NMT - Web Sites, Software Development and Graphic Design in Huntsville, Alabama

OK, here's the boiled-down skinny on having folks link to your site:

One of the best ways (and FREE) to rise in search engine results is to have folks with high site ranks linking to you. It's like they're vouching for you saying "oh yeah, him ... he's with me."

But ... link exchanging has been around since the beginning of the internet and folks are TIRED TIRED TIRED of being nagged about "adding my link." However, if done right, personally and for pertinent reasons - exchanging links could be what helps you float to the top of Google search rankings.

Here's another video by Sage at WebMarketingWatch.com - he talks through some of these things in plain, and sometimes a tad sarchastic, language. Enjoy, but we take no responsibility for his attitude :) - SJ

Here's a youtube video that talks a bit about the FREE marketing you can leverage for your company. Warning: the guy in the video is either a Ben Stein fan or is about to fall asleep. At any rate, if you're a first timer to Flickr, this is an informative video for brainstorming how you can use Flickr (or other social networking sites for that matter) to promote your business / products for free.

Developing and evolving your keyword search term list is one of the most fundamental things you should do to drive traffic to your site.

Brainstorming with your staff and business associates is a good place to start. Knowing your industry, customers, language/terminologies, and cultures are initial enablers to building an initial keyword search list.

There are also professional research tools such as WordTracker and Trellian which provide leading keyword search term competitive intelligence. On a do-it-yourself budget, then tools such as 7Search are freely available.

Once you have a keyword search term list built, now it's time to evaluate and determine the perceived relevance to your customers. This is not a stick a flag in the ground we're done job, but rather a continual process of staying in tune with the ever-changing mood, language, and trends of your customers.

An NMT SmartSite puts you in complete daily control over your web business making it easy for you to update your pages at anytime with keyword search terms. Something new, hot or exciting going on in your business domain, update your SmartSite and the search engine traffic will come.

The year end retail numbers are being reported and US online spending during the 2007 holiday season (November and December) totaled $29.2 billion, roughly an 18.5% increase over 2006.

An 18.5% growth is a noticeable drop-off from the prior year's 25% rate and is the lowest online holiday sales growth rate since 2003. It's now clear that retail e-commerce reached an important modulation point in 2003 when increased spending by existing online buyers replaced new online buyers as the engine fueling e-commerce sales.

Industry observers are now estimating that US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will reach $131 billion by the end of 2008. They are predicting that as the online channel matures over the next couple of years, the annual average growth rate will be around 18%.

A side note on one very important thing to understand, while there are no hard numbers on it, is that consumers say that positive window shopping experiences at a company online store did lead them to purchase at the company brick and mortar store. This translates into a sale that might otherwise either never have happened or gone elsewhere.

Increased spending by existing online buyers, rather than new buyers coming online, will continue to be the driving factor. This is the important trend for online retail customers to be mindful of.

As 2008 kicks off, know that the competitive bar has been raised. For online retailers to grow in 2008, you should now be enhancing your web business to do a combination of things; become more creative in both online marketing and the application of emerging web technologies, take customers away from competitors, motivate and make it easier for customers to spend more, and retain their loyalty. It’s all about your customer’s online shopping experience….think Customer Focused Shopping Environment.

So, you've heard your niece jabbering on about MySpace ... you may have even set up an account to browse. But have you ever considered the marketing potential of a MySpace page?

If you are selling products or services, MySpace can be a priceless, clever, FREE avenue for direct marketing. Imagine being able to search for through a HUGE community of folks - sorted by their interests and location - then send them a message to visit your MySpace profile (which should, of course, have great art, prominent links and teasers to your official web site)

This is shy banner advertising's outgoing little brother. Sure it's a bit time intensive, but hey ... it's FREE.

Go See Clark's MySpace Profile for a few ideas on leveraging Social Networking sites for your business.

MySpace Tips:

OF COURSE ... MySpace is all about "adding friends" - after you search for and find friends, a little courtesy and common sense goes a long way.

DO: search by interests, groups, hometowns to identify potential customers and add them as "friends"

DON'T: "add" mass amounts of random friends - unless you have a completely random products that is of interest to everyone (some revolutionary toothbrush or something) However, most businesses have more niche products and services and you'll do better to identify the most likely friends - who will see your "friend request" as usefull rather than bothersome.

DO:  FOLLOW UP: A quick personal message to your new friend after he/she adds you will really improve the likelihood they visit your profile, see your wonderful marketing message etc ... and click through to your web site.

At the end of the day, MySpace can be used as a brand-building and advertising vehicle - with potential exposure to mass, targeted customers. However, a personal touch is crucial as you are competing with millions of others on MySpace. 

Clark (See above) sends notes like this to friend s after they "add" him.

"Dearest batterman1976, I found you here and saw that you LOVE Yankee baseball. Well, I wrote a book I think you'll love as well. It's a sales book based on baseball's winningest strategies and it's called "The Perfect Pitch." I'd be pleased if you'd visit my profile and give it a look. Thanks! - Clark"

Of course it takes a minute to paste the comment / message in but ... the likelihood of that friend visiting Clark's site has gone up exponentially from a day ago when all they did was click "OK" to add him as their friend. 

 

- SJ