what positions in the various engines. And admit it now, when you received your ranking reports, you promptly pulled up Google or Yahoo and did a search, waiting with baited breath to see your results right there in the top 20. Ahhh, the good old days.
Now, you get a ranking report and you don’t see all those wonderful rankings you have seen in the past. Competition is fierce and even though your site deserves to be on top, it may take a while to work its way up there. So, what do you do? You call your SEO Firm, you complain, you work on a strategy to get the results you want.
The missing piece here is called Website Analytics. A well optimized site will bring traffic from many engines, for various keywords that are related to your site. Those keywords may not be on your “approved keyword list” – however they are words people are looking for and they are driving traffic to your site. Many people don’t give credit to their SEO company for these words – however they are mistaken. The fact that your site was properly optimized and content was added is what made the site get noticed by the engines, so the optimization is directly responsible for these “bonus” keywords that are driving traffic to your website.
Because most people don’t understand this, and they don’t give credit to their SEO Firm, many SEO Firms don’t bother looking at or sharing Analytics information with their clients. They simply care about rankings for the keyword list.
At EcomBuffet we understand the value of Web Analytics information and as a result have added these “bonus” keywords to our ranking reports to show our clients how they are being found.
“Yeah, you point out how great you are and the “bonus” keywords – but how does that really help us – the client” is something we heard when we started sharing this information.
It’s true, it is a feather in our cap – it makes us feel good that we have created more exposure for our clients – but it’s more than that. The information we share tells them what words people are using to find them – it gives them insight into how their prospective clients think and search. That information can then be used to improve and really target your marketing efforts.
In addition to the value of the “bonus” keywords – the other thing we do is look at the other information in your web stats. We can figure out what pages people are spending time on, what pages people are leaving quickly, we can see what interest’s people and what drives people away.
Having someone prepare that information for you and deliver it to you in any easy to comprehend manner is invaluable.
That information becomes your blueprint for web site improvement which means increased conversions, which means more sales, which means more money, which means you are one happy camper!
Imagine, rather than guessing at what to tweak on your site to improve results you can take our analysis and suggested changes and use that as a guide to improving your traffic and conversions. Then you monitor the response to your tweaks to ensure your traffic and conversions are growing because the competition isn’t sitting idle and what worked yesterday doesn’t necessarily work tomorrow.
Web stats or Analytics isn’t new – it’s been around forever. However most people don’t know how to interpret their stats, they often don’t have time to gather the data and SEO Firms typically do not tie this information into a SEO campaign.
Our focus is on results. We can deliver the traffic and use Analytics; to get that traffic to take the action you want – whether it is more sales, more people opting in to your site, or calling you. Whatever “results” means to you – we can deliver them.
Case Study: One of our sites has:
* Top rankings for the phrases “phoenix homes” (generic phrase) and “historical homes in phoenix” (specific phrase) Analytics tells us:
* “phoenix homes” brings traffic but has only a 0.82% conversion rate.
* “historical homes in phoenix” brings less traffic but has a 6.67% conversion rate.
The Lesson Learned:
* Add up the traffic from all your “minor” specific phrases — all with high conversions and compare it to the major traffic and low conversions from your generic phrases – you can learn where to focus your attention — on the phrases that convert! (Note: We wouldn’t even know about the specific phrase without Analytics)
* We can add content for the phrase that converts higher, and drive more traffic from that phrase. We can also use that information to guide us in creating marketing material. Along with an affordable website.
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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner of http://www.EcomBuffet.com . Since 1998, her expertise in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at Jennifer@ecombuffet.com
Ecommerce Sites: Beware of 3rd Party Cookies – Are Google Analytics Users In Privacy Breach?
To be successful, an ecommerce site requires information about site visitors.
What sites are the top referrers? Which search engine produces the most traffic? How long do visitors remain on-site, what is their pathway through the site, and what pages do they exit from?
One method of collecting this information is often referred to as using 3rd party cookies. If you use 3rd party cookies, are you aware of the privacy concerns, and will you be liable for a privacy policy breach?
What’s A “Cookie” Anyway?
A cookie is a message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file called cookie.txt. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
Information gained with cookies helps the Web server track such things as user preferences and data that the user may submit while browsing the site. For example, a cookie may include information about the purchases that the user makes (if the Analytics program) to pass the cookie, that cookie is called a 3rd party cookie.
Privacy Concerns With 3rd Party Cookies
Privacy concerns arise from the fact that the data generated with 3rd party cookies resides on the servers of the 3rd party — not your server. The fact that you do not control these 3rd party sites and their use of this data has raised concerns among many users. For example, users have questioned whether these 3rd party sites aggregate the data among many sites and report ecommerce trends to the media, or whether the 3rd party sites use the data for purposes of cross-website profiling and ad targeting.
And what is your legal obligation to disclose the use of 3rd party cookies? In the European Union, it’s illegal to pass cookies without informing users that you do, what they’re used for, and how they can be avoided, and it’s generally believed that the failure to adequately disclose the details of the use of 3rd party cookies is a violation of EU law.
In the US, there is an evolving debate regarding the same issues, and the answers are less certain.
Conclusion
It’s recommended that if you use 3rd party cookies, you clearly disclose in your privacy policy the distinction between 3rd and 1st party cookies, and how they’re used and avoided.
Be careful, however, in amending your Privacy Policy because amendments may not be effective retroactively for data collected with 3rd party cookies prior to the amendment.
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Chip Cooper is a leading intellectual property, software, and Internet attorney who advises software and ecommerce businesses nationwide. Chip’s 25+ years of experience include 20 years as Adjunct Professor of Computer Law at Wake Forest University School of Law. Visit Chip’s http://www.digicontracts.com site and download his FREE newsletter, Website Law Alert, and also learn about his “Do-It-Myself” and “Do-It-For-Me” service options.
Marketing Activities You Need to Schedule
Scheduling your marketing activities is key to ensuring you are consistently and successfully getting the word out about you and your company and all the great services and products you have to share with people.
There are several formats that people use to schedule things – to-do lists, activity lists, calendar items, list of projects, sticky notes all over their desk, and so on. It doesn’t really matter how you do it as long as it works for you.
There are going to be three general types of marketing activities that you’ll want to put into your schedule:
1) ongoing everyday activities
2) specific one-time projects
3) idea generation
Ongoing everyday marketing activities include those that you do regularly. Some examples are:
* writing your ezine
* adding new auto-responders to your email series
* writing blog posts
* contributing to online forums and blogs
* networking events
* monitoring your PPC advertising
* writing content for your monthly teleseminar
* adding content to your website
* writing articles for submission
* checking your website analytics
* communicating with your affiliates
* sending out press releases
* networking on social media sites such as Facebook and Linked In
Specific one-time projects would be marketing tactics that occur as a special or one-time opportunity. For example:
* a workshop you’re putting on
* creating a new product
* setting up a referral program
* a joint venture with another company
* flushing out the specifics of a new service you’re going to offer
* a speaker series you’ve been invited to share at
* setting up your affiliate program
* running a special promotion
* writing a book
* a new website
* setting up a blog
Time set aside for idea generation is important. You need to schedule this in just like any other marketing activity. Things you’ll “think” about during this time can include:
* researching possible joint venture partners
* thinking about ideas for a new product, service or book
* taking a look at some colleagues websites and blogs to see what they are up to
* daydreaming about the direction you’d like your company to go
* brainstorming about your professional and personal goals
Write down a list of all the different marketing activities you currently do and start scheduling them into your calendar and to-do lists. Make sure you look at your schedule first thing in the morning and different times throughout the day to make sure that you’re staying on course.
Commit to your marketing by having a schedule and you’ll see your business grow and attract new and old clients on a consistent basis.
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Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches simple, innovative and powerful marketing strategies to help business owners find and keep their most profitable clients. To learn more about how she can help you take your business to the next level, and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at http://www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com
Web Analytics To Measure Your Success!
If you operate a commercial website, knowing where your visitors are coming from and how they are using your website is more than just nice-to-have information. It is essential and can make the difference between making it and losing it in today’s Internet business world.
Your webserver log has tons of useful information, but that logfile in its raw format is impractical for frequent analysis and statistics. Good web analytics solutions provide you with the tools to generate useful and understandable reports from the huge amount of raw data collected by your webserver.
Learn who your visitors are, where they are coming from, how they use your site, and where they go when they leave. Find problem areas in the conversion funnel, and check whether changes you implement have the desired effects. To determine hotspots and weak areas of your site, and to check whether your search, marketing and landing pages convert or require improvement, you need a good web analytics solution.
Web Analytics Solutions
A good web analytics program or solution literally shows marketers why visitors do what they do. It’s perfect for those interested in PPC marketing, SEO, web design, and usability. It is also extremely helpful for those with eCommerce storefronts, including direct support for Yahoo! Stores and Miva Merchant. A good solution provides visual interface and insightful reports.
Website analytics solution are available as either a hosted solution or logfile processing software. There is a right solution for everyone – choose the one that best fits your needs and business size .
Note there are some solutions available for no cost. However, “free” does not always mean free. With most paid solutions, your highly sensitive and valuable data is accessible only to you. How much is your data worth to you? You have the choice and I have already made mine.
With a paid solution, you also get something that you won’t get from any free service – online seminars (often at no additional charge) to learn how to make the most of the web analytics solution from the comfort of your own desk. This is especially valuable for people who have little experience with web analytics software, but even veterans will likely learn a trick or two.
Conclusion
There are a large number of web analytics solutions available, for little to no cost, expensive enterprise solutions and everything in between. There is no “perfect” web analytics solution for everybody, but chances are very good that there is one that is right and perfect for your needs and your budget.
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Carsten Cumbrowski is an internet marketer and entrepreneur who owns and operates the internet marketing resources portal at Cumbrowski.com. Find the web analytics solution that is right for you, further resources to web analytics in general, including best practice guides, books to web metrics, blogs and more at Cumbrowski.com.
http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/internetmarketing_webanalytics.asp
How to Schedule Your Marketing
There are different ways that you can schedule your marketing to ensure that you are doing it consistently and as easily as possible. What appeals to you depends mainly on the level of detail and structure you like to have. One person’s organized is another’s straight-jacket!
Some people like to keep their schedule more general by designating a theme of activities for each day. For example:
Monday is communication day – catch up on emails; return phone calls; meet with staff; post on Facebook, online forums and other people’s blogs
Tuesday is client day – meet with clients (in-person or via phone); do client paperwork; answer client questions
Wednesday is writing day – write content for ezine, blog, teleseminar, email marketing, sales page and website content
Thursday is creative day – research new opportunities for affiliates, partners, joint ventures; think of ideas for new products and services; draft outline for workshop you want to give
Friday is administration day – fine-tune schedule and to-do list for next week; file and clean up desk and office space; back up computer; read magazines and ezines
Other people like to divide their day up into different segments. For instance, they may write in the mornings from 9 – 11am, do email until noon, do some reading and brainstorming until 1:30pm, and then spend the rest of the afternoon on client specific activities.
Another way to set up your schedule is to build it around your reoccurring marketing activities and then fill in the spaces with other stuff. For example, every Tuesday morning may be for writing your weekly ezine and 2 new articles for submission. Thursday afternoon is slotted for a weekly teleseminar, Monday morning is devoted to email and every Friday morning you write 3 new blog postings. Client appointments are fit in wherever it’s convenient for both parties.
Still others may determine their schedule by the type of marketing tactic:
Monday – list building activities (create new autoresponder message; publicize new teleseminar you’re giving; touch base with your affiliates; submit articles)
Tuesday – website (add new content; write a sales page; check analytics of the site)
Wednesday – sales (offer a promotion; send out email about a new product; summer sale)
Thursday – clients (appointments with clients; write weekly exercise and send to mastermind group; create a survey to send out to new clients)
Friday – free day (whatever comes up and whatever you want to do!)
Whichever way that you create and run your marketing schedule, remember to do it consistently! Your schedule is a living, breathing part of your marketing strategies so pay attention to it and make changes and additions as necessary.
If you have a marketing schedule you’re already miles ahead of many small business owners, and you’re well on your way to growing a successful business!
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Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches simple, innovative and powerful marketing strategies to help business owners find and keep their most profitable clients. To learn more about how she can help you take your business to the next level, and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at http://www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com
How You Can Magnetize Your Target Market
The importance of a “target market,” is very true because we honestly can’t serve everyone. If you feel resistance (a.k.a. fear) beginning to bristle, perhaps because you believe you’ll lose business by not being willing to work with everyone, just pause for a moment and ask yourself, “Would I really want to work with everyone?” My guess is your answer would be no because everyone is not your energetic match. Just bring to mind for a moment someone you really can’t stand. Now, imagine your whole business filled with this person-every client/customer. Kind of shifts the whole “I want to work with everyone” perspective, right?
Understanding who your energetic match is the secret to magnetizing your target market. This is what we’re going to do together today, my friend.
First, let’s look at why, if you recognize that having a target market is important, do you resist it? Well, after having coached with tons of entrepreneurs around this, I’ve come up with what’s missing in most of the traditional “target market” talk:
It only addresses the outer. (And this doesn’t get us excited, but rather has us feeling limited.)
When asked to define your target market, you may have been asked in the past to get clear about your target market’s:
-Age,
-Gender,
-Marital Status,
-Occupation,
-Problem they need solved…
Let’s pause for a second…does this really guarantee to help us get narrow and specific so our message stands out to what they need? Well, not necessarily. I bet we could get a room full of: 35 years old single female nurses…and they aren’t all going to have the same problem.
So what we’re really interested in is the situation your target market needs solved and we make YOU the situation solver. Then we tap into the energy that is the essence of attraction between you and whom you WANT to work with.
It’s this “inner part” that moves you into the excitement of creating your “Ideal Client” rather than just “Target Market.”
You can begin to better understand who your ideal client is by asking yourself: What are the qualities of my ideal client? What jazzes my ideal client? What does my ideal client expect from me?
Really, just let the answers to these questions flow and FEEL what would have you excited about working with this person. Answering these questions connects you to a situation or type of person with whom you are a natural energetic match. This way, you’re drawn together like magnets and your ideal client recognizes right away that working with you is a must. They just feel it.
Golden Nugget: Your ideal client is usually someone like you who shares your journey. However, they’re in a different, earlier phase of the journey. To understand this truly is gold: when your ideal client is looking to hire you, they’re looking for a solution to their situation or problem. They recognize you’ve been where they are and have successfully made the change. This ignites belief that they can do it too. It’s a reassurance they’re investing their time, energy, and money in the right person and process. It’s easy for you to talk to them because it’s kind of like talking to an earlier version of yourself, yes? Just think about what you would’ve wanted to hear.
So when you get clear about who your ideal client is, and can effectively share the experience of your journey (whether in person or in your marketing materials), in a way that ignites the energetic match that the two of you naturally are, then you’ve just accelerated the whole process of bringing on new clients. (This is the whole point of having a target market in the first place).
Call To Action:
Focus on the qualities of your ideal client: what jazzes them (hint: it will jazz you, too!) and what they expect from you. This sets you up to be an energetic match.
Get clear about your journey: What did it take for you to get where you are? Be willing to share it. You’ll be setting up an automatic path of connection and understanding. You’ll be confident in your work because you both recognize you’ve done it and now it’s their turn to do it, too.
Give yourself permission to work with your ideal client: Nothing good comes from working with non-ideal people out of fear. You deserve to be jazzed in your business-it’s the magic water for continuous business (and income!) growth.
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Ready to learn more techniques to magnetize your client and really boost your business growth? You can! Join the EnergyRICH® Business Boot Camp! Be sure to secure your spot at http://www.energyrichbootcamp.com (Please Know: this is the last time the EnergyRICH® Business Boot Camp will be offered this year and for sure never again at this rate.)
Marketing Strategy Mentality: Do You Have It?
Most small business owners and independent professionals
start their business primarily because they have knowledge
and skills that are in demand. While they understand
intellectually that they have to market and sell, often it
does not translate on an emotional level. Many business
owners tend to look at marketing as a necessary evil and in
many cases have negative beliefs toward it. They could not
stand to be hounded by those pesky salesman in their
previous jobs and do not want to “become on of them.” As a
result, the tendency is to focus on the aspects of our
business that were the reason we chose to go into business
in the first place, the actual application of our knowledge
or skills.
What is a marketing mentality and how is it developed?
There are three components all that link together. The
first component is belief. What are the underlying beliefs
that affect our mentality? It encompasses our attitudes,
thoughts, fears, expectations, and lack of experience. Our
actions are shaped by what we think about, what we assume
to be true and where we choose to focus. If the thoughts
are negative or avoidance minded then we will see marketing
as undesirable and in some cases unethical. It will
manifest in self talk such as I don’t deserve referrals, my
marketing won’t work anyway, I will look desperate, if my
service or product is good the market will know that, I
don’t like networking etc.
Reality-Oriented Marketing
From politicians to phone companies, reality-oriented
marketing has become the hot new trend that can benefit
your business.
Interestingly, back in the 2004 election year, the
Republican party’s presidential team created a presidential
or “marketing” campaign that went deep into a community,
attaching itself to high-profile decision makers,
neighborhood leaders and trend-setters to get their message
out. The business sector has now harnessed this marketing
strategy.
The phone industry, can we say AT & T, created local
marketing teams that went deep into communities to find
neighborhood leaders to pitch its newest service. The
telecommunications giant developed lists within the
communities that included Sunday School teachers,
“influencers”, trend setters and others whose opinions are
sought out and valued by neighbors and peers. This strong
word-of-mouth influence has helped AT&T find customers that
have agreed to sign up for their TV service after the
influencer’s hosted TV parties.
Jaguar is capitalizing on a marketing trend that is
referred to as a “living product placement.” The luxury car
maker is using high-profile trend setters to drive around
in their car and hope to be “seen” in it. Just ask any
perfume, cosmetics, handbag maker or fashion house how
important it is for them to find a celebrity (based on
high-profile) to wear their product in public.
