Google Adwords 3.0

By Melissa Shea

One of the most common things I hear from my clients about Google Adwords is “they don’t work”, “I’m losing money”, etc, etc. I really hate to hear that because it doesn’t have to be that way!!!! Millions of businesses are using Google Adwords successfully and, if used correctly, can be one of the most cost effective strategies to drive traffic to your web site.
The most common reasons these clients lose money on Google Adwords:

They don’t think strategically about their message: Please don’t use your business name for one of your keywords. If someone knows your business name, they can just enter it in the search field and chances are, it’s going to come right up. You use Google Adwords to find new customers that don’t know you.
They take Google’s “suggestions” for bids on the keywords: – Hello! – Google Adwords is a business – they are in the business of helping you spend your money – it’s up to you to spend it wisely! You can bid lower – and getting the top spot is not necessary and doesn’t even work as well as the 4th or 5th spot.

So what’s a poor business guy to do? First of all, realize that you’ve got to spend the time to educate yourself on the BEST way to use Google Adwords – and if you’re not going to take the time – hire someone who already knows. Using Adwords to your benefit will take training, testing, reviewing, testing, reviewing, testing, etc, etc. Test several ads, test a lot of keywords. Take it slowly and watch every day what is happening in your account so you can make adjustments quickly when you see that something is not working.

If you are currently losing money in your Google Adwords account – please leave this blog immediately and pause your campaign right now – I’m serious – don’t waste another dollar – go stop it – NOW!

… And then come back and read the good news I have to share about the NEW Google Adwords! Read the rest of this entry »

Caution: Social Media Can Hurt!

By Melissa Shea

I’m leading with the ending here…

“In the end…What is to be learned here? Well, don’t lead with tools. Don’t think that your brand is above the risks and backlash of social media. When plotting a social media campaign, truly think about what you want your end result to be, and fully examine everything that could possibly go wrong. Word-of-mouth marketing is a fantastic thing when you know how to leverage it. But if you lose control of your brand, the disasters are almost endless. Let these brands’ failures be a lesson.”

A few days ago ZDNet published this ending for a story about the Nine Worst Social Media Failures of 2009…thus far…wow – it’s only May and I couldn’t believe how badly some of these huge companies crashed and burned while using social media tools. Hopefully this will serve as fair warning to the ad agencies of the world when earning millions by creating social media campaigns. I think the most shocking thing about these examples are that they were dreamed up by the “best and the brightest” ad agencies in the country. Madison Avenue – What were you thinking????

So please, read the story. It’s entertaining – and a cautionary tale of major proportions. Nine Worst Social Media Failures of 2009…thus far.

So what can we learn from these massive miscalculations? How can apply them in our own businesses? Using Social Media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are essential in today’s business world. With advertising budgets feeling cramped and more and more people online, it’s crazy not to use these mediums – as evidenced by the top companies that are using them – many quite effectively.

Here are some social media tips that will help – not hurt your business!

Be a giver: Don’t constantly promote your business service. Offer free resources, promote others, share your thoughts and life. Social media is about being “social” – don’t ever forget that.

Build relationships: Don’t just see how many friends or fans or follows you can accumulate. You might have an “impressive” number, but without building a relationship with your contacts, that list is of no real value to your business. Just as you make efforts to get to know your face-to-face business associates and clients, you need to create that same relationship with your followers.

Create viral content: You will attract more quality contacts by providing real value in your communications. Seek to share and educate freely and you will be rewarded by being promoted by your contacts virally.

Remember your audience: Think through who your audience is and how you can best serve them. Constantly promoting the wrong or same message to the wrong audience is wasting your time and theirs. You will have greater success if you understand who the audience is for each of your social media campaigns and direct the correct message to each one.

Be present: You can’t play if you don’t show up for the game. Schedule regular “face” time in your social media venues so that you can make more contacts and deliver value to your potential customers. If you only show up once in a while and don’t have a strategic approach – you business will not see a benefit.

Coffeeshopreneur members should listen to our featured expert, Mari Smith. Her audio training will teach you
how to unleash the vast power of Facebook for your business. This audio training is provided FREE to members, so just go to the home page and click on the link.

What is Black Hat SEO?

By Melissa Shea

First of all, you’ve got to watch this video from the SES conference in London. It’s hilarious – and will give you insight into the myriad of opinions on the Black Hat SEO industry. Click here to see the SES Conference video

So what is Black Hat SEO and why does it generate such a strong response? It’s basically using SEO techniques in a way to deceptively improve your web site’s search engine rankings. In other words – getting people to your site without actually providing quality content. It’s bad – don’t do it! But, just for grins – go over this list and see if you are doing it and you don’t even know it’s Black Hat!

Keyword Stuffing
Are you placing keywords in your text that are unrelated to the content of your page? For instance, if your web site is selling a cookbook full of delectable dessert recipes, but you know most people are looking for cookbooks for low-calorie desserts, so you fill your web site with keywords that weight conscious web surfers are using – easily found within Google keywords tool. This brings more traffic to your web site where you hope to entice them to buy your cookbook. So not only are responsible for using Black Hat SEO techniques you’re also responsible for the added inches on thousands of hips!

Hidden and Invisible Text
This technique is used by changing the color of unrelated keywords to the same color as your background. As a web developer, I have had numerous new clients tell me their last web developer or SEO company did this – I’m always a little shocked when I hear it and surprised that the client doesn’t understand that this is deceptive. So if you’re doing it on your web site – don’t – you can easily get banned by the search engines if you do.

Meta Tag Stuffing
The search engines have really streamlined meta tag guidelines in recent years, in large part to prevent this technique. Now you only need to list individual related keywords separated by commas. EX: cookbook, dessert, recipe, fattening, yummy, calories, etc. NOT: weight loss, exercise, gym membership, diet, diets, diet, diets, etc.

Link Farms
There are many services that advertise that they can get your web site listed on hundreds of web sites. Many times the web sites are all inter-linked, creating a Link Farm. Black Hat companies do this by creating a community of several hundred or thousand mirror web sites that all link to each other. So you if you use them, you do get a lot of incoming links to your web site, but they are not high-value links and search engines know who the link farms are and can penalize your web site for using them. The best way to get incoming links is to personally choose which high-value web sites relate to your services and submit your web site one at a time. It’s time-consuming, but your rankings will increase because they are links that relate to your services and it will bring the kind of targeted traffic needed to your site.

Mirror Web Sites
This can be a little controversial as it is used more widely in the internet marketing world. Mirror web sites are the practice of creating multiple web sites with essentially the same content, but with different urls containing high value keywords. For example, you have a web site promoting your delectable dessert recipes and so you create 5 web sites with virtually the same content and buy 5 different urls that use high-value keywords such as www.the-best-dessert-recipes.com, www.chocolate-dessert-recipes.com, low-calorie-dessert-recipies.com, etc, etc.

There are a long list of Black Hat techniques, which you can read about on Wikipedia. Most search engines aggressively fight these techniques by analyzing your web site content to identify potential red flags. So if you’re caught participating in any of these techniques, your web site can be banned from the search engine or dropped from rankings. Instead, fill your web site with high-value content that web uses want to read!!!! You will drive more targeted traffic, get plenty of sales, and be able to sleep at night knowing that you are not responsible for selling fattening dessert recipes to be people desperately trying to lose weight!

Using Video On Your Web Site

By jen

I recently read that 77% of U.S. Internet users watched video online in 2008. That’s a lot of video! In fact, according to research conducted by comScore, a top digital research company, users viewed 12.7 BILLION online videos. That is a 34% percent increase over 2007.

Wow – that really surprised me! I knew the number was growing, but I was a little surprised at how quickly video has become a normal part of our daily life on the Internet. A 34% increase is a lot – and it got me to wondering what the increase will be for 2009…

O.K. before I let the numbers boggle my mind, I think I’ll just say – clearly, if you’re not using video this year to promote your business, you’re behind the times. Now, I know that sounds intimidating, and I’m giving you one more thing to put on your To-Do List, but I really mean it. If you haven’t done it already, it’s time to jump in.

It’s a reality that most small business owners don’t want to cough up the cash to have professional video created for their web site, especially if they have not tried it before. It can be very expensive, but if a professional video would generate 50% more sales for your business – would it be worth it?

Statistics on the success of using video on websites is growing as the usage grows and sales can be compared over previous years, but one thing is clear, everyone who is using it effectively is seeing significant increases in their sales from 30% to 150%. Some of the biggest increases are seen from using Video Spokesperson technology ( a spokesperson on a transparent background pitching a message).

There are volumes that have been written about the value of videos on websites and how to actually do it. So I’m not going to rewrite it. I’ll point you to some good resources at the end of this article. What I do want, is to convince you to pay attention to this technology and learn to use it to your advantage, in fact, Jen and I are eager to create our first video for the Coffeeshopreneur web site in just a few weeks!

Here are four things to remember when creating a video:

1. KEEP IT SHORT: Most professionals recommend that videos be 2 – 3 minutes long. That should give you plenty of time to communicate your message without boring the viewer. Remember, we all have very short attention spans and Internet users don’t stop clicking for long – keep it short and simple, and you’ll keep your viewer interested.

2. KEEP IT PROFESSIONAL: You need good lighting, good sound and a good background. Hiring a professional to produce your video will insure that these criteria are met, but if you’re not ready to spring for a professional, educate yourself on what makes a good video, look at other videos from professional web sites for guidance and bring in a second set of eyes to help you improve your video.

3. KEEP IT ON MESSAGE: This is good advice for any marketing effort! Create one message and communicate why your service is important, why the viewer needs your service, and how they can get you’re service. Don’t be shy! Use a strong call-to-action to get them to click that button!

4. DON’T KEEP IT TO YOURSELF: It’s great that you’ve just put this video on your web site, but don’t just stop there! There are an incredible number of places you can post video on the web. If you’re video is informative about a current trend or need, you could be driving easy traffic to your website.

Creating a video for your web site will take planning – so you better get started now! Here are some web sites that offer helpful information about planning for and creating a video. Learn as much as you can and then truly access whether or not you can afford to hire a professional to help you. Remember that your return will likely pay for the investment you’ve made. Creating a professional video will help your business soar above your competitors and create an immediate impact on your web site visitors.

Check out these links:

http://ezinearticles.com/?cat=Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Video-Streaming

http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://www.reelseo.com/

Please help our readers by sharing you’re experiences with video and resources you’ve found helpful!

Newer Entries »

Google Adwords 3.0

… And then come back and read the good news I have to share about the NEW Google Adwords! Read the rest of this entry »

What is Black Hat SEO?

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Google Adwords 3.0

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How did this happen? Yikes! What turned me into a twitterholic? Information. Pure and simple. Read the rest of this entry »

Caution: Social Media Can Hurt!

I’m leading with the ending here…

Here are some social media tips that will help – not hurt your business!

What is Black Hat SEO?

Using Video On Your Web Site

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