Link building is tough in any industry. And with the advent of aggressive algorithm changes like Panda and Penguin in the past year or so, SEOs and online marketers have to be increasingly smart about how we build links. Since a lot of links from low quality sites with the exact anchor text for the term you want to rank for will now get you penalized instead of helping you rank, we must increasingly find ways to get high quality links back to our sites.

So how do we do this?

We need the dual strategy of building relationships with influential people, as well as knowing how and when to ask for a link.

Let’s look at some examples.

Finding Influencers

If you work in-house, you already know who the movers and shakers in your industry are. If you work at an agency, whether a creative or marketing agency, you need other ways to find and begin building relationships.

If I were trying to find people influential about real estate in California, I would go use Followerwonk, a tool that searches Twitter biographies and returns a list of people with their following and follower counts, as well as the age of their account and a calculated “influence” score. If I ran a query for [california real estate], this is the result I’d get and my first people to try to build a relationship with:

Building a Relationship

Other than building a relationship in real life, which is always going to be the most effective way, you can use some smart tactics and tools to help you get on their radar. These include:

• Stalking them online;
• Using Rapportive to see their social activity and connect;
• Blog comments and social media engagement

Let’s go through these one at a time.

Stalking Online

“Stalking” can be a bad word. I’m not talking about the creepy kind of stalking here, but rather adding value to important people in such a way that they cannot help but notice you. We can use Google’s own tool iGoogle to build a dashboard that will help us keep track of a high value target. Here is a screenshot of one of mine, set up to build a relationship with Tim Ferriss:

Learn how to set up a dashboard of your own by flipping through this presentation from Wil Reynolds, the founder of SEER Interactive in Philadelphia.

Rapportive

Sometimes tools come along that make your life much easier. Rapportive has been one of those tools for me. Simply put, it is a Gmail plugin (that has now been bought by LinkedIn) that shows you relevant information about the person that you are going to email. It will show you:

• Their most recent tweets;
• Their most recent Facebook updates;
• Their LinkedIn profile which you can connect with directly from the plugin;
• and more!

Rapportive is phenomenal for helping you build links, as you can both become familiar with the person’s face and reference a recent tweet of theirs easily. Check out all the information you can get (screenshot from this post about linkbuilding with Gmail):

Blog Comments and Social Media Engagement

The average person sees your name and your website seven times before they are willing to buy. This rule can be applied to marketing and building relationships as well.

One simple and effective way is to add value through commenting on the person’s website and engaging with them on social media. Now remember, if this person is quite well known, it may take you more than seven times commenting and tweeting at them before you get their attention. This is why we are seeking to <strong>provide so much value that they cannot help but respond to you</strong>. And even then, it may take more work to actually get a link from them.

Don’t be creepy. Add value. People can sense when they are a target a long ways off. So don’t let them sense it!

Conclusion

I hope this post has sparked some ideas for how you can build relationships in order to build high-value links for your own business or your clients.

Your thoughts and any additional strategies that have worked you are, of course, welcomed and appreciated.

A special thanks is due to John Doherty who provided the tips outlined above. John Doherty is an SEO Consultant/Inbound Marketer and blogger based in New York City. He writes on his NYC SEO website a few times a week. During his free time he travels, takes lifestyle and travel photos, and enjoys checking out new restaurants in his home of Brooklyn.

Have you ever left a conference with the energy, excitement and newly attained knowledge still coursing through you? The Internet Marketing Experience, put on by the BlueGlass team, was one of those conferences. The experience was so positive that I feel obliged to share some of the highlights, as they pertain to online marketing, in hopes that others can benefit as well.

8 Takeaways from BlueGlass LA 2012

Instead of slapping all of the notes I took into this one blog post I thought I would make my takeaways a little more digestible.

Please note that none of the information are direct quotes from any of the speakers. The information is presented simply as my interpretation of the sessions I attended.

Takeaway #1: Predict the Future of SEO by Looking at Its Past

Many webmasters are scrambling right now to recover from recent Panda updates and webspam improvements in Google. Some experts, like Greg Boser and Jeff Preston, advocated the importance of being proactive. Avoiding these “catastrophes” is possible by doing proper research on Google’s past and future plans and by taking advantage of the constant updates and recommendations that Google publishes.

Stay updated on Google’s patent filings to allow yourself to be more proactive about upcoming changes to search and social

Greg Boser, President of BlueGlass Interactive

Take advantage of OpenGraph and Schema.org to showcase better snippets in Facebook and Google’s search results

Jeff Preston, SEO Manager for Disney Interactive Media Group

Takeaway #2: Better Marketing Messages Lead to More Conversions

As the competitive landscape continues to become more challenging and users grow more savvy of worn-out marketing tactics, actual conversions become more difficult to realize. Proven industry experts, like Mark Suster and Jason Nazar, proved that with the right marketing message and timing, exponential increases in conversion rates can be realized, even today.

Ads should be integrated, targeted, personal and measurable

Mark Suster, General Partner of GRP Partners

The most important thing to drive an action on a landing page is the headline, not the call to action button(s)

Jason Nazar, CEO and Co-Founder of DocStoc

Takeaway #3: Delivering Targeted Content to an Audience You Understand is Incredibly Effective

Many marketers make the mistake of marketing to an audience that they don’t really know that well. Chris Brogan and Brian Clark, both extremely well-respected marketers, reminded us that highly targeted content and marketing messages to an audience that you know inside and out can do wonders for your business. Couple those things with effective tools, like email marketing, and you all of a sudden have a marketing powerhouse working for you, not you working for it.

Brevity and simplicity are key to effective email marketing campaigns

Chris Brogan, President of Human Business Works

Don’t talk like an advertisement if you want results from email messages or landing pages

Brian Clark, CEO of CopyBlogger Media

Takeaway #4: It IS Still Possible to Build High Quality Links

Very few marketers enjoy link building. It is tedious, time consuming work. The results of high quality links are impossible to ignore though so Jon Henshaw and Jamie Steven, seasoned link building professionals, explained how a little creativity and a regimented approach can make effective link building possible.

Maintain a consistent process to find, manage and attain the best links

Jon Henshaw, Co-Founder and Director of Product Innovation at Raven Internet Marketing Tools

Some of the best links come from business development and relationship building

Jamie Steven, VP Marketing of SEOMoz

Takeaway #5: Stop Worrying About Data that You Don’t Have and Work with Data that You Do Have

Ever since Google decided to start encrypting its data for signed in users, the entire SEO industry was in an uproar. Marty Weintraub and Alan Bleiweiss reminded us that we need to stop fretting over what we can’t control and work with the data that we do have available to us. They even showed us some valuable workarounds and helped us to use data readily available to us to get to the same place.

Cross-reference Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics data to find valuable information about what phrases your visitors are using

Marty Weintraub, CEO of aimClear

Sometimes “not provided” data is not that valuable anyways. Look at what those visitors are doing on the site before worrying about what key phrase they used.

Alan Bleiweiss, Director of Search Services of Click2Rank

Takeaway #6: Good Customer Service Trumps PR

So many companies continue to put their focus in the wrong place when it comes to PR. Peter Shankman and Sonia Simone reminded us that great customer service will always be more effective than forced PR efforts. Simple things like being responsive to your customers, having an active presence in social media and involving customers in the creation of your content can go a lot further than the thousands of dollars that many companies still pay for PR.

Get good at writing headlines

Peter Shankman, Founder of Help a Reporter Out

If you want people to talk about what you’re doing, then do something epic

Sonia Simone, Co-Founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media

Takeaway #7: Leverage Creative Content to Market Your Business More Effectively

Content comes in many forms. From articles to videos to infographics, the more targeted and creative the content the more effective it will be. Content marketing pros, Hiten Shah and Dan Tynski, showed real world examples of content pieces they used to effectively market their businesses. Beautiful infographics that displayed useful data in a visually appealing way helped them realize more traffic and leads than most other marketing efforts.

Use content marketing to promote content marketing

Dan Tynski, Director of Marketing of BlueGlass Interactive

You need to know who your customers are and where they hang out online before you create content for them

Hiten Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of KISSMetrics

Takeaway #8: Build Your Website on WordPress

When asked if there was anything that they would not use WordPress for, both Joost de Valk and Andrew Norcross, didn’t hesitate for a second in saying, “No, I’d use WordPress for everything”. These were strong words coming from two highly respected WordPress experts who have seen and built it all when it comes to website development.

Keep your WordPress plugins to a minimum and only use ones from developers you trust

Joost de Valk, Freelance SEO Consultant and WordPress SEO Specialist

Use single serving WordPress plugins when possible, but build all simple plugins into your WordPress theme

Andrew Norcross, Senior WordPress Developer of BlueGlass Interactive

Special Thanks

As mentioned previously, this conference was easily one of, if not, the best conference I have attended. The mix of expertise, location, planning and content made BlueGlass LA a true Internet Marketing experience for me. I encourage anyone interested in experiencing one of these for themselves to try and make the next conference in December of this year.

I would like to personally thank the entire BlueGlass team and all of the speakers that took time out their busy schedules to drop some actionable knowledge on everyone in attendance.

I took tons of notes, met some fantastic people and learned a bunch. If you’re interested in learning more about my experience and would like to keep the conversation going, then please do so in the comments section below.

Looking forward to the next event…

(all images are courtesy of BlueGlass)

The online marketing industry has been one of the hottest, fastest growing industries in the past 5 years. As companies, large and small, look to improve their online presence and expand their service offerings to their own customers, qualified online marketing specialists continue to become more valuable and in-demand.

Being in the industry myself for the past 10 years I have accumulated a good amount of experience in finding, landing and hiring online marketing positions. These things are not what have inspired me to right this post though.

Instead, I frequently get asked how and where to find / land an online marketing job. So, I thought I would use this opportunity to provide an answer to more than one person at a time by summarizing and outlining most of what I have come to know.

Disclaimer: All I am offering is advice, based off of my experience, so it should only be taken as such. Do not rely solely on my suggestions. Talk to multiple people and get as much advice as you can. All of it will benefit you in the long run. 

Finding the Job

Knowing what type of company you want to work for can often be more important than exactly which position you want to take on. If a company is a good fit for you, and vice versa, then you will be in a better state of mind to grow within the industry.

Here is a roadmap for how and where to find your dream online marketing job, at the right company for you:

STEP 1: Pin Down a Location

I’ve seen long commutes really hinder someone from enjoying their job, staying focused and maintaining motivation. Unless you have some secret route to every point in your area where traffic is not an issue, then I would highly recommend trying to keep your search within a 10-15 mile radius of where you currently reside.

Obviously this all assumes that you are not willing to uproot yourself and find a job in another state or something. Also, I’m not going to mention telecommuting jobs as an option as I strongly believe that consistent personal interaction with other co-workers is a necessary element of a great online marketing job.

Tip #1: Try some of these Google search queries at www.google.com

• top companies to work for in
• digital media companies in
• online marketing agencies in
• best places to work in
• internet marketing companies in

You don’t need to limit your search to online marketing companies only as there are good jobs at other types of companies. However, if you’re really looking to gain experience, then I highly recommend you focus on finding a job at an existing online marketing / digital media company. In these cases, there will be at least one other person who can mentor and direct you down the right paths.

STEP 2: Get Social

Networking has always been one of the best ways to find a new job. Social media has made networking exponentially easier, and cheaper, and has become one of my top recommendations for finding that dream job. Once you have established your short list of desired companies to work for, whether they are hiring or not, then social media is your next move.

Here is a roadmap for how and where to use social media to find that perfect internet marketing opportunity:

Tip #3: Follow and interact with each company’s blog as well as their social media accounts on these main networks

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google+

Avoid common social media mistakes. Spend a little time “listening” to each company online before you go sending them a tweet or decide to comment on one of their blog posts. By doing this you will get a very good idea of what that company’s culture is like.

• Mashable
• Marketing Pilgrim
• SEOMoz Market Place
• SEMPO
• Indeed
• Simply Hired
• Search Engine Journal
• Craigslist (yes this is still a decent resource)

Landing the Job

So you’ve done your research, you’ve narrowed down the companies you want to work for in your area and you’ve done your due diligence to know as much as possible about each company. Now it’s time to lock down those interviews and make the best possible impressions when meeting with each company.

STEP 3: Prepare Yourself

The worst thing you can do when asking for, or walking into, an interview is to not be prepared. Even if you think you are good at “winging it” all it takes is one small question to completely derail your chances of making a stellar first impression.

Here are some guidelines to help you secure and nail those interviews by being prepared:

TIP #6: Brush up on the industry lingo by knowing the fundamental definitions of these basic terms and their respective acronyms

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Paid Search Advertising or Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
• Online Reputation Management (ORM)
• Email Marketing

I’d like to think that my resources are comprehensive enough to keep you from needing to look elsewhere, but realistically there are tons more, great articles available by doing a simple Google search. I encourage you to read as many articles on these terms as possible.

TIP #7: Become a “Digital Citizen” by having prepared responses to these questions

• Do you have a blog? If so, how much traffic does it get?
• What are your top 3-5 favorite blogs to read?
• Do you rank first for your name in Google?
• What social bookmarking sites do you use?
• How many followers, fans, likes, subscribers do you have?
• What social network do you use / like most and why?
• What is the most viral content you have ever created?
• Do you use an RSS reader? If so, which is your favorite?
• What social media tool(s) do you use to manage your account(s)?

A good hiring manager / interviewer will research and know the answer to most, if not all, of these questions before they even meet you. These are fantastic qualifiers of whether someone is able and willing to learn and consume a lot of information very quickly and use it across multiple responsibilities.

TIP #8: Update your resume and cover letter to increase your chances of someone reading it and remembering it

• Keep important, relevant experience at the top
• Use buzzwords (mentioned in Tip #6 above) correctly to help the hiring manager quickly see that you’re at least familiar with the terminology
• Provide specific examples / URLs (if possible) of projects that you have worked on that had some component of online marketing
• Include a link to your online resume in your cover letter (see Tip #9 below on how / where to create one)

TIP #9: Create an online resume and keep it updated with one of these handy services

• LinkedIn
• About.me
• VisualCV
• Re.vu
• WordPress (if you’re familiar with working on WordPress templates and have design / development experience)

The more creative, fun and original your online resume is, the more likely it is to be remembered. Check out this great example of a guy who applied for a job at Google by using some creativity on the web.

STEP 4: Nail the Interview

If you have gone through and completed the 9 tips outlined above, then you should be more than prepared to confidently sit down in front of any hiring manager to land your dream online marketing job. Getting to the interview is only one part though, now you need to impress the heck out of whomever you get to meet with.

Here are some solid tips on how to nail your interview:

TIP #10: Don’t underdress, even if you are told it is a casual environment.

Your seriousness about the position is often portrayed through your appearance. Showing up overdressed seems to always provide for some good laughs, and thus helps to lighten the mood a little as well. Besides this, showing up to your first interview decked out to the nines has seemed to become a rite of passage for most new hires in this industry.

TIP #11: Answer questions confidently and honestly.

The second you try to ‘bs’ your way through an answer you will lose all credibility. If you don’t know the answer to something, simply respond with “I am not familiar with that, but I would love to learn and am confident I can pick it up quickly and be able to apply it where necessary”

TIP #12: Prove your worth with action

Circling back to Tip #4 above, do some research to find something about the company where you have come up with some ideas / solutions that they can benefit from. If you don’t have the experience yet to identify anything, then ask for a take-home task where you can prove your willingness and worth – kind of like a homework assignment to prove yourself.

TIP #13: Follow up, but don’t be annoying

Before you leave the interview, make sure you are clear on when to expect to hear back and if it is on you to follow up (normally it is not). Do not call or email the hiring manager every other day, especially if they were clear about when they would follow up with you. I would recommend sending a “Thank you” letter (via snail mail). Someone did this for me once and it was a great personal touch.

[BONUS] Starting the Job

I feel confident that if you have followed each of the 13 Tips posted above, then your chances of finding and getting hired for your online marketing dream job should be very high. All of the time you have spent researching, engaging, preparing and positioning yourself to get that job will come to be extremely handy for your future career in Internet Marketing.

Through these 13 tips you should have also learned how to:

• Improve your Google search skills
• Optimize your social media profiles
• Up your game in social media interaction and engagement
• Increase your social media reach
• Create a foundation for your online marketing knowledge-base
• Leverage web, desktop and mobile apps to keep you on the cutting edge
• Manage your online reputation
• Recognize talent and value in other co-workers, friends or social contacts
• Expand your network

All of these skills will continue to make you extremely valuable to your new company and pave the way for a long, successful career in Online Marketing.

Continue to build your worth in the industry with some of these final takeaways and tips:

• Follow / read lots of blog articles every week
• Follow notable people in the industry and just observe how they post content and interact with their followers
• Build your own website and use it as a test bed to try different online marketing tactics
• Get offline and meet and talk to people in the industry (ask lots of questions)

Good luck on your dream job search and in your new job, when you land it.

If you have any specific questions or comments that you’d like to add, then please leave me a comment below.

If you want your website to rank high in the search engines for its relevant key phrases, then it needs two things: (1) Quality Content and (2) Quality Inbound Links. In this post we are going to help you understand exactly what a “quality link” is and how to actually attain them.

What is a Quality Inbound Link?

We are going to go straight to the source for this one.

“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.” - Google Webmaster Central Blog

In other words, if you have a website about Dog Toys, then a quality inbound link would be like the following examples provided in the article below about “Top Dog Toys to Combat Boredom”:

Criteria for a High Quality Inbound Link

To go a little deeper into why the link examples provided above are considered “high quality” it is important to understand the criteria that really make a link effective for your website. Getting a link that meets all, or most, of the following 10 criteria will really help your web page to eventually rank well for its target key phrase(s):

1) Relevancy
The website / web page with the link is “relevant”, in topic / theme, to that of your website

2) Website Age
The age of the website linking to you is as old as possible (preferably more than 2-3 years)

3) Web Page – PageRank
Web Page PageRank is preferably above a PageRank of 2/3

4) Website – PageRank
Overall Site PageRank is preferably above a PageRank of 2/3

5) Dilution
There are less than 20-30 outbound links on the web page where your link is located

6) Anchor Text
The proper anchor text is being used for the link (eg. “popular dog toys” instead of “click here”)

7) Dofollow
The links are “dofollow” meaning the webmaster allows links on the website to pass “link juice” to other websites

8) Credibility
Any external links are of high quality (ie. no links from pages with links to unrelated sites like Gambling, pharma, adult)

9) Link Location
The link is placed as high on the page as possible, preferably surrounded by contextually relevant content

10) Individuality
Each link is coming from a website with a unique IP address (ie. don’t want all links to all come from the same website / IP)

Extra Criteria

On top of these 10 main criteria, there are a couple extra criteria that also contribute to making a link higher quality, and thus, more effective:

1) Trustworthy
Linking website has a “No Disclaimer Policy” stating that the webmaster does not take / receive any sort of paid links, paid reviews, etc.

2) Social
Links come from authoritative social sites like Facebook and Twitter

What are the Different Types of Links?

Quality inbound links can come from many different places on the web. Realistically, you are not going to get links that meet 100% of the criteria listed above every single time. In many cases this is fine though as some lower quality links can still be helpful in proving that your website is a relevant, authoritative resource and also in delivering traffic to your website / blog.

That said, it is important to know what the different types of links are and where they can come from so that you can properly allocate your time and effort when building links.

High Authority Links

Level of Difficulty: HIGH
Value: HIGH
Result: SEO, Traffic, Branding

Authority links are the most valuable types of links you can get for your website. And, at the same time, they are also they most difficult links to get as well. These links take a lot of research, creativity, negotiation and time to attain. These links are an absolute necessity for your website, especially if it is brand new.

TIP: Do a Google Search for your top key phrase, note the top 5 organic results and then research to see who is linking to them. A tool like Yahoo Site Explorer can help you find this information.

Directory Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: MODERATE
Result: SEO

Although links from directories are starting to lose value due to over saturation, some web directories still provide a significant amount of value as linking sources. Directory links maintain much of their value in their relevance to your website and the history and legitimacy that many of the top ones have accumulated over the past 10 years or so.

TIP: Keep your directory links to less than 15% of your link portfolio

Reciprocal Links

Level of Difficulty: MODERATE
Value: MODERATE
Result: SEO, Traffic

A reciprocal link is simply a link that you have exchanged with another website owner or blogger. In other words, they have placed a link on their website / blog in exchange for you placing a link on your website / blog that points back to their website / blog.

TIP: Keep your reciprocal links to a minimum (less than 10% of your link portfolio) to avoid any unwanted attention from Google. Use them to get new web pages crawled quickly by exchanging links with an authoritative, frequently crawled website.

Sitewide Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: LOW

Result: SEO

Sitewide links are links that are placed on every page of a single website. Many text link brokers offer these types of links, but too many of these can quickly raise a red flag with Google.

TIP: Unless you are creating websites and have to have your company anchor text link in the footer of every page of the website, then you are better off just completely avoiding these types of links.

One-way Links

Level of Difficulty: HIGH
Value: HIGH
Result: SEO, Traffic

These types of links are most definitely the most coveted types of links as

they can really help to pass some valuable link juice without you have to reciprocate with a link. Like authority links, oneway links are very difficult to attain so you’re going to need to be extremely creative to capture these.

TIP: Personal connections make for fantastic and successful oneway link building strategies. Just remember to try to keep your one way links to sites that are relevant in topic.

3-Way Links

Level of Difficulty: MODERATE
Value: MODERATE
Result: SEO

These types of links are explained as follows: Site A links to Site B. Site B links to Site C. Site C links to Site A. 3-way links are really just another form of reciprocal links and should be limited to a small percentage of your overall link portfolio.

TIP: As with any reciprocal link exchange, make sure to stay on topic and use 3-way linking on a limited basis

.Edu and .Gov Links

Level of Difficulty: HIGH
Value: HIGH
Result: SEO, Traffic, Branding

These types of links are the holy grail (in most cases) for link builders everywhere. These links hold so much value because (in most cases) because these websites hold much more credibility, legitimacy and authority, in the eyes of the search engines, than most commercial websites. These links are at the top of the link pyramid and are extremely difficult to attain without the proper experience or know-how.

TIP: Start with your local colleges and government organizations to discover possible link opportunities from .edu and .gov websites.

Media Links

Level of Difficulty: HIGH
Value: HIGH
Result: SEO, Traffic, Branding

Media links consist of links from websites that belong to or are associated with radio stations, news outlets, newspapers, magazines, etc. These types of links offer value as they typically have strong trust levels with the search engines, but they can often be difficult to find for specific topics you need.

TIP: Build a network of relationships with local, regional and national journalists.

Press Release Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: LOW
Result: Traffic, Branding

Probably one of the easiest types of links to get, but usually not the most valuable in terms of passing valuable link juice. Theses types of links can be good sources of traffic if your press release is timely and relevant to a trending topic. Press release links are simply attained by submitting press releases online and syndicating them to as many outlets as possible.

TIP: Make sure to implement the proper on-page optimization on your press releases to truly benefit from any links you may get from these.

Article Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: LOW
Result: Traffic, Branding

Much like Press Release links, article links usually deliver very little value to help your website’s rankings. Again though, if an article is of good enough quality and submitted to the right place at the right time, then you could benefit from some decent traffic and brand support.

TIP: Take the extra time to write some quality content for your article and focus on submitting it to more well known sources like Wikipedia or Google Knol.

RSS Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: LOW
Result: Traffic

Again, one of the easier types of links to attain, but not the most valuable. These types of links come from blog readers from subscribing to your RSS feed and possibly re-syndicating it for you.

TIP: Google’s newest algorithm update has penalized websites that rely solely on scraping this type of content and re-posting it as their own. This doesn’t affect you as the source, but it should tell you how important Google thinks these related links are.

Comment and Profile Links

Level of Difficulty: MODERATE
Value: MODERATE
Result: SEO

These types of links come from commenting on other websites and blogs and placing your desired link within the comment. These links also come from setting up profiles on websites and placing some relevant information along with links to your website / blog.

TIP: Make sure to verify that the site you are commenting on or the profile you are setting up does not “nofollow” links that people place.

Social Media Links

Level of Difficulty: LOW
Value: HIGH
Result: SEO, Traffic, Branding

These types of links are pretty self-explanatory as they come from social media websites and networks like Facebook and Twitter. Although the level of difficulty in attaining these types of links is relatively low, their value continues to climb as the search engines continue in the direction of using social signals to assist in organic ranking factors.

TIP: Leverage your pre-existing networks on the social media sites you frequent most to get relevant links to your website.

How to Actually Get Links?

Knowing what the different types of links are should help you to decide what types of links you want to go after and how you want to build your link portfolio.

The best types of links come from great content, creativity and actual relationships. If you’re able to produce these then your link building efforts should be fun, exciting and fruitful. If you’re not, then you have a lot of hard work ahead of you. The tips below should get you started either way.

Actionable Ways to Build Links – The 5 B’s

1. Buying
2. Borrowing
3. Begging
4. Bartering
5. Baiting

Link Buying
Although link buying is “frowned upon” by Google, many people have done it, do it now and will continue to do it as it is one of the best ways to get quality links.

DO THIS: Find a website that you really want a link from and make the website owner an offer to compensate them if they place a link on their website back to yours. Make it a no-brainer for them by (1) offering reasonable compensation and (2) providing all necessary HTML and instructions.

DON’T DO THIS: Pay a link broker to place links for you on websites within their “link network”, which usually consists of low quality websites with links to many other websites.

Link Borrowing
Like link buying, link borrowing involves some type of compensation (financial is usually best) for a web master to place a link on their website back to yours. The payment, in this case, would not be front loaded, but rather spread over a period of time or tied to some type of metric increase (eg. traffic, sales, etc).

DO THIS: Offer a website owner that you want a link from a percentage of sales made as a direct result of the traffic increase provided by the link they place for you.

DON’T DO THIS: Pay monthly for a “leased” link that the website owner could potentially take down at their will after you have already fronted some money for the link.

Link Begging
This is all about selling your website as a resource to the website owner that you’re trying to get a link from. If you are able to convince them that there is some benefit in them placing a link on their website back to yours then you have successfully begged for a link.

DO THIS: Direct the website owner that you want a link from to an authoritative / useful / relevant page on your website to convince them that their website would benefit from linking to you. If you can make them feel comfortable with their website visitors leaving their website to go to yours then you will be set.

DON’T DO THIS: Send impersonal email blasts to website owners. Website owners get enough of this spam as it is already.

Link Bartering
Pretty self-explanatory, but this all about exchanging something of value for a link on the website you wish to get a link from. Link bartering can be a very effective, and inexpensive, way to get the links you need.

DO THIS: Find the website you want to get a link from, get in touch with the webmaster and offer them something of value (eg. free product of yours, gift certificate, link from another website you own) in exchange for a link on their website.

DON’T DO THIS: Offer them a reciprocal link. You want to try and avoid filling your link portfolio with reciprocal links.

Link Baiting
By far the most effective, and natural, way to build quality links is through link baiting. Link baiting involves the creation of content to naturally attract relevant inbound links to your website or blog.

DO THIS: Create a series of TOP 3 articles on your website / blog that features the top 3 products / companies that are relevant to your business. Contact these businesses to let them know about the article, which, if positive, is usually something that they will want to repost or promote on their website.

DON’T DO THIS: Publish controversial articles just for the sake of being controversial or of which features inaccurate information about mentioned companies. Bad publicity is usually good in some way, but karma usually gets it way so do what’s right.

Build Your Link Portfolio…for the Right Reasons

Link building is one of the most effective ways to get your website ranked highly in the search engines. Link building works so well because it helps the search engines to see your website / blog as an authority and popular destination for its users.

When it comes down to it, the web is really just a popularity contest and links are the votes of popularity your website needs to be seen online.

All of this aside, it is crucial to understand why you’re really building links in the first place. Organic rankings are essential for just about every business these days. However, many people get so focused on the actual rankings themselves as the goal of their link building campaign and forget what link building, and all other online marketing strategies, are really all about….

Driving as many relevant, targeted visitors to your website to create as many opportunities as possible for these visitors to become leads / customers.

So remember, as you start your link building campaign, or continue to work on your existing one, ask yourself these questions:

• Will this link drive the right kind of traffic to my website / blog?
• Does this link compliment my website’s content / theme?
• Will my website get more business as a result of having this link?

Good luck with your link building endeavors. Hopefully the information above will prove useful as you decide where to spend your link building efforts. Feedback is welcomed. So, if you have some link building concepts or ideas that you don’t mind contributing then please LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW.

If you found this post useful, then please link to it by copying the HTML below and placing it on your website  :)

<a href=”http://www.businessmarketingblog.org/understanding-link-building” target=”_blank”>Understanding Link Building</a>

Online marketing is not all about techniques and tactics that search marketing professionals are best suited for. As a matter of fact, some of the most effective marketing strategies involve little to no expertise or experience with things like Search Engine Optimization or Paid Search Marketing. One of these new mediums that we are referring to is Online Marketing through Group Buying websites. This strategy is quickly gaining traction as a truly effective marketing medium and we’re going to tell you all about it so you can start taking advantage of it yourself.

What are Group Buying Websites?

Group buying websites leverage the power of collective bargaining to provide attractive local deals that offer significant savings for consumers while also promising lucrative sales numbers to participating merchants. These local group buying websites, like Groupon, BuyWithMe and SocialBuy, have gained a lot of traction as they offer short term, daily deals that discount luxury items and everyday products all the way up to 50% off. Products and services offered tend to sell out within hours, thus making this a very attractive and affordable marketing solution for local businesses.

Group Buying Websites Defined

A business promotes their product or service on the group buying website (i.e. Groupon), typically marking down the cost of the item by 50%, sometimes more and sometimes less. For consumers to take advantage of this deal, a minimum number of buyers must also buy in. Consumers secure their position and interest in the deal by providing their credit card number. This credit card is only charged once the deal attracts the minimum number of consumers who sign up for the deal.

The business advertising their product pays nothing upfront and if the deal does not attract the minimum requirement of sign ups, then the business pays nothing at all. Once the deal is valid (i.e. the minimum number of participants is met) then the group buying site charges the consumers’ credit cards. The group buying site keeps a percentage of the sales as their commission, cuts a check to the business that advertised their product and sends a voucher to the consumer.

Top Group Buying Websites

To help you understand the viral nature of this coupon phenomenon and to get you thinking about how and what you can promote your products and services, we thought it would be helpful to provide a short list of some of the top group buying websites so you could start playing around with them yourself.

Groupon

This is the original group buying and coupon website that sparked it all. Due to its fantastic funding, Groupon offers the most local deals in the most cities across the US, thus making it the most popular option. An added plus of Groupon is that someone can purchase Groupons for their friends or buy gift certificates as well turning this service into a very nice gift option.

BuyWithMe

Although BuyWithMe still only has a limited presence in the US, this site is unique in that it promotes its daily deals through the social web. In addition, and to the advantage of local merchants, this service cancels any deals if the business promoting it does not obtain the sales volume or numbers that it requires.

SocialBuy

SocialBuy, relying more on email marketing to promote their daily deals, showcases special deals on local products and services from food to health products. A nice added bonus that this website offers is a $10 credit in SocialBucks for every friend referred to the service.

CrowdSavings

Very similar to Groupon, Crowdsavings assembles large online groups of people to leverage the collective bargaining power to obtain unbeatable deals and discounts on local products and services.

PriceBunch

Much like the other group buying websites, Pricebunch offers some fantastic deals. The reason we mention this one though is that it offers up some very useful testimonials and reviews for each daily deal so that consumers can make an informed purchasing decision.

There are many more group buying websites out there, and even more sprouting up everyday, but the ones above are ones that we have found to consistently be the most simple, effective and attractive to both merchants and consumers. Don’t just take our word for it though. Get out there and find the best collaborative buying websites for your local area and ask how you can get your business involved.

How to Market with Group Buying Websites

Thanks to the simplistic nature of this group buying / social shopping business model, this “How To” section will be one of the easiest to digest. Not having to think about how many characters have been exceeded in your title tag or how your deep anchor text link is being displayed by some webmaster, this “How To” can be explained in three easy steps:

STEP 1: Define Your Offer

Before you spend any time contacting group buying sites it is imperative that you pinpoint what you’re offering down to its most important details. Many times businesses will put out offers that may seem like a fantastic deal since the cost is being deeply discounted, but once consumers are lured in it is not uncommon for these consumers to find that their offer was just the “cheese in the mousetrap” to spend up to two or three times as much as the offer advertised.

This is obviously a plus for many business, but remember that group buying is also social shopping. Anything social on the web now can also become extremely viral, good or bad. Just make sure your deal is desirable, transparent and inviting. If you can combine those three things into a promotion then you will successfully leverage any group buying website.

STEP 2: Find the Best Group Buying Website for Your Area

Now that you have chosen your promotion, the next step is to find your promotion portal. Although there are tons of group buying sites out there to choose from already, it is important to make sure that you select the best website for your local area and promotion.

Here’s a handy Group Buying Website Comparison Chart to help you make the best choice for your area and business. Groupon.com is the most popular to date, but this does not mean that other websites cannot provide you with the same upside, if not better, so do your homework.

STEP 3: Signup / Contact the Group Buying Website of Your Choice

Once you have narrowed down your choice, simply go to the website, find the “Business Owners” or “Advertise With Us” link (usually somewhere towards the bottom or top right corner) and enter the necessary information.

Some sites like BuyWithMe.com let you simply complete a form right from their website. Other sites, like Groupon.com, can sometimes require a phone call first to make sure that your business / services are a good fit for their audience.

Once you’re signed up and your promotion is running then sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Group Buying Promotion Success Stories

Like most business owners we’re sure you would like to see / hear some cases where businesses actually did well with their group buying promotion efforts so we have provided a few for you here. Before you spend any of your valuable time researching and using these group buying websites make sure that you feel comfortable doing so and also that this model fits what you’re selling.

CASE STUDY 1

COMPANY: Wendella Boats & Chicago Water Taxi
PROVIDED BY: Gregg Pupecki (Sales and Marketing Director)

Gregg’s company sold more than 5,000 discount tickets on its first Groupon promotion and 20,000 on the next, which gave people a 75 minute tour of the architecture lining the Chicago River.

Gregg says, “I think Groupon is one of the best sales and marketing tools to come out since the Internet. Groupon is something any business owner or marketing manager can do themselves, no matter what size the company is.”

CASE STUDY 2

COMPANY: Red Velvet Cupcakery and Tangy Sweet Frozen Yogurt
PROVIDED BY: Tracy Wilson (CEO)

Red Velvet Cupcakery offers $50 gift cards for $25 on LivingSocial.com three times a year. These promotions each bring in about $20,000 to $30,000 (about a week’s gross sales).

Tracy says, “It gives you a no-muss, no-fuss way of marketing your business without any major commitment.”

We would love for you to be our next case study so do some research and try promoting your products / services on one of these group buying websites.

Is Social Shopping the Future for Retail?

Social shopping may just be a trend right now or it may actually be the way that consumers come to expect retailers to sell their services; either way, it has proven to be effective, cheap and extremely viral so it’s worth trying out for now. Who knows, maybe it will end up producing a much return higher than your traditional print marketing, or even your search engine marketing efforts.

What do you think?

If you have any questions, comments or cases that you’d like to share with us, then please do so by leaving a comment below.

Online marketing is primarily about getting prospective customers exposed to your product, service or cause. Once you have made it simple for these prospects to find and see your business online, then online marketing comes to be about converting those visitors into leads / sales. One step past the conversion stage is to keep your newly acquired customers happy, satisfied and wanting more. Although this all may sound a lot easier than it actually is, an effective online marketing strategy, from initial touch to retention, can actually be quite complex.

Fortunately, online marketing feeds off of the technologies that continue to drive increased sales and higher customer retention rates. Business owners can now market their business, sell to their prospects and retain their customers – all from the palm of their hand. The booming smart phone market has completely changed how businesses interact with prospects and customers. Whether or not Steve Jobs of Apple had the foresight to know that his most innovative creation to date, the iPhone, would change the way that we all communicate with each other, it is obvious that his powerful hand held creation has quickly become an essential tool for any business owner.

Market Your Business…With an iPhone

Running an effective online marketing campaign can be a full-time job, let alone running a business as well. Luckily, there are numerous tools available that continue to make online marketing more convenient than ever before. One of our favorite tools is the iPhone. Apple’s iPhone, with its selection of over 1 Million applications, allows business owners and marketers to dynamically advertise and promote their business right from their mobile phone. With the amount of functionality that the iPhone has, it is possible to manage almost all of your online marketing initiatives from just about anywhere.

Here is our list of some of the most useful and effective iPhone apps to market your business online.

NOTE: This list will quickly become outdated so make sure to check back frequently for our newest additions

Best iPhone Apps for Social Marketing

Facebook – FREE

With hundreds of millions of active users, Facebook is an essential and integral piece of any online marketing campaign. The multiple features and vast network of potential prospects makes Facebook a fantastic medium for any business looking to market their services online.

Here are some effective ways to use Facebook’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Keep your Facebook Fan Page updated with useful information, tips and promos relevant to your business
2. Befriend prospective customers and listen in on conversations about those that may be interested in your services.
3. Keep your profile updated with relevant, entertaining and resourceful posts to keep your Facebook friends interested and intrigued

TwitBit – $2.99

With every Facebook account there is a Twitter account. Ok, not really, but that seems to be the case as most business owners who are spending time on Facebook are also investing some effort into Twitter. Although we find Facebook to be much more effective and far-reaching (once a network has been built up), we think that Twitter is a necessary social media marketing tool for any business.

We selected TwitBit as our preferred Twitter app as it has the most comprehensive set of features, including Push Notifications which are extremely vital for timely responses. There are tons of other greater Twitter apps available like Tweetie, HootSuite and SimplyTweet, but we have tried them all and so far prefer this one…for now.

Here are some effective ways to use TwitBit’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Tweet photos, videos and updates about products, services and promos that your business is offering
2. Search “Nearby” tweets to engage and converse with prospective customers
3. Use Twitter search to find trending topics relevant to your business and post relevant updates to start conversations with other users

LinkedIn – FREE

Although LinkedIn does not have the massive following or Twitter or Facebook it is still an extremely useful tool for marketing your business online. Much like other social networks, LinkedIn allows users to post updates and connect with other users to expand their social networks and business contacts. As LinkedIn continues to add more features to its platform it is quickly becoming one of the most essential social networks for every business owner and marketer.

Here are some effective ways to use TwitBit’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Post status updates with links to recent blog posts, videos, or other media that talks about your business, product or service
2. Participate in “Discussions” to prove your authority on specific topics relevant to your business
3. Connect or re-connect with other LinkedIn users to maintain professional relationships to realize the benefits of maximizing your networks

Foursquare – FREE

Localized marketing has become a staple for just about any business. Local search marketing and ge0-targeted applications are making it easier for prospective customers to find exactly what they’re looking for right in their own backyard. Foursquare, one of the top geo-location apps, allows people to explore their city and get rewarded for frequenting certain businesses and places – all from their iPhone.

Here are some effective ways to use Foursquare’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Promote rewards for frequent patrons of your business
2. Assure that your business listing is available and accurate in Foursquare
3. Converse with patrons of your business or those nearby

Yelp – FREE

Much like Foursquare, Yelp allows users to ‘check-in’ at local locations and businesses. What makes Yelp useful as a marketing tool is that it allows threaded conversations to be held for specific venues and businesses. Business owners can and should interact with their reviewers as much as possible to generate interest and participation. These interactions can ultimately lead to a loyal customer who may not have returned to your establishment past their initial visit.

Here are some effective ways to use Yelp’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Chat with local users via the “Talk” feature to answer questions and help users find the best products, services, business (i.e. Your’s)
2. Check-in to spots that you frequent and leave good reviews (if applicable) as this creates a domino affect and often times leads to people leaving them for your business
3. Stay on top of notifications of patrons that visit your business frequently and reward them for their patronage

Best iPhone Apps for Blogging

WordPress – FREE

Having a website and/or blog is a necessary tool for just about any business, especially if that business is looking to find prospects online through trusted, conversational channels. Making blogging even easier than before, the WordPress iPhone app allows business owners and marketers to keep their WordPress blogs updated right from their iPhone.

Here are some effective ways to use WordPress’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Add new posts relevant to your business, product(s) or service(s)
2. Moderate comments from blog readers to provide prompt and informative responses to pending comments
3. Add new static pages to your blog to help readers find useful content easily and to help your blog search engine visibility

Tumblr – FREE

If you’re like many business owners that do not have the time or expertise to setup a professional WordPress blog, then luckily there are other, more simple options for you. One of these options is the micro-blogging platform provided by Tumblr. A Tumblr blog makes it very simple for anyone, novice or expert, to post useful content online and the Tumblr iPhone app allows you to do so right from the palm of your hand.

Here are some effective ways to use Tumblr’s iPhone app to market your business online:

1. Post multimedia content (i.e. photos, videos, and audio clips) about specific products or services you offer
2. Add new posts about specific products, services or specials
3. Use the “Quote” tool to post testimonials from happy customers who have used your products or services

Best iPhone App for Web Analytics

AnalyticsPro (Thomas Blackburn)- $6.99

Tracking the analytics and web stats of your website and / or blog is just as important as writing content, building links and marketing your business on the top social networks. Knowing your website’s traffic and trends at all times will help you to make the necessary business and marketing decisions to maximize the amount of opportunity that exists online. The Analytics Pro iPhone app allows you to stay on top of your stats at all times.

Here are some effective ways to use AnalyticsPro’s iPhone app to track your online marketing:

1. Check daily, weekly, and monthly website traffic data to discover trends for future marketing campaign ideas
2. Stay on top of your website’s top content pages to recognize opportunities for conversion optimization
3. View the key phrases that are sending your website the most traffic for blog post or content page ideas

If so, let us know in the comments below and if they prove effective, then we will add them to our list above.

The Future of Online Marketing

This short list of the most handy iPhone apps for online marketing is just a taste of what we can expect for the evolution of marketing for just about any business. Soon enough the better part of an effective marketing campaign will consist of strategies that can be carried out right from one’s handheld device. As the iPhone evolves and competitors continue to push the envelope of what a smart phone can do, business owners and marketers will also mold their online campaigns to appeal to the millions of users relying primarily on their mobile devices.

So, if you’ve been holding out on getting that new smart phone you’ve always wanted, then it might be time to pull the trigger. The earlier you become familiar with these technologies, the better positioned you and your business will be going into the future. Technology moves extremely fast and younger generations, many of whom will be your target demographic if they are not already, will be using these technologies even more so. Don’t miss these great opportunities to market your business in as many places as possible.

As search engine users become more savvy, hyper-local search phrases will continue to become more commonly used. For businesses, this means that your website and/or blog must be optimized for its most targeted, local keywords. In addition, it is more important than ever that your business is properly listed in the correct places so that people can easily find your company when doing a search for a relevant product, service or piece of information that you offer. Just remember, the easier you make it for a prospective customer to find your business online, the higher your chances are of having the first, and hopefully, the last opportunity to make that prospect your next customer.

One of the top places to list your business is on Google, more specifically Google Maps via Google’s Local Business Center. With Google dominating the search engine market at over 65%, it is vital that your business can be found easily on Google for its relevant search terms. There is a great amount of opportunity that exists by being one of the first or few to properly list your business on Google Maps. That being said, we are going to show you how to rank higher in Google’s Map results as they are taking up more and more real estate in the search engines results pages.

UPDATE: As of April 19, 2010 Google’s Local Business Center is referred to as Google Places. With the same great features and advantages as described below, Google Places offers some fantastic opportunities for business owners to gain even more visibility and traffic online.

Steps to Getting the Most Out of Google Local Search

Google understands that people looking for information are no longer just looking for articles online, but rather a mix of photos, videos, news stories, books, music and local business information. As local searches become more prevalent, the increased need for specific local business results shall follow suit. Aware of this trend, Google has been displaying more and more Map results for local businesses. With these map results showing above the natural results in just about every case, your opportunity for increased exposure starts here.

Here are some of our top tips to help your business get the best possible positioning in Google’s Map results and thus, get even more exposure for your business on the largest search engine in the world…

STEP 1: Optimize Your Google Local Business Listing

Whether you have already gone through the basic steps of setting up your Google Local Business Ad or have yet to get this far, the following optimization tips will help to maximize the exposure and success of your listing in Google.

When setting up, or editing your existing listing, it is important to capitalize on every field that the business listing offers. Starting with the first step of the process, make sure to do the following:

• Use your business name, but try to work in relevant key phrases naturally (i.e. Business Marketing Blog)
• Use a description that clearly defines what you do, but make it actionable and naturally work in relevant key phrases
• Select categories that are as specific as possible to your business (if each category contains relevant key phrases then even better)

• Add as many photos to your listing as possible. Make sure to use file names that have relevant key phrases in them (i.e. business-marketing-blog.jpg)
• Add as many videos to your listing as possible.
• Use the ‘Additional Details’ section to enter relevant key phrases (i.e. Services Offered: Online Marketing News)

Once you have followed these steps and your listing has been confirmed (via phone or postcard), then you will have the ability to take advantage of a couple more optimization tips:

• Create coupons for your business listing (i.e. 20% off all products when you mention this coupon code)
• Get clients to add genuine reviews on your business listing
• Link to your business listing from your other web sites and blogs and get other websites to link to it as well

Step 2: Optimize Your Website to Help Your Local Business Listing

Directly optimizing your local business listing is a necessary step to get your listing to rank in Google’s local map results; however, it is not the only one. One of the best methods to help your local business listing’s ranking is something referred to as off-page optimization. Off-page optimization is the process of optimizing external web properties (using on-page optimization or SEO) to help your primary web property (in this case, your local business listing) to rank higher in the search results.

Assuming you have a primary website or blog (if you don’t then read our post on How to Get a Website) the following off-page optimization tips will help your Google Local Business Listing rank higher in the search results:

• Perform basic search engine optimization on your website (custom title tags, image tags, etc). Read more specifics in our post about How to Optimize a Website
• Place a physical address (should be the same as the address used in your Local Business Listing) and phone number with an <address> tag at least on your CONTACT page and one other page (preferably your home page). If your design allows for it, try to work in your address on ALL pages of your website
• Add hyper-local content that is highly relevant to your business. For example, if you own an Auto Repair shop in Los Angeles, CA then create some high quality content that talks about Auto Repair in Los Angeles, CA.
• Set your Geographic Location in Google Webmaster Tools

Step 3: Optimize Other Web Properties to Boost Your Listing’s Ranking

Similar to the tips provided in Step 2, optimization of other web properties, not just your own website or blog, can be performed to also help your local business listing. This type of off-page optimization involves using search engine optimization techniques, such as on-page optimization and link building, to help your local listing increase its authority in the search results.

Here are some useful, and effective, off-page optimization techniques to give your local listing as much of a boost as possible:

• Get your business listed in local business directory sites. Here are some of the top ones (Business.com, BOTW.org, DMOZ.org, YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, Yelp.com, InfoUSA.com, InsiderPages.com, Local.com, Kudzu.com, etc)
• Submit localized Press Releases about your business
• Setup accounts on other websites, like Squidoo.com, and populate them with relevant content and links to your website and local business listing

Step 4: Get Social to Increase Your Local Listing’s Exposure

Unless you have been living under a rock lately, then you have most likely heard of, or been involved in, the social media phenomenon that really took off in 2009. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn increased exponentially in popularity and user base last year and research shows that these trends will continue. It is not too late to take advantage of these networks to help your business get more exposure.

Here are some quick and easy tips to effectively use social networks to help your local business listing:

• Use Twitter to post relevant updates, promos, specials and news about your business (make sure to add a link to your local business listing whenever possible)
• Use Facebook to create a Fan Page for your business and post useful updates or start discussions with fans to create hype and a loyal, attentive following (again, make sure to add a link to your business listing whenever possible)
• Create a company profile for your business on LinkedIn and get employees to follow suit (don’t forget to link to your local business listing)
• Post and upload some fun, funny and/or interesting videos about your business on YouTube

Step 5: Jump on the Location-Based Business “Game” Bandwagon

Twitter and Facebook were unquestionably the trend kings of 2009, but our prediction is that 2010 will be all about some newcomers to the online and mobile space – location-based business “games”. These “games” are growing in popularity thanks to the widespread use of mobile apps on the iPhone and Google Phone. Making it very easy for people to let friends and followers know what they’re doing, when they’re doing it and where, these location-based apps / games are providing local businesses with some fantastic opportunities for increased exposure.

Here are some suggestions to get more exposure for your business while also helping your local business listing get some traction:

• Setup an account on Foursquare and make sure that your business has a listing in the app’s directory
• Setup an account on Gowalla and also make sure that your company has a business listing available for users
• Create an account on Yelp for your business and start promoting it to get people to participate and comment on your page

REMEMBER: Always make sure that when you are creating accounts, profiles or other websites that you include a properly formatted anchor text link back to your local business listing. It should look something like this: Internet Marketing Agency (notice how this links to the local business page for this company?)

If You Don’t Get Local, Your Competitors Will

As people become more familiar with the best methods of finding information, products and services online, it will only become more important for you to make sure that your business is properly positioned in the world’s largest search engine – Google. And as Google becomes smarter with how and when to display relevant results, you can bet the local search results will continue to become more prevalent for each user. So, don’t wait until every competitor of yours has a local business listing – follow the suggestions above and get on track to help your business grow today!

If you have questions on any of the advice provided above then please do not hesitate to leave your question below. Or, if you have additional suggestions that we may have missed then please also leave a comment below so all of our readers can take advantage of your advice.

Social media has exploded over the past 2 years. Businesses, large and small, are integrating social media marketing campaigns into their marketing plans. The ones who truly understand the purpose of social media are reaping the rewards while those who are just following the herd are having trouble justifying their time and money spent on social media marketing.

Don’t be part of the herd by making the same common mistakes when using social media to market your business. If you want to see real returns on your time, effort and money spent on social media marketing, then you must follow these simple rules:

• Be Authentic
• Be Consistent
• Be Patient
• PUBLISH GREAT CONTENT

If you cannot honestly say that you adhere to all 4 of these things, then chances are that you are not going to get far with your social marketing efforts. To work towards these standards it helps to look at what you’re currently doing and understand some of the most common mistakes that marketers make when using social media to market their business online. As well as you may think you are doing, you could very well be making these same mistakes without even realizing it.

Don’t Make These Social Marketing Mistakes

Two traits that consistently contribute to the most common social marketing mistakes are inexperience and laziness. You wouldn’t try to sell a home in a market you knew nothing about or expect to gain a listing by placing just one pathetic ad somewhere. That said, why would you expect to get leads, followers and subscribers from your social marketing efforts if you have no idea what you’re doing or by posting one pathetic tweet or blog post once every other month?

Surprisingly, the same people that are making these common mistakes and have these skewed expectations actually have no idea that they are making the most common mistakes. Fortunately, we are going to define what the most common mistakes are so at least you know what to avoid and how to best use your time, effort and money in your social marketing campaigns.

5 Most Common Social Marketing Mistakes

mistake #1: Being a Poor Listener

Whether you are brand new to social media or have been using it for a couple years now, the biggest mistake you can make is NOT listening to others. “Others” includes your prospects, your clients, your friends and most importantly, those who DO know what they are doing.

Social media is all about online conversation. A conversation is not a one-way thing. If you are not truly listening to what others are asking you or recommending, then you are wasting your time and cluttering up people’s social media streams.

TIP: Use Twitter Search to find people in your industry that are using social media effectively and listen to them. You will learn more than you need to about how to interact and use social media by doing this one thing.

mistake #2: Expecting Results for Doing Nothing

If you’re posting something on Twitter or Facebook only once a month, or even once a week, and are expecting people to engage you, then don’t be surprised if your social media world remains lonely and desolate.

People flock to social media sites to have interesting conversations, learn from authoritative people and get inside access that they would not otherwise have offline. By limiting your involvement in social media to a pathetic once a month / week schedule, you are drastically reducing the possibilities of prospects being able to find and engage you.

TIP: Use a service like Ping.fm to post something interesting, different, controversial, informative or engaging at least once a day. Using a service like Ping.fm will allow you to have each post get sent out to multiple social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many more.

mistake #3: Being Self-Centered

One of the quickest ways to scare people off or lose existing followers is to only talk about yourself / your company and then expect others to talk about you as well. If your social media content revolves solely around you, how great you are, or what someone else can do for you, then you are completely missing the purpose of social media.

People want to follow others who are givers, not takers. They are looking for interesting content. If you are able to deliver that to them consistently and effectively, then you are passively corralling these people to become loyal followers of you. Down the road this makes it easier for you to eventually talk about how your products or services can benefit someone as they will be much more captive at that point.

TIP: Use Google blog search and make it a point to read other blogs within your industry. You should be doing this anyways to constantly improve your skills and knowledge. When you complete an article, leave a comment for the author that asks a questions, disagrees with them, or provides some substance or support to the article written. Don’t leave a comment like “Great article” as this is pointless. The author of the article, and other readers, will see your comment. So, if it is interesting then you most likely get some visits back to your website.

mistake #4: Caring More About Making a Sale than Making a Connection

Everyone is looking for some type of ROI out of their social marketing efforts, but many people make a very common, and enormous mistake, when using social networks for marketing. If you want to lose all of your followers and prevent new people from listening to you in the future in the quickest way possible, then all you have to do is try to sell your product / service through every tweet, status update or blog post you publish.

Social media marketing is about making connections first and foremost. Sales come as a bi-product of these connections and should always be attained passively. People DO NOT want to get bombarded with sales pitches and updates about how great your product is over someone else’s. They want and need to connect with you first, trust you second and listen to you consistently after that. Once you have established these things, then sales will come naturally.

TIP: Force yourself to go one month without talking about your product online. Instead, focus your efforts on talking about everything related to those products or services. Think about what you absolutely specialize in and share that insight and information through great blog posts that are then syndicated online through networks like Facebook and Twitter. People will appreciate your knowledge, listen to you, trust you and eventually come to you directly for related recommendations and services.

mistake #5: Not Being Transparent

One of the greatest things about social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is that a normal, everyday person can get access to people and companies that they would otherwise have a very difficult time attaining. For example, if you have a problem with your AT&T service, instead of waiting on hold for 20 minutes, you can post an @ reply to AT&T customer care with your problem and get a response within minutes. Best Buy provides this same type of access and transparency with their @twelpforce initiative.

If you are closed off and do a poor job of responding to @ replies and requests in an open, honest way, then you will never realize the true potential of social media. If, for some reason, you are not comfortable being transparent, then you should analyze why this is because you may have bigger issues to attend to. Social media puts power back into the hands of the consumer so unless you learn to work with this, then you will not realize any type of ROI on your social media efforts.

TIP: Be proactive about being open. Don’t wait for people to call you or your company out on something. Post updates on mistakes you may have made, and also the solutions or plans of action that you are taking to resolve these issues. Request feedback from people and be ready for the negative stuff as much as the positive stuff.

Use Social Media Marketing to Your Advantage

More often than not we find that many people are intimidated by getting involved in social marketing. Common concerns revolve around time, expertise, ROI and vulnerability. These are valid concerns – if you allow them to be.

Social marketing, in its essence, is actually quite simple…

Publish great (interesting, unique, original) content consistently (at least once a week)

Do this and people will find you, follow you, trust you, listen to you and eventually, buy from you.

If you’re a terrible writer, then hire one. Great writers can be found all over the place. Craigslist or Guru are great places to start to look. Listen when we say that one of the best investments you can make is in a great writer. You most likely have tons of knowledge and expertise in your field so let it out and share it with the world. You will establish a loyal following quicker than you think.

Consumers have more power now than ever so enlighten them, interest them and most importantly, be honest with them, and your business will realize exponential growth faster than you think and more cost effectively than the old, traditional, ineffective marketing methods you are accustomed to using.

If you have been successful using social marketing to grow your business we would love to hear about it and even feature your story on our blog and social networks. Or, if you just flat out disagree with the recommendations we have made, then please engage us as we would love to hear why you feel the way you do. Either way, we encourage participation and conversation (as you should) so leave us a comment below or email us at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

Do you know what comes up in the search results when you query your name, business, company or product? If not, then you must read on because this post is going to help you save face and protect your brand. If you do know what comes up and it is not something you are pleased with, then read on as well as we are going to teach you how to manipulate these results to manage your online reputation.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Go to www.google.com and type in your name, business name or product name and check out what comes up on the first page of the results. If you don’t see any results for yourself or if you see something that you would rather not, then congratulations – you have done a poor job of managing your online reputation.

Online reputation management is all about establishing yourself as a credible, authoritative resource for whatever it is you do and keeping the most relevant, useful results about you or your business on the first page of the search engines. Just about every transaction starts online now and if a prospective or current client sees something negative about you or your business as a top result, then you are taking a huge risk of losing that opportunity, and many others.

How to Manage Your Online Reputation

Reputation management has become a necessity for any business as web applications and sites are allowing competitors and customers to litter the Internet with whatever they please. This transparency is definitely a step in the right direction as it gives power back to the consumer. Unfortunately, there will always be that one company that relies on bashing their competitors or that one past client who makes their sole purpose in life to bring down your company because of one bad mistake you might have made.

On the positive side, a solid reputation management campaign can help your business not only bury negative or damaging search results, but it can place your most important business news, web assets and client interactions at the top of frequented search results pages.

Google has actually just recently given the nod to reputation management by posting some advice of their own on how to manage your reputation through search results. Combining some of this advice with that of many other reputation management professionals, we are going to simplify Online Reputation Management for you and provide you with the most useful and necessary tactics.

Claim Your Brand Name

The first step to managing your online reputation is to claim your brand name online. Whether your brand is your name itself, your business name or your product name, you need to make sure that no one else has control of misrepresenting you online by controlling a piece of your brand.

To do this, use one of the following web services to lock up every instance of your brand name online:

• KnowEm.com
• UserNameCheck.com
• NameChk.com

TIP: Be consistent. Use one name across the board. For example, if your company name is XYZ Clothing, then use “xyzclothing” as your username for all of the services available through the 3 resources above.

Manage Your Brand Name

Once you have locked up the 300+ username accounts found through the resources above, the next thing to do is to manage them. Now, there is no possible way that you are going to properly manage all 300+ accounts so instead of spreading your time across all of these just focus on the top 10-25 (listed below). The 80-20 rule applies to these accounts as it does with many other things in business: the top 20% of these services will account for 80% or more of what is most effective.

Top Online Reputation Management Accounts

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Squidoo
• Google
• Multiply
• Vimeo
• Yahoo Answers
• Mahalo
• Card.ly
• Ryze
• Namyz
• VisualCV
• FriendFeed
• Ping.fm
• SlideShare
• Chi.mp
• Tumblr
• Posterous

TIP: With each of these listed accounts, you MUST (at the very least) complete your profile 100% by adding some content, a photo, your info and links to other websites / accounts of yours.

Monitor Your Brand Name

Claiming and managing your brand name are only 2 parts of the equation when it comes to managing your reputation online. One of, if not the most important pieces of reputation management is actually monitoring your brand online. Monitoring search results, blog posts, tweets, status updates and other mentions online can be an extremely difficult and time consuming task. Fortunately, there are some fantastic tools available for businesses to properly monitor their brand name.

Top Brand Monitoring Tools

• Trackur
• MonitorThis
• Google Alerts
• Twitter Search
• Google Search
• Yahoo Search
• Bing Search

With all of these resources, you will need to enter in your top search terms that you want to monitor. For example, if your company is XYZ Clothing then one of your search terms would be “xyz clothing”. These resources will query the major search engines, blogs and online mentions to let you know what has been picked up by the search engines.

TIP: Setup Google Alerts to automatically email you when a new mention comes up in the results. On top of that, check the search results at least once a week for your brand name to always keep a pulse on what these search results say about your brand.

Repair Your Brand Name

Keeping your brand name and online reputation completely spotless is a huge undertaking. Fortunately, as we have shown, there are many ways to manage and monitor your brand online. In the case where you do happen to come across something that is less than favorable for your company, immediate action needs to be taken so your company and brand do not suffer from the wrong kind of publicity. Before action can be taken and you get worried, it is important that you understand what can and cannot be done.

Top Tips for Removing or Burying Negative Search Results

• If you control where the result is coming from, then simply remove the mention of it from your site / blog
• If you don’t control the content, then send a request to the site’s webmaster.
• When the content has been removed, expedite the removal of the result by using the Google URL removal tool
• Create profiles (top ones mentioned above) to help push negative results off of the first page
• Post client testimonials on your website, blog, forum, Twitter, Facebook to bury negative comments
• PUBLISH CONTENT….lots of it!

Online Reputation Management Summarized

The best thing you can do to protect, manage and monitor your brand and online reputation is to post a lot of really good, interesting, useful content. This content should be / could be about pretty much anything that has to do with your business, clients, products, solutions, challenges, etc. There are literally thousands of things you can write about and post online. In addition, content does not just need to be text. Content can and should be videos, photos, podcasts, e-books and newsletters as well.

BOTTOM LINE: Create as many web assets for your brand as you can and keep them populated with great content. Do these 2 things consistently and your brand will be about as protected as it can get.

Do you have any additional ideas, solutions or suggestions that have been effective in protecting and managing your brand?

If so, we would love to hear about them. Simply leave us a comment below or send us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

One of the best ways you can market your business online is with a Press Release. These PR tools are relatively simple to setup and send out. More importantly, they can be extremely effective when optimized correctly for news wires, readers and search engines.

However, as press releases become more widely used by marketers, it will become increasingly difficult for your press release to stand out in the crowd. It is estimated that more than 2,000 press releases are distributed each day across the main online wire services like PRWeb. With that being said, we are going to show you how to optimize your press release so that it quickly gets noticed and so that it provides your website(s) with the most value for search engine exposure and branding.

Press Releases: Online vs. Print

A press release, as online marketers know it today, is a little different than the traditional press releases of just a few years ago. In the past, a press release required a drawn out writing, approval and publishing process. In addition, a business would usually have to maintain some pretty good contacts in the publishing industry to even get their press release distributed and circulated amongst the best print publications. Some of this is still true today, but smart marketers know that there are much simpler ways to publish an effective press release.

For the sake of this post we are going to use the examples of online press releases only. We feel that there are still opportunities for print press releases, but we have found online press releases to have the following advantages over print:

• Can be distributed much quicker
• Can provide SEO value to other websites
• Can be easier to find, read and pass on to others (more viral)
• More cost effective
• Larger reach through online syndication

If you have never setup a press release and don’t know where to start, let us know by leaving a comment below or sending us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

How to Optimize a Press Release

As with any other tool or piece of online marketing, optimization is required to ensure maximum exposure, branding and success. Press Releases are no different. Anyone can write a press release and send it out online, but without proper optimization it is highly unlikely that an amateur press release will receive anything but amateur results.

If you are going to take the time and spend the money to submit an online press release, then make sure to use the following 10 tips to properly optimize your press release first:

TIP #1: Make it Newsworthy

If your press release is not newsworthy, then please do not send it out. We get enough noise and interruption in our daily lives so if you are going to submit a press release, then make it something interesting, unique and newsworthy.

Not sure what constitutes newsworthy? The most simple gauge you can use is a friend, family member or even a random stranger. Give them a brief summary of what you would be writing a press release about and gauge their reaction to see if they sound excited, interested or even a little curious. If their reaction is not made up of any of these emotions, then your press release is NOT newsworthy.

TIP #2: Use Keywords

Before you misunderstand what we mean, allow us to clarify….use keywords strategically, DO NOT STUFF IN KEYWORDS. If your press release is just a couple of run on sentences with one specific key phrase repeated many times over, then we promise you that it will be a waste of your time and money.

Instead, strategically insert key phrases into your press release content where they (1) sound natural and (2) provide value to the reader.

BAD EXAMPLE: John Smith, a business broker, just brokered a business deal that places them as one of the top business brokerages in the area amongst other companies that specialize in the business brokerage industry.

GOOD EXAMPLE: John Smith, one of the premier business brokers in California, recently orchestrated one of the largest deals in the past 10 years. This deal has placed John Smith of Company XYZ as the top producing business broker in the state for the 10th year in a row.

TIP #3: Use Anchor Text Links

One of the basic techniques with on page optimization for any type of web content is to use relevant anchor text links. Anchor text links offer value to your press release and the website(s) you are linking to by (1) increasing the probability that someone will click on your link and by (2) helping the search engines realize what the link that is pointing to your website is about.

Using our examples from above, let’s take a look at the difference between the wrong way to use anchor text links and the right way.

BAD EXAMPLE: John Smith, a business broker, just brokered a business deal that places them as one of the top business brokerages in the area amongst other companies that specialize in the business brokerage industry. Click here to view more.

GOOD EXAMPLE: John Smith, one of the premier business brokers in California, recently orchestrated one of the largest deals in the past 10 years. This deal has placed John Smith of Company XYZ as the top producing business broker in the state for the 10th year in a row.

In the “bad example” above, using a generic link with no descriptive text will decrease click through rates. In the “good example” above, a link with very descriptive text tells the reader that they will most likely be taken to a site that talks about John being a top producing broker.

BONUS: Do not make every anchor text link you create hyperlink to only your homepage. Try to find specific pages of content on your website to link to instead. If you find yourself with nothing but your homepage to link to then you need to get going on adding some quality content to your website.

TIP #4: Include Media

No one likes to stare at pages and pages of text. Text becomes more interesting and digestible when different types of content are included to break up any monotony. Some great forms of content to intersperse throughout your press release(s) are photos and videos.

Great images can speak a thousand words. Videos actually do speak for you, but in a more interesting and interactive way. Try including things like your photo (only if you’re at least somewhat attractive, seriously), your logo, or pictures of your business. You can also include videos of client testimonials or brief commercials about your business. Whatever you decide to include make sure that they are good quality as a fuzzy image or annoying video will turn someone away from your press release before they even read it.

TIP #5: Write Professionally

This seems like a no brainer, but you would be surprised at how many press releases we come across that are so poorly written it hurts to read more than a couple sentences.

When writing a press release there are some specific rules you must follow for maximum effectiveness. First, write in the third person. Most press release services will not even allow your press release to be submitted unless it is in the third person anyways. Third person writing makes your press release sound unbiased and as if a professional was hired to do a write up on your newsworthy topic.

Second, stay away from using industry jargon that interested readers may not be savvy to. Remember that your press release is ultimately for your customers. If they don’t understand it, then you are completely missing the point.

Lastly, reference reputable sources if you are going to include statistics or data in your press release. Nothing adds more validity to your statements and claims than a link to a legitimate resource.

Press Release Case Study

To help you understand how to use and optimize a press release more effectively, we thought it would be helpful to include an actual live example.

Business: Marcus & Millichap (commercial real estate)
Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/retailinvestment/realestate/prweb2967024.htm
On Behalf of: Brad Nathanson
Website: http://www.nathansonretail.com

This press release was professionally written and optimized by Brad’s marketing team. As a result of the marketing team adhering to the optimization tips and guidelines that most savvy online marketers use, this press release got an almost immediate push to the first page of Google’s results for a very competitive key phrase “retail investment real estate.”

The search result seems to be off the first page of Google at this point, but the press release received about 400-500 visits within the 3 day period that it was placed in this spot showcased above. To put things in perspective in terms of cost, this same amount of traffic for the same key phrase would have cost Brad at least $500 – $1000 in pay per click advertising with Google AdWords.

Online Press Release Advantages

As you can hopefully see from above, Press Releases can have a great impact on your marketing by driving relevant traffic to your website(s). There are some other key advantages that a press release can bring with it as well. Here are some of the main benefits that your business can realize from using optimized press releases:

• Attain relevant anchor text links back to your website(s) – link building, SEO
• Accumulate web assets that rank for your name, company name, product name, etc – reputation management, SEO
  
• Get relevant traffic from press release readers - traffic generation
• Syndication across hundreds, sometimes thousands, of different websites – link building, SEO, exposure, branding

Ready to start your first press release?

Go to PRWeb.com, or any other reputable online PR service website, and walk through the simple steps to get your first press release out there. Make sure to follow our optimization tips outlined above. And, if you have any questions or get stuck somewhere, simply leave us a comment below or send us an email at info@businessmarketingblog.org.

Good luck!