Marketing Guides

Google Places 101

Filed in Marketing Guides by on June 16, 2014

As you probably already know, small businesses are always searching for inexpensive ways to promote their businesses and attract new customers. One advertising avenue that is open to all businesses is to have a Google Places page.

When local consumers search for local products and services online, businesses can show up high in the search results with a well-optimized Google Places page.

According to Google, one in five searches includes a “location,” which prompted them to create Google Local. In July 2010, Google Local was renamed as Google Places.

Just as the Yellow Pages once listed services according to their locations, Google Places compiles lists of local businesses that offer the services and products that consumers search for online.

Therefore, having a claimed, verified, high-ranking Google Places listing is now crucial to every small business’ local success.

Google Places in a Nutshell

Google Places (http://www.google.com/places/) is a free service that is a part of the Google search engine that focuses specifically on businesses and their locations. It links to Google Maps and displays a list of companies in the area that offer services or products based on the user’s search terms.

For instance, if a search is made for bookstores in a specific location, all of the listed bookstores within that area will be marked on a Google Map with short reviews and often pictures and/or videos related to the business.

Google Places pages are usually generated automatically for any business that has an online presence, such as a company website. They are also generated for businesses that are already listed in other online directories such as the Yahoo directory, Bing Local, and others.

These listings are considered as “citations” and are very important in the ranking factors of Google Places pages. We will talk more about citations in a later section of this report.

When a user performs a search, Google Places listings are displayed and ranked in the search results using four simple factors. Based on these factors, each listing is given a score, which determines where it ranks in the results.

The 4 Key Google Places Ranking Factors:

1. The proximity of the business to the center of the specified search location.

2. The general SEO rating of the business listing in the Google index.

3. The quality of the citations that exist online for the business in all of the local directories.

4. The quantity of the customer reviews that are on the business’s Google Places page.

Once all of these factors have been considered, a page is given its final placement for certain local keyword phrases. Research has shown that consumers would rather take their business to a local company than make purchase online. However, they always go online first to actually “find” a local company to do business with.

While they’re there, they also read comments from other consumers about these companies to help them make a decision.

For instance, someone in Los Angeles needs a plastic surgeon may go to Google and type in “Los Angeles Cosmetic Surgeon” and a list of cosmetic surgeons in Los Angeles will come up in the Google Places results.

Google Places takes advantage of these very concrete search terms to return very precise search engine results to pinpoint the closest and highest rated businesses that match the query.

Users can then easily choose the closest business to their location that meets their needs or the one with the best customer reviews.

Google Places currently has 5 million listings2 that have been claimed by businesses around the world, with 2.3 million of them being in the United States alone.

Because Google generates place pages automatically, there are presently 50 million Google Place pages that are waiting to be claimed by businesses.

Studies show that 20% of all of Google’s 14.3 billion monthly searches include the location as one of the search parameters.

But many companies are missing out on this massive number of potential sales because they are not taking full advantage of this huge local market.

Listing Your Business in Google Places

Google usually generates the Place pages for businesses automatically, so it isn’t always necessary for a business to create one from scratch. Instead, they only have to claim the page that has been already created for their business by going to the Google Places homepage and following the ‘find your business’ links.

The service is completely free and if your business doesn’t already have a Google Places page, setting one up is as simple as creating a new Google account.

Filling Out Your Listing

If you already have an existing Google account, log in to your account, go to the Google Places website (http://www.google.com/places/),  and create a listing for your business using the ‘add new business’ tab on the home page.

To get real value out of the Google Places listing for your business, it is important to take it a couple of steps beyond just creating the page. Your goal is to ensure that you get the highest ranked listing possible in your business niche.

In order to make your business show up at the top of all the ranked businesses listed in your area, it is necessary to make sure that your listing is fully optimized.

For starters, be sure to fill the listing out completely. Enter your real location address, phone number, email address, and website address. Be sure to choose the proper categories that fit your business profile and do not leave any sections blank and make sure you have a 100% score.

Add your service areas, hours of operations, payment options, and as many videos and photos as you can (preferably add the max of 10 photos and 5 videos). Also use the free coupon section. All of this adds to your listing’s importance in Google’s eyes. So fill out everything so you can to get the best results.

Claiming and Verifying Your Listing

The final, and probably the most vital, step in the process of claiming your page is to verify that you are actually the owner of the Places page.

All new users and businesses that have claimed a Places page will be prompted to do this at the end of the registration process.

Google offers three verification options; by phone, by SMS message or by snail mail. After this is finished and Google has verified ownership, Google will then connect your websites and your business details with the Places page listing for your business.

To get the most out of your listing, it is important to make sure that the verification is completed and that the connection has been done correctly by going onto Google and doing a search for your business.

The Importance of Citations and Customer Reviews

Once you have claimed your Google Places page, the next step is to make sure that it is ranked high enough to be shown in the search results.

Two factors that play a part in this process are:  Citations and Customer Reviews

Although similar, these two elements have different sources. While you can’t do much to affect the reviews that you get, there is quite a bit that can be done to increase the online citations, giving your Places page a better SEO ranking.

Citations

Citations are the references to your business and its products or services that are found on the various local directories like ShopCity.com, SuperPages.com and Yellowpages.com.

Currently, Google lists the basic ones, so one way to really boost your citations is to look at your competition’s citation listings. Then, add your business to those sites so you can have a citation there as well. This will put you closer to your competitors in terms of ranking.

Because the crawlers visit these sites more regularly than static pages, it is best to have a strong list of citations on sites known to have a high trust rank with Google like Wikipedia or the Yahoo directory. The more citations that appear for your site, the higher the Google ranking for your business is going to be.

The real grunt-work of optimizing your Google Places listing involves creating a comprehensive list of citations across the internet that point back to your business.

By submitting your business details to as many of the trusted sources as possible, you only increase your chance of boosting your rankings and beating your competitors.

Obviously, this process takes a lot of time, effort, and skills to get the best results. Therefore, most businesses get the help of an experienced Internet Marketer who is comfortable performing this task. While there will be an investment, this route will save you a lot of time as well as increase your exposure more quickly.

Customer Reviews

In addition to citations, Google also considers the number of customer reviews you have when ranking your listing. In fact, the more reviews you have, the better.

Having awesome customer reviews is great because that is what consumers want to see when they are trying to decide whether or not to do business with a company.

However, when ranking your listing page, Google doesn’t rate the “quality” of the reviews and simply focuses on the “quantity” of reviews.

This means that even having 200 ordinary reviews is going to improve your SEO with Google more than four or five really good reviews. There is even evidence to suggest that having a lot of reviews can outweigh the quality and quantity of the citations.

Either way, encourage your customers to review your business as it can be a good, cost effective way of building your online exposure with little risk or financial investments to make it work for you.

Having reviews posted on an on-going basis is very important too. Don’t ever stop asking your customers to leave online reviews for your company because even if you have hundreds of reviews, it isn’t going to help your ranking if they’re all over a year old.

This is because the spider bots are always searching for fresh content when updating the Google indexes.

In other words, Google loves “fresh” content and this is why it pushes your page up the ranks if you have a lot of citations and customer reviews.

Google Places and Mobile Internet Usage

Another value that a Google Places page will add to your business is the reach it has for the mobile internet market. A very high percentage of shoppers look for businesses online using their mobile devices.

Some sources estimate that 10% of all searches are done from mobile devices, so this is the perfect opportunity for any business to convert online traffic into foot traffic.

One obvious advantage is that mobile internet users have been shown to take more immediate action on their searches in the real world than PC shoppers do.

Current statistics show that Google dominates the mobile search engine market with as much as 96.8% of all mobile searches using Google. This means that the most effective way at the moment to advertise online to mobile internet users is through an optimized Google Places page.

Recent predictions show that by 2015, mobile internet usage will surpass wire line usage. Therefore, having a strong web presence that is mobile-friendly will be vital to all companies in the coming years.

One enduring challenge for most small businesses is finding a way to be competitive in their marketplace. Implementing cost effective strategies to get your company’s message in front of consumers is one of the keys to successfully promoting any business.

Google Places is an avenue that every small business should take advantage of if they really want to compete with the corporate giants in their industry.

Setting up a Google Places listing page is not that difficult. However, it can be daunting and ineffective if not done properly.

Social Media Marketing

Filed in Marketing Guides by on June 16, 2014

The big buzz in online marketing today is Social Media. Chances are that you are more than familiar with sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube – and many others. The initial goal of social networking sites was to connect people with relatives, old friends, and colleagues. However, the marketing world is now utilizing this powerful tool to popularize business brands all over the world.

As a small business owner, you can market your business directly to consumers at no cost using various social networking sites. The only thing you need to do to be successful is invest some time to grow and nurture your online following – transforming them into loyal life-long customers.

Social media is one of the fastest growing trends online. In fact, there are more than one billion people in the social media community. You probably already know that many of your customers are socializing online every day.  Therefore, it would be easy for you to use social media to keep them coming back. Even if you only generated 100 new customers or sales through the use of social media, it is well worth the effort. The good news is that you can achieve these types of goals without spending an arm and leg.

Social media accounts are free to setup and use. This is why many business owners have recently turned to social media to get more website traffic, more customers, and more profits.

Creating Awareness About Your Business

When it comes to prioritizing your marketing strategies, it can be hard to decide what will make the cut. But the problem is that many small business owners usually ignore some of the most powerful strategies, such as Social Media Marketing. Most business owners simply do not have time to delve in this intriguing online concept and its mysterious features. Some of them do not understand what it Social Media is, while others think it’s only for teenagers. However, what they do not realize is that ignoring social media could be a huge mistake.

Look at it this way; a good number of teenagers who joined Facebook in 2007 are in their early twenties now and they are still using Facebook.  Not only are they using Facebook, but so are their children, parents, grandparents, and siblings. People of all ages, races, genders, and income levels are now using Facebook and other social media networking sites.  It does not really matter whether you are a fan of social media or not; statistics and technology determine how businesses should shift their marketing efforts.

Although the ultimate goal of Social Media Marketing is to generate more sales, the approach should be to create awareness about your business. It involves building a relationship with your contacts and reminding them that your business exists. Eventually, many of those contacts will convert into sales.

Is Social Media Worth The Time?

Social media is a very important marketing tool for businesses today. Everywhere you go, people are in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google plus and any other social network that connects people with others. With Facebook alone having 800+ million users, you know that your business needs to jump into the massive social media market. Small businesses have limited resources and it is up to you, the business owner, to find ways and to enhance your business’ presence.

Setting up social media profiles and campaigns can be a little confusing and somewhat time-consuming; but it cannot be ignored. To get started off on the right foot, take a really close look at what type of people you want to target online and then join the social media sites that can put you in touch with them.

Social Media is not a “set-and-forget” type of marketing channel. It will require that you set aside some time to update fresh content and interact with your contacts and customers in order to be effective. After identifying your target group, you need to plan out exactly what type of content you will be using to reach them. This content must be valuable, engaging, interesting, and informative in order to hold their attention.

So, building a social media following is just half the battle. The true value is determined by what you do with them; and the possibilities are endless.

Revolutionizing Small Businesses

Years ago, we all depended on newspapers, billboards, radio and TV for advertisements. That has long since changed with the introduction of various digital online advancements such as social media networks. These are simply websites that were created to help people connect with their friends, family, peers, and other professionals.

Social media has also been responsible for many small businesses, as well as multibillion corporations, to turn their backs on the world of traditional advertising.  As a business owner, you already know that the best way to stay in business is by keeping your existing customers, as well as generating new customers.

Social media is the perfect way to accomplish both goals without breaking the bank. Not only has it revolutionized the way businesses conduct certain activities, it has also changed the lifestyles of many consumers across the world.  People are now spending more time on social media sites than any other type of website online. Not only that, but they are staying connected with businesses that they like and want to do business with.

Therefore, it’s time to take your small business to your target audience.  By consistently communicating with your customers and followers, you will ultimately increase sales and profits.

Social Media Etiquette for Small Businesses

If you are still wondering whether or not you should join the Social Media explosion, you are probably losing potential business to your direct competitors who are using it. The question you should be asking yourself is “how” you should use these powerful networking sites to boost your sales and profits. Social media has definitely gone to places we never thought it could reach in such a short amount of time. Initially starting out as a place for online socialization, social media networks have stepped onto the frontline when it comes to online marketing and advertising.

Before you decide which social networks to join, it is important that you look at the advantages of each one, as well as whether or not a large portion of your target audience is spending time there. In most cases, most of your customers are using sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Twitter. Therefore, these sites should not be ignored.

However, one of the most important pieces of the social media puzzle is “how” you interact with your audience. It is crucial that you do not bombard your audience with constant promotions and irrelevant information. If you do, they will quickly opt-out of your network.  Focus on being consistent with your communications while providing valuation information and offers that your customers want to hear about.

To build a following that will generate new sales for your business, the key is keeping your posts and updates interesting, informative, and engaging. Plan your strategy accordingly and you will soon have a strong, loyal social media following.

Social Media: The Affordable Marketing Solution

It is quite difficult to understand why a small business would want to spend a fortune on conventional advertising when there are new and advanced methods that less expensive and actually generate results. Social media is a prime example. Social media networks are websites that allow people to socialize or connect with friends, family or businesses. There are millions of users on the top social media sites, so they are a goldmine for connecting with consumers.

These sites are free to join and offer a wide variety of features that enhance easy connection and sharing of information. Businesses across the world are steadily joining the various online social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube and many others.

Social media networks are known to influence people, which is why they are so powerful when it comes to marketing. Print and electronic advertising are now financially out of reach for most small businesses today. Not only that, but they are no longer as effective as they used to be.

The good thing about social media that makes it superior to other marketing strategies is the ability for a business to interact with their prospects and customers “directly.”  If you want to maintain your customers while attracting new ones, social media marketing could be the vehicle you need.

Social Media Tips for Small Local Businesses

In a nutshell, social media network sites are used in many different ways by different people. Some use it to meet new friends; some use it to connect with existing friends and family; some use it as a means to simply share information with others.

But what if this “information” was an advertisement for your business? Social media networks are free to join, which gives them an immediate advantage over other marketing and advertising methods that usually cost thousands of dollars while generating minimal results.

If you are planning to use social media to market your business, there are a few steps you should take before jumping in.

* The first thing you need to do is conduct a research that will show you where your target audience is spending most of their time.  This will help you decide which social networks you should use to start building your social media marketing campaigns.

* After deciding which networks to use, you should take some time to learn about each network and identify the features you will use introduce your business to the community.

Statistics show that many people will see something on social media networks and visit the related business if it is in their local area.

The Viral Nature of Social Media Marketing

Social media refers to websites that allow users to interact with other people by sharing information. Social media sites across the web have a massive amount of users: LinkedIn has around 100 million users, Twitter boasts of well over 100 million users, and Facebook takes the lead with approximately 800 million active users.

These numbers alone show you the potential power that social media can bring to small businesses that want to reach out to consumers.   For instance, if you had immediate, daily contact with 100 local consumers through social media, you will have the opportunity to build a relationship with them on a consistent basis. What could this do to your bottom line?

Not only that, but social media platforms are setup in a way that will allow your audience to do some of the marketing for you. For example, let’s say you post a status update that involves new products and services on your Facebook Fan Page. Your fans can easily share this with their friends, family, and other contacts with a click of a button.

This is known as “going viral” in the social media world. Before you know it, this new product or service has been exposed to thousands of people; many who will end up coming into your establishment to make a purchase. To attract more attention, you can use coupons and special offers in your social media circle. Although many people will visit your store just to redeem the offer, many of them will end up making additional purchases as well.

Social Media is the one of the easiest ways to interact with your prospects and customers directly. Technology has made social media an inevitable phenomenon and as a small business owner, there is no choice other than to embrace it and utilize its features to expand your business and increase profits.

Using Social Media to Promote Your Small Business

Since the internet was first introduced, the world has become consumed with all of the digital and technological advances it has to offer. The most significant revolution in the internet phenomenon is Social Media.

Communication has been made easy, instant, and affordable through the use of many different social media networking websites. Social media marketing is an emerging trend that has proven to be effective and it is here to stay despite the fact that many people doubted its power just a few years ago.

Social media networks have become a necessity for most people today, so businesses have to adjust and start finding ways to market to this group of people. For instance, as a local business owner, many of your local consumers spend a great deal of time every day on social media sites. If your goal is to generate more customers and sales, then you should not ignore social media and what it can do for your business.

Since you run a small business, your budget is probably tight these days and traditional advertising methods are not within your reach like they used to be. So why not consider the use of social media networks to reach your customers and attract new ones?

Some forms of technology are here to stay and the internet is one of them. Moreover, as long as the internet is alive and kicking, so is social media. You may not care about social media on a personal level, but from a business perspective, it could be the one thing you need to boost sales and profits.

Why Social Media is the Answer for Small Businesses

According to independent surveys, businesses with social media connections generate more leads compared to businesses that have not included social media in their marketing strategy. Social media is a suitable venture for small businesses for a number of reasons.  The first reason is the fact that small businesses do not have the same budgets as large corporations to pay for expensive advertising. Social media is, therefore, an effective alternative for smaller businesses with fewer marketing dollars available to spend.

There are billions of social media users today. This creates a wide audience and a hot market for you to interact with on a consistent basis. However, you will need to do some background work before implementing business strategies revolving around social media networks.  It is important to research different social media sites and then figure out the best way to incorporate them to your business marketing plan.

Social media is a new vehicle that small businesses can use to propel success.  It is safe to assume that over the next few years, it will have a really strong hold on the marketing industry. So it is wise to start now so you are ahead of your competitors.

Most people hear “Social Media” and immediately think of Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks of this caliber. These social platforms are the most popular, but this is not the final list by far. There are a lot of different social media platforms online. Depending on your type of business, you should do some research to see which ones fits your type of business best. However, using the top social media sites would be a good start. Chances are, most of your target audience is already logging into these sites every single day.

Social Media Statistics

There are incredible opportunities for small businesses who utilize the power of social media. We will look at actual numbers just to show you how powerful it has become. As you’ve probably noticed, social media constantly changes year after year.  The good news is that people are embracing it and moving right along with it every time it changes. Even people who are 50+ in age are jumping into social media at staggering rates. Therefore, as a small business owner, most of your customers and prospects are using it, so it’s time to reach them through this amazing marketing channel that is already made for you.

The most popular social media sites that you can take advantage of include:

* Facebook
* Twitter
* LinkedIn
* Google Plus

2011 was a good year for social media networks; Facebook hit the 800 million users mark with 200 million fans joining in a one-year period. Twitter and LinkedIn both are enjoying over 100 million users. There are approximately 2 billion internet users in the world and at least 50% of them use social networks. This shows you just how much social media has taken the internet world by storm. Below are a few quick, but interesting take outs covering social media statistics for the year 2012:

2012 Statistics: Facebook & Twitter Alone

* Facebook, the most popular social media network, has approximately  800+ million users

* The average Facebook user will have a minimum of 130 friends and will like about 80 pages

* On average, 3.5 billion content pieces are shared via Facebook

* Approximately 56% of consumers have reported that they will recommend a certain brand after becoming a fan of the related page.

* Approximately 77% of consumers have admitted that they interact with businesses on Facebook before purchasing their products

* Approximately 50% of Facebook users will log on every single day

* Approximately 55% of users use their mobile phone to access the Twitter platform

* Approximately 34% of business marketers have managed to generate leads using Twitter

General Social Media Statistics

A study by Nielsen shows the following:

* Approximately 80% of Americans use social media networks

* Internet surfers will spend a considerable amount on social networks as compared to other websites

* About 40% of the people will use their mobile phone devices to access social media networks

* Social media fans are more influential and active offline

Experian released a report on the use of social media and these are some of the highlights:

* About 129 million, or 91% of American adult internet surfers, use social media networks every  month

* An average Facebook user will spend at least 20 minutes every time they log into their accounts

* Approximately 20% of social media users are more likely to visit other social media sites after they exit from one

The above statistics are more than just mere numbers. They are an actual representation of just how much social media has impacted our daily lives. From these numbers, you can see that one of the best ways to reach out to your prospects and customers, without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising, is via social media.

Your business can easily communicate with your prospects through social networks and convert them into long-term customers. Your audience can get information on your new products, as well as give feedback on products and services they’ve purchased for you.

It is also a great way to build customer reviews. You should encourage your satisfied customers to go online to social media sites and give a review. Online reviews are instrumental in influencing consumer buying decisions these days. Most people go online to do a little research before they purchase anything.

So it would benefit your business to have a lot of glowing reviews online for everyone to see.
And let’s not forget about Online Reputation Management. Social media allows business owners a way to monitor and respond to what is being said about them online. With a strong social media presence, you will be given a chance to catch and correct any customer service issues that may be made public by an unhappy customer.

With the right approach, local businesses can build a healthy relationship with their customers, as well as with other like-minded companies through the use of social media. In a nutshell, it could be the key to creating more sales and profits funnels into your business. The number of social media users is projected to increase substantially in 2012 with more than 100 million additional people joining the various networks.
As you can see, when it comes to attracting new customers and prospects, social media must be a part of the plan if you want to grow and expand your local customer reach.

We can no longer look at social media networks only as a thing for the “young generation” to express themselves. We have to look at it as a powerful marketing and advertising vehicle that can take your business to the next level without damaging your wallet.

Let’s take a closer look at the most popular Social Media Networking site today …

Facebook

Before you explore this phenomenon that has stirred up the internet and the social media world, it is important to understand what Facebook really is and its relevance to the marketing industry. Facebook is a social media network that is causing ripples on the web. This website was created with the intention of helping people connect with family and friends. Starting out as a college network site, Facebook has come a long way. In fact, it is now at the top of the list when it comes to influential social media networks.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, which was known as “thefacebook” back then. The site was an instant hit on campus (Harvard) and slowly expanded to other colleges. With the rapid success, Zuckerberg included two other students to assist him with his new found business. Together, they churned out this nationwide networking website geared mostly towards college students.

However, today, Facebook is used by most people around the world. Facebook gives its users the ability to create profiles so that they can share information about themselves. This includes Fan Pages, which are mostly used by businesses who want to market their companies.

One of the most powerful features of Facebook is the ability for fans and friends to comment on profiles and Fan Pages. This feature has played a huge role in turning Facebook into the ultimate place for businesses to engage with their customers and prospects. While consumers can easily get the information they need on products and services, businesses enjoy the cheap advertising and exposure.

Why Use Facebook in Marketing?

Facebook is the number one social networking site with a massive number of daily users. The website allows businesses to create Fan Pages and use banners to set up advertisements in order to market their businesses and interact with consumers.

Facebook Trends and Statistics

The Following statistics (by Vabsite) show the numbers behind the success of Facebook in the Social media world:

* Facebook has over 800 million active profiles with 25% of these joining in a single year (2011)

* 50% of all Facebook users log into their accounts every day

* An average user has about 130 friends

* Facebook users spend 700+ billion minutes on this site every month

* Facebook has 900+ billion pieces of content that its users interact with; this includes “groups,” “events and community,” and Fan Pages

* An average Facebook user “likes” about 80 pages

* An average Facebook user will create about 90 content pieces in a month

* Ever since the launch of plugins, approximately 10,000 new sites integrate with Facebook on a daily basis

* Facebook has more than 70 translations

Facebook Mobile Usage Statistics

* There are more than 25% Facebook users who access the platform using mobile phones

* Facebook mobile users are two times more active as compared to non-mobile phone users

* More than 200 mobile phone service providers in 60 different countries are working towards promoting Facebook mobile products

Statistics Showing Why Facebook is Here to Stay

* With over 800 million active users, 1 out of every ten people on earth is using Facebook

* Statistics based on “users” and “page views” puts Facebook in the number 2 spot – second to Google, yet ahead of Yahoo and YouTube

* For every one minute on Facebook, users will share 50,000 links, tag 65,000 photos, post 80,000 wall posts, update 95,000 statuses, and post 500,000
comments to either affirm or disparage them

* American Facebook users make up to ¼ of the total users in the world

Business Marketing through Facebook

Looking at the statistics above, you can see why both large and small businesses are turning to Facebook as an effective and affordable advertising method. Facebook users have started using this network to check out local businesses and what they have to offer. A user will browse through local restaurants, salons, flower shop, fashion shop, etc. and you want to be among the results they find.

Most of the people who use Facebook are quite active offline. This means that they are potential customers who will buy anything they think is cool once they see it on Facebook – especially from a “local” business. Therefore, if you run a local business, it is important for you to be active on Facebook now that you know the numbers involved.

Fan pages are easy to create and will not cost you a dime if you do it yourself. However, to really get the best Fan page that will fully engage your audience, it may be best to hire a professional who has extensive knowledge about Facebook marketing.  While creating a Fan page is the first step, the hard part is connecting with customers. You will need consistency and the ability to dedicate some time to build a loyal following of fans. You will need to communicate often in order to keep their attention and increase your sales.

Once you create a Facebook Fan page, you will need to let people know that you have it. One easy and quick way to do it is to put a Facebook icon on your website that is linked to your Fan Page. Another way is to include a Facebook logo in your print advertisements and any other marketing methods you use.

There are very successful companies using Facebook to increase sales and build a following. While your business will not be an instant hit with millions of fans overnight, you can eventually build a strong foundation and Facebook presence that will pay off.  If you really want to build a relationship with your customers through interaction and communication, Facebook is the way to go.  Start by creating a Fan page and load it up with valuable, relevant information that your target audience will enjoy.

Next up: Google Plus

Google Plus is the latest social networking website to hit the internet. The fact that it is from Google should have been enough evidence to prove that it would be a big thing; just like other products from Google. hough the site is still young, all Gmail users have instant access to Google Plus, which is partly responsible for the rapid rise in users. Some experts have said that Google Plus is more engaging and compelling than Facebook due to its easy sharing and connection features.

Google Plus, most of the time abbreviated as G+ or Google+, is a new social networking and identity services site run by Google. Originally, the site was opened in June, 2011 but was soon closed due to overwhelming numbers demanding for new accounts. Google Plus was later opened in September to people of age 18 years and above without the need for invitations.

Google Plus is the integration of a number of existing services such as Google Buzz and Google Profiles, with an introduction of new services such as Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, among many others. On a wide scope, Google Plus is viewed as Google’s idea to compete with Facebook; a rival social media network with more than 800 million users. In fact, Google Plus is Google’s fourth attempt to dominate the social media world.

But they may have cracked the code this time. There are very interesting features offered by Google Plus, which is the reason why it is causing so much buzz online. Before you start wondering why you need Google Plus in your business, we should look at some statistics showing its progress and where numbers stand now.

The Explosive Growth of Google Plus:

* By mid-July 2011, Google Plus had grown to 10 million users, which happened over a period of two weeks of launching. After four weeks, they had reached 25 million users.

* Google Plus had reached 40 million users by October 2011 and the year ended with 90 million users (Larry Page)

* Approximately 60% of all the Google Plus users log into their accounts on a daily basis

* Approximately 80% of Google Plus users log into their accounts once a week

* Google Plus has a little over 1 million business pages

* Google Plus popularity has been on an upward trend with a quarter of its users joining in December 2011 alone (Ancestry.com)

* An analysis from ComScore, shows that the US is the biggest market for Google Plus; closely followed by India

* In just less than a day, the Google Plus iPhone application made it to the most popular application offered by the Apple app store free of cost

* The age bracket for most Google Plus users is 25 to 34 years

With these statistics, you better believe that Google Plus is so far, the fastest growing social network site today. Let’s take a look at a few of the other popular Social media sites:

* Facebook has 800+ million users

* Twitter boasts of well over 100 million users

* LinkedIn has 100+ million users

As you can see, Google Plus is right behind them with 90+ million users even though it is still in its infancy. Don’t be surprised if you find it in the second place by the end of 2012. According to Google officials and independent statistics, Google Plus has been deemed the fourth largest social media network in the world.

Google Plus Features

The different features available on Google Plus are extremely efficient and engaging. Let’s take a closer look at some of the features that Google Plus has to offer:

* Circles: this is a feature that allows users to share information through organizing contact groups. The sharing can be done across the many Google services. The circles include family, acquaintances, friends, and following, which is a good way to follow celebrities or public figures.

* Hangouts: this feature enables users to chat with each other (up to 10 users at a time) using video chat applications.

* Sparks: this is a feature that allows users to identify topics they might be interested in and then share them with other users. It allows users to remain updated on topics they are interested in.

These are just a few of the many features that are offered by Google Plus. You will have to become a member of this amazing social media network to learn how the other applications work and how you can take advantage of this site to improve your business.

Relevance to Small Businesses

It is not a question of whether or not you want to join Google Plus as a business owner. The most important thing in your business is marketing and knowing where your customers are. In this internet-controlled world, you should use any means necessary to reach your customers online.

To be successful in marketing your local business, you have to move with technology and even if you only attract 10 new customers via Google Plus, the account is worth it. In efforts to maintain a customer base and attract new prospects you should be in constant communication with them. Google Plus gives your business an opportunity to take your marketing messages where your target audience is spending their time.

Google Plus is as effective as any of the three major social networks and can assist your small business a great deal. If you are looking to boost your business, you should conduct research to see how many potential customers you can reach through the use of Google Plus. This could be the next big thing in Internet marketing, so don’t get left behind.

Next up: LinkedIn

When most people talk about “Social Media,” they only concentrate on Facebook and Twitter. While these are the biggest social media sites, they are certainly not the only ones doing well. LinkedIn has managed to gather approximately 100 million users and is now one of the most influential social media networks on the internet.

You have probably received an invitation to LinkedIn from a friend or peer over the past few years. Did you accept? Do you even have a LinkedIn account? If not, you are missing out on a huge networking opportunity. Many local businesses ignore this platform simply because they don’t understand how powerful it can be for exposing and growing their businesses.

LinkedIn is the most popular social networking sites when it comes to online “business networking”. It is a platform that allows business people and professionals all over the world, regardless of their industry, to connect with other professionals.

It is a great environment where individuals connect with multiple like-minded individuals who share interests in the business and professional world.  LinkedIn users can even display updates on recent projects and give other users an opportunity to see what they are working on.  The aim of the connection is to share information, market products and services, find jobs, form business-to-business relationships, and much more. LinkedIn is basically free to use, but has premium paid packages that contain more functionality.

LinkedIn works similar to other social networks. You join by simply signing up and then creating a profile which should include any information about yourself that you want to share; such as, employment history, education, achievements, and more. You can then easily link your account to other social network sites, websites and blogs to increase exposure to your profile.

LinkedIn Statistics

Statistics aggregated by Amodiovalerio verde show the following numbers:

* LinkedIn has approximately 147 million members.

* The standard Linked in member is aged 25 to 54 years old.

* 66% of LinkedIn members are located in Europe and N. America.

* LinkedIn’s members have grown by 45% worldwide compared to January 2011.

* Over 40% of members of LinkedIn are employees in companies that employ 10,000+ employees.

Quantcast has the following statistics:

* LinkedIn has more than doubled their monthly visits to 94.3 million in Sept 2011 from 45.8 million in 2010.

* Quantcast breaks down LinkedIn visitors to addicts, regulars and passersby. Addicts account for 1% of members and will use LinkedIn on a daily basis for interaction. Regulars account for 33% of the users and will use the site for interaction more than once but less than 30 times in a period of one month. Passersby accounts for the other 66% and they will visit the site or interact with media only once in a period of one month.

* Approximately 26% of LinkedIn members are between the ages of 18 and 34, while members between the ages of 35 and 50 account for 70% of total members.

* Approximately 75% of members are college graduates and roughly 39% of LinkedIn members earn more than $100,000 every year.

What this Means for Your Business

From these numbers, you can draw a simple conclusion; LinkedIn is an important part of social media that can boost your business if approached properly. LinkedIn is here to stay so you can confidently direct your efforts to improving your business through this powerful social media tool. Imagine being able to keep track of industry developments and related news just by logging into your LinkedIn account. Connecting with other businesses in your industry can prove to be a very profitable thing.  It provides great opportunities in terms of business ventures that would have been missed without it.

For instance, if you run a Fashion Design business, you can connect with groups in this line of business. Doing so will allow you to gain access to a wealth of information as well as connect with other related businesses in that field, such as marketers and distributors who can help expand your company even further.

If you are searching for highly qualified employees, then LinkedIn is one way to find them. LinkedIn is a platform that has a large number of freelancers and job-seekers who possess skills that can take your business to new horizons. The success of LinkedIn is fueled by the profile you create and how much you reach out to other people.

In other words, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are more geared towards “social networking,” while LinkedIn is more geared towards “business connections.”  With multiple opportunities in hand, small business owners have the power to better their businesses using LinkedIn. It is a great marketing tool that is worth learning if you are serious about growing your business.

With so many different social networks on the internet, it may be hard for you to decide which ones you should use. While LinkedIn may not seem important, it could be the missing link you need to take your business to the next level.

Setting up your LinkedIn profile correctly can be somewhat time-consuming and confusing if you’re not familiar with the platform. Not only that, but once it is setup, you have to use it the right way in order to build relationships, which also takes time.

Next up: Twitter

If you read newspapers, listen to radio stations, or watch TV, at some point you must come across the term “Follow me on Twitter”. Although these words are widely used, there are still a lot of people who don’t understand Twitter. It is not that they are not technically savvy; it is simply because they think Twitter is complicated, but it is not. In fact, it’s one of the easiest social media sites to use.

You can’t deny that “Twitter” is a funny name that leaves a lot of people scratching their heads. However, Twitter is the 2nd largest social media networking site online with more than 100 MILLION users. On Twitter, users can create short blog posts called “Tweets,” which allow them to tell others what they are doing.

The posts can only be up to 140 characters, which is about the same length as a text message on your mobile phone. These short posts are used to communicate, connect, and conduct conversations with your audience without saying a whole lot. To make new contacts on Twitter, you must “follow people” or “be followed.” To connect with someone, whether it is a family member, friend or celebrity, just click on the “follow” button.

Going forward, all of their messages, or “Tweets,” will appear on your list of messages from people you follow.  If a person follows you, then your Tweets will appear in their timeline. Most of the Tweets posted are not addressed to any particular individual and usually contain information that the Tweeter wants to share with all of their followers.

You are probably starting to see how Twitter gives small business an easy and fast way to advertise new products and/or services with assurance that consumers will see them; of course, the businesses will need to have followers in order to make the messages worthwhile.

Twitter Statistics

Twitter came alive in 2006 when the first Tweet was sent on March 21st. Ever since then, Twitter has been growing rapidly both in numbers and engagement. The statistics (by Twitter blog) show the extent by which this popular social network has been growing.

* It only took three years, two months and a day for Twitter to get its billionth Tweet

* Twitter users send approximately 150 million Tweets every day; and that number is steadily increasing

* Twitter has more than 100 million users with a possible significant increase in 2012

* 55% of users use their mobile phone to access the Twitter platform

An in-depth analysis by Sysomos Inc. revealed the following information:

* 65% of all Twitter users are comprised of people aged 25 years and below

* About 92.4% of users follow 100 people or less. 97.8% follow 400 people or less. 0.94% of users follow 1000+ people.

* 93.6% users have 100 followers and below. 98% have 400 followers and below while 1.35% have more than 500 users with 0.68% having 1000+ followers

* Twitter users tend to Tweet more with the increase of followers. A Twitter user with 1000 followers will Tweet an average of 6 times while one with 1,750+ followers will Tweet an average of 10 times

* US is the most active country when it comes to Twitter activities

Tweet Your Way to Success

As mentioned earlier, Twitter is similar to text messaging, but the difference of course being that you can reach a much wider audience using Twitter. Social networks are in the frontline of transforming businesses by giving them a way to connect with potential customers. A large number of your customers probably use Twitter; so this is a great way to keep in touch with them.

After creating a Twitter account for your local business, you will have made the first and most important step in social media marketing. The next step will be to gather followers. While this will not be a cup of tea for everyone, the efforts you put into the campaign will pay off at the end of the day. Large corporations can get a couple of millions followers in a day, but smaller businesses can get any number between 10 and 100 in a day, which is still a great achievement.

You also need to integrate Twitter in all your advertising strategies including print advertising and internet marketing. If you have a business website, include a “Follow Me on Twitter” image link on it so that anyone who visits your website can click on it and become a “follower.” Since Twitter is meant to allow people say what they are doing, you can easily Tweet a message about the latest developments in your business with a few short words. If more information is needed, include a link to your website or blog where they can learn more.

You can even Tweet special offers from time to time to generate sales from your Twitter following.  Your main task will be to create awareness and to let people know that you have a Twitter account.  Now, your customers, prospects, and peers can follow you for fresh updates regarding your business industry.

With a growing numbers of followers, your business will start enjoying a wide audience and consequently cheap advertising. There is no better way to market your business than a method that gives you a chance to interact with your customers and potential customers directly. Not only that, but you will also be able to get feedback on your products from your customers as well as suggestions on how to make your products or services even better.

Twitter is an important piece of the social marketing world and it can be a powerful tool for your business as well.  Many of your customers probably access the Twitter platform every day, so it is definitely worth your while to implement into your marketing strategy. Create your account, build a list of followers, and turn them into loyal customers.  Even though Twitter usage goes beyond business usage, it is definitely an avenue that should not be ignored.

Beat The Panda Update

Filed in Marketing Guides by on April 16, 2014

We’re going to discuss how you can resurrect an extremely successful, autopilot cash strategy that many internet marketers thought Google had made obsolete with it’s latest algorithm update – The Panda Update.  I want to walk you through how you can adapt the quick, small and easy sniper website strategy to the new Panda update with some small changes. This allows you to still take advantage of the sniper site, (now dubbed the Panda Sniper site) and it’s quick route to cash.

These panda sniper sites are made up of just four web pages that contain content specifically designed to please the new Google update. On top of that we cover extremely powerful backlinking methods that are specifically designed to “please the panda”, boosting you up the rankings to the number one spot,and more importantly, letting you stay there.

So, What is SEO?

SEO is search engine optimization, which is what it sounds like! It is optimizing various things (normally your web pages and the links to your web pages) so that they are more in line with what search engines want. You have to optimize your pages to certain keywords. Keywords are the search terms or phrases that people put into a search engine. If your page is optimized best for that keyword it will appear at the top of the search results for the keyword.

Now as I mentioned, there are two main parts of SEO, on page and off page. The on page optimization is adding your keywords strategically to your pages, controlling their content and making them accessible to the search engines. Off page SEO involves creating “backlinks” to your page. These are clickable links from sites that direct viewers to your page. We’ll expand on this later…

On page optimization is very important, and a lot of people have neglected this part of SEO and as a result, not achieved the rankings they could have. On page consists of a number of different attributes that all add up to better search engine ranks. These include Header tags or H tags, 1, 2 and 3. You also need to italicize, underline, and BOLD your main keyword at least once per post. Your posts should be at least 1000 words each. You should link once to an inner page, and once to an authority site.

Now as you may already know, Google had a large update of it’s main algorithm in early (and throughout) 2011. This update was called the “Panda” update. So next up, lets learn how to please the panda.

A Panda?

Now we are going to go over Googles most recent large update to see how it affects our strategy. Read through this section carefully to have a good idea about the Panda update, and what you may have been missing out on!

Panda’s large focus is on improving the quality of the search results. This is what you need to drum into your mind – quality, Quality, QUALITY! All content needs to be 100% unique and it needs to be both lengthy and valuable. Panda likes each page of a site to be well targeted at a specific keyword. No more making a whole site just to blast a single one (well not quite!).

Sites also need to be easy to navigate and easy to access. No page should be further then about 3 clicks away from another page.

Now a big thing is that panda is a large threat for the classic auto blogs (blogs that automatically get content from all over the Internet and post it) and sniper sites (sites highly targeted on one product). In almost all cases, these sites do not provide any real value; and that is why panda devalues them. We all heard the stories from the forums and maybe friends, that had these sniper sites all over the search engines. A day goes by and BAM! All of their ranks are lost forever. Simply put, this type of site is no longer viable with Google. You have to provide a real quality presence on your site to get Google’s attention, and achieve higher ranks. Just ask the thousands of people who’s sites disappeared overnight ?!

There are rumors that the Panda update will soon start to monitor the average amount of time people spend on your pages to add to their measure of relevance. This is a very natural assumption to say that a good website will hold peoples attention because it’s content is relevant and interesting to the searchers that end up there. This is all just part of a growing trend towards making the search results better.

Next is a short leap from the on page SEO. The Panda update wants high quality backlinks as well as high quality page content.  Now more then ever, authority is king. The Panda update is now much more interested in less high authority backlinks then a load of low quality, non-relevant backlinks.

The update is also very interested in social media and social backlinks so this is going to be an integral part of our strategy. Google is now stated that it is constantly crawling Facebook and Twitter for news about what is relevant and what is popular. This is just how the world works now, people link things on social media sites so Google is right to take it into consideration when determining the rankings.

Just to prove how much Google thinks social media is the evolution of the Internet, they have not long ago launched Google+ which they have pumped millions into!

Another large point about panda is the media of your backlinks. Videos are a growing source of SEO power and using them can have a brilliant effect on your rankings. If Google wasn’t interested in video why did it buy Youtube?  This is something we will take into account our link strategy.

Now a lot of the update is really obvious stuff, improvements that give better rankings to quality, to relevance, to sites that are deemed popular (through social media). All of these factors would end up putting websites that truly are good sites at the top of the rankings.

Now that is not to say that Google doesn’t like SEO, in fact it encourages it because that makes it’s job easier. What it doesn’t like are tactics that force rankings.  Now the Panda sniper sites we are going to make may sounds to you just like the old sniper product review sites that used tactics to force rankings, but really they are much more. The sites we are going to design will contain quality content, they will abide by all of Panda’s rules.

The turning point with our panda sniper sites is the fact that they are targeted at very low competition, buyer keywords as well as containing great, relevant content. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this means they are going to take forever to put together though, once you have revised the formula you will have no problem doing one of these a week and if you follow the outsourcing section you could end up with a self-sustaining group of teams that creates 2-3 per team per week!

Each of these sites will be generating $50 absolute minimum per month! Oh now you are excited! Lets get started.

Which Word is Key?

This is our first important step when thinking about almost anything to do with search engines, after all if nothing is “searched” there are no results. You need to make sure your main keyword and your subsequent keywords are selected very wisely as they will affect the rest of your work (luckily, unlike most ranking campaigns each panda sniper site takes a relatively short time to complete so if you don’t get this quite right, it is easy to refine for your next site).

So what keywords are we looking for? You may have noticed before I used the term Buying Product Name Keywords (BPNKs), these are a lot simpler then they may sound, lets use an example;

“Xbox 360 Review”

Simple hey? That is the name of a product and it is a buyer keyword because people are looking for a review of it, they wouldn’t want a review if they weren’t interested in buying it.

The great thing about these types of keywords is that they lend themselves brilliantly to affiliate commissions (you link someone to a site selling said product and you take a percentage of the profit). This is great because you are usually directing the viewer to a site like Amazon which is respected and which they feel comfortable buying from.

So where to start when selecting keywords?  First up you need to make sure you have a product to sell (or more likely, promote).

As I mentioned before, Amazon is a great place to find products to promote. Just select the Amazon Associates program at the bottom of their page to sign up. The process is very straight forward, you get to look through their database and select products to promote. You get a personal link to that product and if anyone makes a purchase through that link, you get a commission.

What you want to do is to select about 10-20 products that have decent commissions so that you can start coming up with keywords for them.

First you will want to use Google Insights to get an idea about rising trends in keywords for the products you have selected.

Insights is a great tool for research, it shows you information about interest and is great to see if something is becoming more popular or in decline.  Or if it has a yearly season such as weight loss products that have a massive decline in December and a high in January for New Years resolutions:

Google Panda

I have decided that 3D Tvs are a good niche to target based on my Amazon’s affiliate program. Looking at it’s Insights information it is easy to see that sharp recent rise in interest as well as the regional interest (good for pen-names/personalities, you can create an alter-ego from the part of the world that has the highest interest to boost trust and thus boost conversions).

These are all factors that you should be noting down about every keyword you analyze. If it suits you style you may want to make a spreadsheet of keywords and have columns for relative search growth, peak search month, demographics, exact searches and competition. These are just some of the aspects we will look at when we are seeing what the best keywords to target are.

This may all seem like a lot of effort now but trust me it will make your life much easier down the line.  When you get into the swing of it you may identify 5-10 great keywords out of your 10-20 selected products. That means you are set for the next 5-10 niche sites you make!

Further down the Insights page you can look at keywords that may be worth looking at:

 

Google Panda

This is a great tool to use but I would suggest that you make the search range smaller when looking at rising searches. This is because Insights will show you percentage increases in searches since about 2004, but since that is such a long time period you can find that search terms may have risen by a massive percent but dropped off again as a fad ends.

There is nothing wrong with a fad, if you get in on it at the right time that is. They can make much more money then a nice stable method but they will not last very long. Make sure if you pick some fad products (newest phones for example) that you also select some stable products (games consoles for example) as well.

What you should do is make notes of these top and rising searches and then go to their insights pages to check out their individual details. After you have found out what searches seem popular (samsung 3d tv for example) then you will want to target some buying variations of the keywords such as “buy”, “review” or “scam” (for scam you would talk about a scam and then point them to a legitimate location to purchase).

Off course there are more buying keywords you can add to the keywords you have identified, just think about what you would type into a search engine if you wanted more information about something you wanted to buy.

Using the buying keywords you can start to look into their insights numbers to really narrow down what to target. For each product you may want to find 3-4 potential keywords. After that we will look at how you can start to get some of these numbers behind your keyword ideas.

There are other places to look for keywords. You can look at Clickbank, and begin promoting Clickbank offers. There is also Commission Junction and other CPA accounts that you can attach to your sites, by using their keywords.

The Numbers Game

By now you should have maybe 3 or 4 potential buyer keywords for each of your selected products (really need about 5 selected products absolute minimum in case none of them prove viable options). Each of these keywords should look good as far as Insights is concerned, either with rising or stable popularity over a year or two.

It should not have taken too long to find this information out by already you should have narrowed down your product options.

Next it is time to use Googles Keyword tool (Google it!) to get some numbers about the keywords. Year your insights information may show a 1,000% increase in interest over the last year but if it only has a few searches per week it is likely no use to you.

What you need to do for Google’s Keyword Tool is to paste all of the keywords you have found into the “word or phrase” box with one on each line. Make sure you select to “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms”  and also select “[exact]” (this gets you the actual results for the keyword and not results from the keyword and all similar keywords combined.). You can also set the locations via the advanced options to the countries where the most searches were from.  Also make sure Amazon or your other affiliate program can deliver goods to the country you target:

 

Google Panda Update

 

With all of that done you can run the search, make sure you select to sort by relevance:

 

Google Panda Update

 

Looking at the results you can see that “buy 3d tv”, “samsung 3d tv review” and “3d tv review” are all good enough keywords to target. The great thing about this is that a lot of keyword research guides tell people to select keywords with over 30,000 broad matches, for a start most of these could potentially not be related to your actual keyword.

Also buying keywords generally have 10-15x the conversions of non-buying keywords so 1,000 – 3,000 doesn’t sound so bad any more. Now the good point is that because so many people just don’t understand good search engine marketing there will be lots of competition for these broad search, non-buying keywords!

If you take advantage of the method we are using you can rank for the same amount of traffic with much less trouble!

This step allows you to remove some of your insights results so that you can more closely target some other ones. At this point you should chop off any results with under 1,000 exact views and make a note of how much monthly views the remaining ones have (up to about 5,000 – 6,000 views max I would say).

After that you can always have a look at some suggested related keywords in the box below. Sort these by “global monthly searches” (check local as well if your selected country has the large majority).

 

Google Panda Update

 

In my example with limited keywords searched for there don’t seem to be any better options then the ones I have already identified (I only did a search on 6 keywords). Our aim at the moment is to find one powerful main keyword for each product (later in our optimization we will add further keywords but they are more for boosting our main keyword then for ranking themselves).

At this point you should have a few keywords that seem reasonable for each product you have selected through insights and some suggested keywords from the keywords tool, each of these should be buying keywords to boost your conversions (buy, best, review, comparison, scam etc.).

Next up we are going to look at the actual first page competition for each result, there is no point trying to rank for a keyword where the first page is full of high quality, highly targeted information about the product you are after because it will be a nightmare to rank for.

Scouting the Competition

To start this chapter we take a look at a big false assumption that a lot of marketers make when it comes to analysing the competition. Let me show you how they do their analysis:

Google Panda Update

 

1,860,000 results = 1,860,000 competing sites.

I even put the search in “quotations” so that those words in that order are searched for. Now you may be surprised to find that a lot of search engine marketers actually use that as their competition analysis. Yes sure it is going to give you a very rough idea of how popular the topic of reviewing 3d tvs is but that doesn’t mean at all that anywhere near that amount of pages is optimized to the keyword!

What is the phrase appears once on the page at the end of an article somewhere? That certainly is not optimized to the phrase.

What we actually need to do is to look at the top few websites to judge their threat level to our sniper site ranking for the keyword.

Now when taking position into account you really need to get in the top few places on the first page and here is why:

 

Google Panda Update

 

This graph shows you the average percentage of traffic you will receive by ranking in various positions of Google’s first and second pages. Can you see now why it is so important to get in the first or at worst the a few out of the second, third and fourth places?

Yes the keyword may get 3,000 keen to purchase viewers per month but if you are not in the top spot you are only likely to see about 300 of them at the best of times. What we need to do is scout out the top few places in the search results of our keywords to see if we should be able to take them out.

When analyzing the competition it is important to keep the Panda review in mind. If a site is not panda optimized that does not mean it necessarily won’t be at the top of the page, it may have ranked there months ago and think it is safe. It is important to do this analysis still because if you create a site that the Panda review likes (which you will) then you should have a much easier time overtaking the competing ranking sites.

When analyzing the top sites you want to see how relevant their content is to the keyword. How optimized are these pages to the keyword (ctrl+F to search for the keyword in the page to see if it is in the titles, strategically in the paragraphs, bolded, italicised, in a hyperlink etc.). Does it read well? Is it trying to provide value instead of just trying to sell you something? Is there a load of advertising ruining the experience? Are the posts lengthy and useful? Is the site easy to navigate? Is there a social aspect (comments, likes, +1’s, twitter feeds)?

You should also look at downloading an SEO toolbar, with this we can look at the sites statistics in more detail (I suggest you use Firefox as a browser to make this much easier).

The tool you want to download is SEO Quake – http://www.seoquake.com/

There are lots of great uses for this toolbar but the main thing we will use it for is assessing page rank of pages and backlinks (PR is a number created by Google from 1-10 which denotes how powerful a site is, for example a powerful blog would be about 4, a massive authority site like Amazon is about 8).

Once again it sounds like a lot of trouble to go to but if you don’t spend perhaps just a day or so analysing the keywords you may was weeks to months trying to rank for keywords that are too difficult. You should analyse the top three results of each of the potential main keywords you have found for each product. A PR of 3 or under is likely the highest you can target (but still do the panda checks just to see).

This is a really important step because the last thing you want to do is drop the in depth keyword research by being greedy for faster cash. Properly identifying the best keywords to target will save you a massive amount of time compared to just rushing it. If you don’t do this research then the chances are good that you will either spend weeks if not months longer then necessary to hit the top three or more likely, you will fail to get anywhere near the first page and give up long before you get any results.

Next up we are going to look at getting your site setup and ready to profit.

Site Creation

At this point you should have a main keyword that you are happy with for the product you want to promote. What you need to do with this keyword is to turn it into several keywords to please the panda review (each page optimized to one keyword).

To do this we are going to use what are known as nested keywords. These are where you basically add a word or two to your keyword (not a word like “the” or “then” or “a” or anything like that though) to make it into a long-tail keyword. This will rank for the whole keyword but still contribute to your main keyword ranking. (buy 3d tv to buy samsung 3d tv for example)

Another thing you are going to use to change your keywords is latent semantic indexing (LSI), this is when you change parts of your keyword to other words with the same meaning for example “pill” and “supplement”, “buy” and “purchase”. Just think of it like using a thesaurus, the search engines will still rank them as the same but it will be more Panda friendly.

So what you need to do now is to get a website set up to actually use these keywords on.For the most part I am going to assume you know how to get your domain and hosting linked and setup, if you don’t then it will only take you a minute to Youtube or Google it.

It is important to try for an exact match domain, this is not going to shoot you to number one but it is one of many elements that will make your life easier. By exact match I mean www.[yourmainkeyword].com, if this isn’t available then try to get something other then .com, and if that doesn’t work then try adding a word to make it one of your nested keywords.

You need to get this domain from somewhere like Namecheap and then you need to link it to some hosting (the online space for your website), you can find this from a site like Hostgator. Once again this is something you can easily look up on YouTube if you are not familiar. When you have that all set up you will want to install WordPress on it (trust me, it is extremely powerful) and then get a theme sorted.

Themes

There are two themes (designs for your WordPress website) that work extremely well with regards to SEO and they are:

1. Clickbump Engine
This theme got big about a year ago when it was found to be one of the best themes ever developed to rank naturally with the search engines. With regards to adsense it often gets three times the click rate of the standard theme. This is due quite a lot to the placement of the ads, so placing any ads, Adsense or not (so your affiliate promotion!) will give them a boost over other themes.

2. CTRTheme
CTR theme is more advanced then Clickbump engine and has more flexibility in terms of navigation and looks.

Now for our purposes with the small panda sniper site I think it is going to be best to stick with Clickbump. It will be easier for you to use and since the sites do not need to be too detailed it is a great choice to stick to.

Plugins

This section covers one of the reasons that WordPress is so powerful – plugins. Once again there is not much I can change here from my other products, the plugins I always use are still very viable. Plugins are small programs that you can install to your wordpress site to make many aspects of your ranking much easier.

To get them just search for them here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Lets look at the essential plugins you will want:

W3 Total-cache

This plugin is really useful, especially with the panda review. What it does is make your pages load faster and also stores static versions of your site so that it requires much less CPA power then using WordPress normally. It is essential to cater for the loading speed preferences introduced with the new review.

Headspace SEO

This plugin is a brilliant new SEO plugin that gives you all of the features you need to optimize your website for the search engines. On page optimization (as opposed to off page optimization or backlinking) can make up about 25% of your ranking efforts, with this plugin you can get that boost and concentrate all of your efforts on providing great content.

WP Onlywire Autoposter

This plugin sends your blog posts to over 20 social networking sites. This is a very good one to get about a week or two into your ranking when the search engines are regularly visiting your site to index your new posts.

Google XML Site Map

This will create an XML Sitemap which helps search engines to navigate your site and thus index new pages better. Additionally this notifies all major search engines every time you create a new post.

SEO Smart Links

This is a brilliant plugin that lets you easily link your posts using your keywords. This gets readers to visit more of your site to pass PR. Internal linking is a big factor in the Panda review so this gives you a bonus.

TweetMeme

Here we have another great plugin. Tweetmeme is a plugin that adds small green boxes to the top right of blog posts. This acts as an eye-catching way for readers to share your post with a click to Twitter. It also comes with tracking capabilities so you can see lots of great information about how your blog posts are doing on Twitter.

Make sure you configure the plugin as soon as you have installed it to change the source of the tweets to your twitter handle and not Tweetmeme’s.

Digg Digg

This is another plugin that will give you more social capabilities. Digg Digg adds social media sharing icons for sites like Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon and +1 so that people can easily share a post they like with their social media following. Once again this is an essential point that the Panda review loves.

SEO Friendly Images

This little plugin just updates all of your images with ALT and TITLE tags for SEO purposes.

With all of that done you should have all of the plugins you need to move on. All you need to do is make sure you install them as per the instructions on the download page, if  you have any trouble then as always just put it into Google or Youtube and a solution is bound to pop up.

Next you need to change a few of the settings on your website to give it an extra SEO boost. Start off by copying and posting all of these into the “update service” field so that when you post pages they notify these pinging services so that your page will get indexed faster:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogroots.com/tbpopuli.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

These make your posts much more visible which is always a great boost.

Now you need to make sure that the privacy settings are correct. Go back to settings and select “privacy”.  Make sure the option “I would like my site to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Bing, Technorati) and archivers. If this box is not checked, no one will be able to find your blog!

Under settings go to Permalinks, click on custom structure then enter –

/%category%/%postname%

This ensures that your posts are search engine friendly as well.

With all of that done your website should be all ready to go. What we need to take a look at next is just getting some good content up on the site to flesh it out.

Content Creation

At the moment you should have a website all finished and optimized, you now need a reason for the search engines to take note of your site in the first place. What you need is some great content to grab their attention. You need to know that when I say you need some great content, it really does need to be great because of the sniper style of our sites.

As you should know by now, the review is all about quality content, without the quality your rankings will drop like a stone (or never rise in the first place).

The content needs to be designed for the end user and not the search engine (well it does, but don’t sacrifice readability for keyword placement).

So what content do you need to make exactly?

Luckily you only need about 6 good information posts to rank well with the Panda update, but they do need to be high quality!

Every post needs to be at least 1,000 words long and completely, 100% unique. The review loves long, detailed, quality posts. I would say 1,000 up to about 1,500 should be fine for each.

Each post needs a title containing your targeted keyword first (and another time if you can make it look natural) and paragraph (meta) description containing the targeted keyword about three times.

Each post should have quite a high keyword density (about 3% so 30 – 45 times in your long posts) but don’t stuff keywords. You need to make sure it reads well instead of just trying to go for keyword numbers.

Each post should make use of Bold, Italic and Underline, when mentioning keywords. Also making sure the targeted keyword is included in the hyperlink for the post is very important.

So what should each individual post contain SEO wise?

•    Number One should target your main keyword identified for your product. It will be posted on your home page on day one.

•    Number Two should target an LSI keyword variation of your main keyword. As we covered before an LSI keyword is a keyword that changes words to others of the same meaning (an online thesaurus may help you with ideas). It will be posted on your home page on day six.

•    Number Three should target a nested keyword variation of your main keyword. This is just your main keyword + another word so “buy hdtv” could go to “buy samsung hdtv” or “buy 3D hdtv”. Just make sure the new keyword still describes your product because you are going to have to write about it. It will be posted on your home page on day 11.

•    Numbers Four, Five and Six will each target other nested keyword variants of your main keyword. Each of these has to be unique. These will be posted to an inner page each at 16, 21 and 26 days respectively.

The actual submission day is not set in stone, just to space 6 post out over a month is one every 5 days (also gives you loads of time to write them). The search engines like constant content so doing this for a month should keep them happy. Usually for the sake of these small sites targeting low competition, low traffic keywords, six is all the content you need because it will shoot your site so far above the competing sites (with some backlinking) that you shouldn’t need more.

If at any point your rankings start to slip you can always add another inner page and just get some more backlinks done. If you want to go a step further you could create an account with Google Webmaster Tools (once again, Google it!). This is a really brilliant online program you can use to get inside the head of the search engine.

It is a really great idea to do this so you can actually see what keywords Google is picking up from your site, what keywords are ranking and also how many people are actually clicking through to your site from what keyword searches.

These are just a few of the great uses for the webmaster tools, you really should give them a go as it will optimize your SEO and save you time over all. That should be all you need to do to finish all of your content work at the moment! Next up we look at building links to your page to raise it’s rank.

Loving the Links

In this chapter we are going to look at how you can build up backlinks that the panda review is going to love. These are all strategies that have the reviews main aims fresh in their minds. I have added pretty significantly to this area since version 1,so be sure to read up!

Press Release

Google Panda Update

Our first port of call is the press release. These work very well for new sites (like an offline business, when you start you make a big press announcement) and should be taken advantage of.

A press release is just like a more formal article or post and a good one can end you up on the first spot of Google within 20 minutes (all be it often only for a short time), but this still goes to show the link building power of press releases.

Lets look in a little more detail at what a press release actually is. A press release is pseudo-news story, written in third person, that seeks to demonstrate to an editor or reporter the newsworthiness of a particular person, event, service or product.

As with all things Panda, the most important thing about a press release is it’s content. What you are writing about has to be of interest to the journalist or they won’t cover it. First and foremost it has to be newsworthy.

News has to be new. There is no point publicizing an event or activity that happened a few weeks ago – it’s been and gone. You need to talk about what’s happening now or what’s about to happen. In this case it is likely to be the launch of your new website (better still if this is also the launch of the product that your website is promoting as this adds credibility).

You can submit your press release to sites such as PR log to distribute it to major sites like Google News. As I mentioned before, this is what gives your press release the chance to appear on the first page of Google within about 15 minutes if you write a compelling report.

Here is a great template for you to use for your press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Headline of Your Press Release Goes Here (Your headline should follow case title capitalization rules, and generally fall in the 80-120 character range. Is should give the essence of the news contained in the release, without blatantly trying to act “cute” or “catchy.” A solid news angle is catchy in and of itself.)

This is where you should include your press release summary, especially when using online press release distribution, as many distribution services require one. A press release summary should be approximately 1-3 sentences long, and should give the reader more details on the news, and at least a mention of the company or person distributing the release.

City, State – Month Date, Year – After you’ve listed the release date and hometown in your dateline, you should begin the intro paragraph for the body of your press release.

Press release paragraphs should be short, and no more than 3-4 sentences in most cases. Your intro paragraph should very basically answer the questions of who?, what?, when?, where?, and why?
You should try to add at least one solid quote into your news release (perhaps from a chairman of the company that launched the product you are promoting).

A quote can be broken down into multiple parts, and is often the most ideal way to mention the individual’s expert status or credentials in the topic area of the news angle, as well as mentioning their company, website, and live URL for online distribution and PR SEO efforts. Only use quotes for information that needs to be quoted, such as needing the clout of an executive behind it.

As you continue writing the body of your press release, you should keep thinking like a journalist. Write with an inverted pyramid style, where you would present your most newsworthy information first, and work your way down to the less significant supporting facts. Remember that you only have a few seconds to grab the attention of a journalist. Any information that won’t help you do that should be reserved for later areas in the press release body.

About Company XYZ
After you’ve given all of the necessary information pertaining to your news angle in the body of your news release, you should add an “about” paragraph commonly known as a boilerplate. A boilerplate is often identical on every release sent out by a company, and serves as a means of providing journalists with additional, and more generic, background information about the company or individual sending the press release.

For more information about Company XYZ, or this particular news angle, please contact [Your Name at Your Phone Number.] (If you distribute online, you might not want to include an email address here, as it can subject you to spam. Many distribution sites will protect your email address from harvesters, and some don’t allow them at all in the body area of a press release.)

Contact Info:
Your Name
Your Title
Company Name
Phone: 555-555-5555
Email: your.name@yourcompany.com
Web: www.XYZcompany.com
(You can include your mailing address as well, but it’s not often necessary.)
### (This mark, among others such as -30-, tells the journalist that they’ve reached the end of the press release, and there aren’t any additional pages to come.)

This should give you more then enough of a template to work with when it comes to creating your press release.

Now as I mentioned your press release getting a chance to make it to Googles number one spot if it is good, that means there is all the more reason to optimize it extremely well.

You should use all the rules that we covered with regards to keywords in the website posts (B, I, U , hyperlinks, density, placement etc.) to make sure that your press release gives the maximum kick to your panda sniper site’s rankings but at the same time also gives you the chance to pull in some good traffic from the number one spot of Google for your keyword for a while (can be a good traffic tester).

Now I would say you only really need one of these releases as you should only really be submitting to the top directory (Google first and foremost) but you can submit to other directories if you want. If you do want to do this though I would suggest that you try to redo a good 40% of the press release as duplicate content is not brilliant for rankings.

Remember unique and quality are two things that the Panda Review really loves so try and stick to those. For the link from this you should direct it to your main page and it should be submitted as soon as your first post is live.

After you have the two to three press releases pointing at your site, then link to the press releases with some social book marks.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is an essential part of marketing now days and it is something that the search engines are taking increasing notice of. Now I know that you may have tried to get some success with a video before and that it can be tough, but the search engines also know that and because of this it seems anecdotal that they do give a big boost for videos as long as they are relevant and useful to the viewer.

The Strategy…

Here you are going to create videos and upload them to video sharing sites like Youtube and Dailymotion. Then you will place a link at the bottom of the video to your site. Then the videos will get backlinked by Article Marketing Robot to boost their PR (page rank).

Google Panda Update

Now relevance of a video is a very hard thing to judge for a search engine as an algorithm cannot watch a video to decide what it is about. All the information has to come in the title and description (which will be fully SEO optimized) as well as in the figures from people watching the video.

As you should know from Google Webmaster Tools, Google tracks things like click through rate so naturally if lots of people click through the link in your video description or embedded as a video watermark, your videos is likely to be of good quality. You should also know that Google owns Youtube and because of this it is very likely that they could monitor the average percentage of a video that is watched by people and by this judge how good the quality of the video is.

Now what are you going to make a video about? Well off course the product you have reviewed would be a good start. If you actually own the product you are going to be at an advantage but you don’t need one. Using pictures of the product can work just fine for a video review or test. Try to create a good quality video that is informative and useful to the viewer. This is a very easy step for you to just figure you should gloss over and skip but trust me it is not hard and it does make a big difference.

If you use a screen capture program like Camtasia (if you have already used it’s free trial then searching around online may find a key for you) it is very easy to put together a short video to review your product choice. You need to upload this video to Youtube using all your usual SEO methods such as keywords in the title, keyword rich description, relevant tags etc.

Have a anchor text link with your main keyword in back to your main page and post this video at the end of week two.

Don’t worry too much about views, you can always use a site like Fiverr (a great site we will cover later) to pay someone to get views to your video (requesting that each person watches the whole video as long as you keep it short shouldn’t be too much of an ask).

Social Media Marketing

Here we come up to the link building for your third week. At this point the search engines should start to take notice of your site so it is time to get the big guns out. Social media is a massive part of the new update and it is a massive part of Googles game plan (just look at Google+).

At this point we are going to start looking at a more intense link building strategy, though it is one that should keep your rankings at the top.

Google takes a lot of notice of sites with social influence and it is well documented that sites that have their work syndicated through Facebook and Twitter do very well in the rankings.

This strategy is going to look at creating a Twitter network and a Facebook network and then linking then via Google+.

First up we cover Facebook.

1. What you need to first is to get a Facebok page set up. This first page will target the main keyword of your website and will be your main FB page.

You will want to check the vanity URL (a permalink, check settings) of your Facebook page to see if you can change it to your main keyword (or at least a nested version) for SEO purposes.

With this done you would end up with; http://www.facebook.com/yourmainkeyword

Finding an image for your page is going to help (this is a social place so you page will need to at least look nice for people to take any notice). Maybe a brand picture with photoshop or GIMP, or maybe you could find someone to outsorce to for a quick picture. (If all else failed then a happy picture of you smiling can sometimes do the job!).

You need to customise your page with relevant information about your website – optimize this with your keywords.
Upload your Youtube video and create a quick slideshow review of the product – upload it to slideshare and then download the slideshare app to FB.

A great step to go further and one that the Panda review really loves is if you link to authorities in your niche for quality information. To do this well you can create an RSS feed in Google Reader, find about five authority pages relating to the product you have reviewed (tech sites or manufacturers for Tvs for example). If you are stuck for these you could find FB pages with a few thousand likes and get their RSS feed. Clicking this icon opens up a window with the Feeds URL, you can paste this to Google Reader (if you haven’t already, you got it, Google it! ).

You can then use Yahoo Pipes Feed to combine this RSS feeds into one Feed which you can put on to your FB page (try something like RSS graffiti app for this). There you have it, great quality content that automatically updates to your page and you don’t have to do anything (best of all, the search engines love this).

Finally, make sure you have a link going from this main FB page to your website homepage.

2. This is the second stage of the FB part. You need to create another three pages that each target one of the nested keywords that you are using for your website inner pages.

Same as last time, add some nice related pictures, add some information (if your posts have been indexed then you can think of using them here – ONLY if they have already been indexed and are showing up in the search engines though), optimize the page to your keywords, claim the vanity URL (if possible) etc.

For these you can add the RSS feed from your website, this does not do wonders in an SEO sense but it gives more chance to actually get people to your page. People visiting your page from FB pages is seen as social and therefore is beneficial as far as the Panda in concerned.

If you want you can combine your feed with some authority ones as well in Yahoo Pipes for more SEO benefit (you should have one unique feed per FB page you create though).

You should link you nested FB pages in to your main page, which in turn links directly with Anchor Text to your Website.

With all that done you can leave the FB pages, these should be fine as they are (though once again, you can use a site like Fiverr to buy some likes if you want).

3. Here is our first step for the Twitter Network. It is very important for ranking, even more so then FB in most cases.

Lucky for you, the Twitter set up is very similar to what you did with your FB page network.

First up you want to try and get your keywords as your username (try adding words that Google ignores if not such as “the”, “a”, “how” etc.) this is going to help for SEO reasons.

Once again you will want to add a picture (this time a personal picture can be more accepted), you can then put down your name and you location (both up to you, may want to put your location as your identified main demographic from your keyword research).

You need to add your home page URL with your main keyword anchor text as well as a bio (optimize it!).

With all of that done you can start to follow some people (unless you want to get templates etc on your profile to make it more pretty, which isn’t wrong!).

As before you should go to find some authorities in the niche of your promoted product. These are the same types of people or companies that you looked for with your FB RSS feeds.

A good judge of authority is a Klout Score (representative of social influence). This is quite simple to understand, just Google it and use it to get the score of some niche authorities. Select the ones with the Highest Klout to follow!

For the content you use on your Twitter site you can easily just use snippets of information from your website content posts as well as new information from the people you follow or your FB pipe feeds.

It is a good plan to do a few small tweets per day. I suggest two small content tweets and one re-tweet from an authority you follow.

That should be everything needed for your main Twitter Site.

4. Here we come to a similar step to the FB network, you need to set up three additional accounts to represent the three inner pages of your website with the nested keywords.

You really just need to do the same steps as you did with the main site for this but make sure everything (bio, location, tag etc.) is optimized to the different keywords.

Once again you want to find some relevant authorities to follow on each of these and you want to follow some of these authorities’ more prominent followers (apps like Tweepi – Google it!, are good for finding out more information about Twitter accounts).

You then want to syndicate your various RSS feeds (from your FB Pages, Your Website, Authorities etc.) and use them on your Twitter pages as they automatically generate content for you. It is also a good idea to look for more influential people and blogs to get RSS feeds from, by searching what people in your niche on Twitter are talking about and following the links.

You then connect these Twitter accounts up to your main Twitter Account with nested keyword anchor text links and bob’s your uncle!

Please don’t fear, even though this may sound like a lot to do, compare to most link campaigns it really is not that much to get great rankings. Another point to add to this is the fact that these networks can easily be added to if your new niche sites are promoting similar products instead of making completely new networks.

Social media is a very big part of rankings now days and most marketers are still just scared to get into it for marketing. Use it’s power, it will make your life much easier!

5. Now we use some Google+ integration. Google+ as I am sure you know is Googles Social Network, it’s creation alone shows you how important Google thinks social media is.

There are two forms of the social site we will be using – Google+ and Google+ Business.

You need to set up a Google+ profile in a very similar way to your FB profile. Upload an image information with main keyword optimization.

You also need to add a link to your website home page where on the side bar it says “Contributor”.

You then need to great a Google+ Business page. Once again this is a very simple process, you select a category, select a keyword specific page name, provide your websites URL, a few more steps and then you create it.

After that you customise it with a tagline – make it gripping and let it contain your main keyword. Get an image selected (similar to the style of image we used for FB) and then share the business profile with your main Google+ profile.

There are just a few things to do after that such as adding a description to the “About” section – use keywords! Once again add your website link to the sidebar as well as your Main FB and Twitter profile links (also selecting a few non-competitive authority sites related to your product is a good idea).

At the moment Google+ is not a massive authority so you should be fine using just the one profile targeting your main keyword but in the future that could change and it may be worth setting up a network similar to on FB and Twitter.

The final stage of this then is to add <a href=”[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google+</a> to your main website (replacing [profile_url] with the actual URL of your Google+ profile) and your main Twitter and FB pages. This shows that you are the author of the Google+ page and will give you an authority boost. You should also link your main page to your FB and Twitter pages (not often you link out from your ranking page but in this case it is more natural).

This should be done in the first week with the links from the main hubs of each social network pointing to your home page. You should post a small amount of content to most of these networks at least each every other day for a few weeks. For a boost you can always look on Fiverr for people selling likes, re-tweets or +1’s as that helps to boost your social media image to the Panda.

High PR Blog Comments

Our final backlinking method is a simpler one and is one I use often (sorry if you have read my other products but this is a great technique I use often and cover in a few of them!).

What you essentially do is you find blogs with a High Page Rank (usually also a .edu or .gov page) and you post high quality, relevant and useful comments on them as well as leaving a link to your website that works as a reference.

For this the links are going to go to the inner pages you have created (this is also useful because the inner pages can be less sales-ey and about things like scams, faults or something like that and thus is more likely to leave the link on the comment in tact).

So here is what we do … we are going use SEO quake (an SEO toolbar – Google it!) so that we can learn the PR of the blog article pages we find.

We are going to find these pages by using search strings to get Google to quickly show us the types of blog that we want to find.

Search strings are very useful to use as SEO marketers, they allow you to refine search engine results so only the specific site types that you are looking for gets returned. Now we have mentioned that .edu and .gov backlinks are often targeted and this is because they are trusted, so that is a good place to start (although this is only a generalization, .com, .info etc. can be just as powerful):  .edublogs

inurl:.edu+inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -“Login to post a comment” -”you must be logged in” “keywords”

This just means that it will search for urls with .edu in them, that it is a blog, that it contains the words “Post a comment” but does not contain the phrases ”comments closed”, “Login to post a comment” or ”you must be logged in”. You then type your keywords into the box that says “keywords” so the blogs will be related to your website.

Now there are a few options you can think of changing here, first of all you could think about changing the .edu to another domain prefix and you could also remove the -“Login to post a comment” -”you must be logged in” section if you don’t mind registering with a blog before you can post comments (This is often a good idea as it is more credible, setting up a profile on the blog helps boost this).

What we will want to do is just put these strings into a Google search and it should return lots of .edu blog posts.

You should notice that you have to use shorter keywords as you are doing a very specific search “TV” might work following the example we have been looking at through the product, this way we will get more results and have more blogs to pick from.

As I mentioned before, you are likely to be safer with a blog that you have to register with first though as this discourages a lot of lazy search engine optimizers, these may be the best places to look in order to keep your links safe from moderation on the blogs.

Now another problem you may run into is that when you try to post a comment you get a message saying you are not allowed. This will generally be down to tracking where the blog does a check on how you found their site and if it is with a search string or other method that “natural” traffic wouldn’t use then it blocks you.

The work around is to just copy and paste the url into a new browser as that will show different tracking.

If this doesn’t work then try searching for the home page url in your search bar and just try to navigate to the article you were at through the website.

Lets just run over how you should comment (yes I am sure you can guess that it will be similar to all of the other panda optimized content that we have been doing!).

It is very important that you give a great full reply to the blog post that contributes and expands on it.

To make sure that your post has the biggest effect, you should try to use this format ;

name: your targeted nested keyword

website: website page you want to rank

email: website domain based email address

comment: As I mentioned before, you need to give a very detailed, on topic relevant and thoughtful comment, the longer the better! You should absolutely not put any HTML in the comment as it will be seen as spam and removed or not even put up in the first place, you should only leave a backlink in the website box.

Using this method to send high quality, SEO optimized backlinks to your inner pages you can really help to give your SEO that extra push!

This should be started in your fourth week and continued with your Social Network linking until you hit the top spot (or maybe until you are happy with the recurring income you are getting).

You should be using the webmaster tools to analyze your ranking efforts to see if they are getting better with time.

And that is that (well almost), with that done you should be able to either start over making another site to start profiting from whilst enjoying the income from this one or……… you could start looking to outsource the process now that you are familiar with it so that instead of creating one site a month, a team of people create 8,16,24 or more sites for you each month!

Tools

There are a number of tools you can use to help you automate things as far as backlink building. I wouldn’t recommend using too much of the super automated tools; at least, not blasting thousands of links at your sites at once. The following tools I am going to show you are really all you need to build links to your site, and in a coming email I will advise you the steps and tools required to start your very own seo service!

One tool which can be utilized is Article Marketing Robot. I showed you above the social bookmarks and AMR blasts to your press releases for your webistes. This is very effective. However, AMR can also be used in moderation to build diverse article links directly to your site. Just remember not to blast the whole thing at once to your sites, use it carefully.

The two other tools I use to build links regularly are Build My Rank and Linkvana. Both of the tools build high PR backlinks to your site and have great qualities. Once again, I reccomend signing on to both and AMR for link diversity and a serious mind made up before doing so! Signing on to all these tools are WAY cheaper than hiring a pro SEO service for your site, especially when you get more than one website. And of course, you can even start your own SEO agency, which I will mail you about in the future; just something to think about!

Another really great way to pick up backlinks is by placing high PR comments on websites with authority. All you have to find is websites accepting comments, with High PR pages. When you register and leave your comment and it is accepted, you have yourself a high PR backlink!

Outsourcing Your Fortune

Now we are just going to look at the possibilities for outsourcing the whole process to make a large, scaling, autopilot income. The first thing you will want to do is to sign up to a website such as oDesk or eLance (not freelancer, that’s awful!). From there you can post jobs and outsourcers will bid for the job, allowing you to select which ever suits you best for price and sample quality.

Now as you might suspect, you will need someone for every step of the process. You need a content creator to create the initial six posts for the site, you will need a website designer to get the website set up and optimized and you will need someone to sort out your backlinks for you.

Now the great thing about having multiple people is that they can all run at the same time getting one or two websites set up and going each week.

By multiplying everything up you can see that 6 posts per website is going to be 6,000 – 9,000 words, doing even up to 36,000 words (so 4 whole websites worth at the higher content end) in a week is not a massive work load.

If you stick to 12 of these posts per week then you should be fine. Then as soon as one post is done you can get your content creator to start sending these over to your website designer/optimizer (as well as sending them to you) so they can start automatically uploading themselves every 5 days.

As soon as the first post is ready and uploaded you can also get your backlink creator in on it so they can start boosting rankings. Hell, in most cases you don’t even need that much of a backlink creator if you just look at sites like Fiverr. Using these sites you should be able to get all sorts of parts of your backlinking done for just $5 – videos, social likes etc., press releases, all sorts!

Off course this doesn’t just happen smoothly from the get go, you will want to spend a week or two training up your initial team so that they are familiar with this whole course as well as writing out schedules for each one (important!).

The schedule is a really important thing for not just your work force, but for you to get your head around. Each website’s ranking will last for about one month but every half a week to a week a new site will begin so it will end up with the ranking or 4-8 sites overlapping. You have to factor this in so that each person knows what site they are doing what for on what day.

Still saying this, don’t worry too much, a pattern pops up pretty quickly and the work load is not too much because it is spread between at least three outsourcers.

This really is a great way to make cash because it builds up.  Perhaps you end up paying your outsources $500 in one month for creating getting 4 sites up and say that each site only makes $100 (easily achievable), your balance under by $100. Next month they make another 4 sites (now 8 in total) that all make $100 again, carrying over your final loss you now have ; 8 x $100 = $800 and $100 + $500 fees = $200 profit.

Sounding okay now hey?

Want to follow it on a few months?

Month three = $900 total profit, month four = $2000 total profit.

Sounds good seeing as you hardly did any of the work!

This is only if you are keeping things small as well, really every 3 – 4 months you can think of hiring another team and yeah they may start with a small loss and yeah you may have to spend a week or two training them, but after a month or two they will also be giving you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of autopilot cash.

What about when you have too many team to manage? Simple!

You get a virtual assistant to manage the teams for you, you should be able to get one to look after perhaps 4-6 teams easily for maybe $500 per week. You would get them to take charge of everyone as well as giving you daily reports on progress (as you sit on an exotic beach in the Indian ocean sipping a cocktail..).

You can imagine scaling this up still by hiring managers to look after the virtual assistants when you have several of them. The manager can take on your roll by analysing the daily reports and fixing any issues as well as giving you reports perhaps twice a week.

By managing your new autopilot business like this you also create a ranked system that can leave room for promotion as an incentive to work hard.

The sky really is the limit and since you are creating these sites just to rank on Google there is literally an unlimited source of business!

Video Marketing

I wanted to add a little more about creating video marketing for your website because the new Panda algorithm truly pays more attention to those sites that have rich text like video as opposed to sites that don’t. Now that  Google owns YouTube, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise because YouTube is the biggest video site on the web, so Google has a huge self interest in promoting it.

Creating video content is not hard and you don’t need to purchase a lot of expensive equipment of download huge programs to do it. I’ve already mentioned using Camtasia to capture screen shots, but now I want to talk about easy ways to create even better videos that will attract even more attention.

Stepping out of the internet and into the real world for a moment, nearly every modern smart phone, digital camera, even desktop PCs come with cameras built into them nowadays. Most shoot high definition video as well, making it a simple task to create an engaging, high-quality video you can use to promote your product.

If you have any of these devices, play around with them for a little while until you can figure out how to get the best quality video you can. If you have a digital camera, for example, use your tripod if you have one to stabilize the image. If you don’t own a tripod and are planning to create a lot of videos to promote your products (given the importance the Panda algorithm gives to videos, this would be a good idea) then you may want to consider investing in a tripod. You can find a bare bones one that will suit your needs quite well for just a few dollars. Or bid on one on eBay. If you aren’t sure you will be shooting a lot of video and don’t want to invest anything yet, at least set the camera on a flat surface so that your video isn’t shaky.

There are a number of different kinds of videos. Take a few minutes to research videos about products like the ones you are promoting and see what your competitors are doing. This helps you create something unique and also learn from their mistakes.

One kind of video is just someone talking about their product.

If you own the product you are promoting, shoot a video showing how it works, explain what its benefits are, how it will improve the lives of the people who buy it. Keep the video short, less than 10 minutes certainly, better yet less than 2 or 3. Remember, the Panda takes into account not only the number of people who click on  your video, but also how many watch it all the way through to the end. It’s a good idea at the outset of the video to promise to reveal something important at the end so that they keep watching all the way through.

If you are familiar with the product’s benefits and how to sell them, you don’t necessarily have to write a script. But you will probably want to map out some talking points at the very least.

If you are using the camera on your computer, you can put your script or talking points on the screen to make it easier to remember what you want to say.

If you are just shooting yourself talking about the product, the video should have this kind of structure:

•    Greet your viewers and introduce yourself.
•    Introduce your product
•    Talk a little about the product’s benefits
•    If you can demonstrate how it works, do so
•    Near the end, reveal something special about the product
•    Conclude with the Call to Action: Tell your viewers exactly what it is you want them to do, ie. Visit your website, buy the product

If you are not used to being on camera, try to relax as much as possible. Remember to be friendly and helpful. One helpful tip is to talk with your hands more than your normally would. This creates inflection in your voice and is more interesting to listen to than just a monotone.

The second kind of video is a series of static screen shots, such as a PowerPoint presentation. They can actually be created with PowerPoint, if you already have the program, or you can download a program that will allow you to build one. There are dozens of free sites out there, so go ahead and Google it if you need to.

These kinds of videos are a little bit different than videos of you talking about your product. They are going to be more like commercials than testimonials or sales pitches. For these kinds of videos, you definitely are going to want a script. If you are not confident about your script writing abilities, there are many experienced writers on eLance, Guru or even Fiverr who would be happy to create a script for you for very little money.

But if you want to give it a try yourself, the script should be set up so that there is one line for each slide. The lines should be very short, usually not more than ten words, which means you will have to be very economical with your writing. And obviously, the line should be relevant to what is displayed on the screen.

Each slide will be on the screen only for about 3 seconds, no more than 5, except for the last slide which will stay onscreen until it fades out. That means for a 2 minute video, you are going to need about 25 to 35 lines of text. When you type out your script, it should look like this:

Success Dynamics
Total Lines: 15
Total Running Time (approx. minutes): 1:00:00

Success Dynamic Video Script

1.    Have you always dreamed of making money on the internet?
2.    Working from your own home and setting your own hours?
3.    Making money by owning your own online business can be easy
4.    As long as you have the right tools
5.    But where can you learn what those tools are?

You computer may have come with a program for recording audio. If so, you can use that to record the audio for your video. Just play your slideshow presentation and use the audio recording program on your computer to put down your audio track following the script if you go. Don’t worry if it’s not professional quality. Just speak slowly and clearly and enunciate your words. Avoid the urge to rush through the script.

If for some reason your computer doesn’t already have an audio recording tool, you can download a program such as Audacity. There are a lot of them available, most of them with free trials. Google it.

It’s normal for people not to like they way they sound on a recording because we aren’t used to hearing our own voices the way other people hear them. So don’t get upset if you are unhappy with the way the audio for your video turned out. If you truly hate it, you can always ask a friend to record the audio for you. Or you can hire a voiceover artist, but unless you are recording a commercial-grade video, this probably wouldn’t be worth the expense.

The last option is kind of unique. There are programs you can download that will take the text from your website and automatically convert it into a video, complete with background music, voiceovers and different slides. Here’s a link to one of them:

http://download.cnet.com/Article-to-Video-Converter/3000-2650_4-10912741.html?tag=mncol;4

It’s free to use, but you have to pay if you want them to distribute your videos for you. Don’t bother, it’s easy to do yourself, especially if you are just going to post it to YouTube, Dailymotion or the other big sites.

Once you have created a video using one of these techniques, try creating a second and third using the other two techniques. This will triple your exposure and give you experience with different types of video production. With internet marketing relying more heavily on videos, this experience is going to pay off in the future, believe me.

Finally, the most important thing: The whole point of creating videos and posting them on popular video sharing sites is to create additional backlinks to your website, so don’t forget to post a link to your site underneath your video. You would be surprised how many people forget this step!

Videos promoting your products are one of the best ways to improve your site ranking on Google and other search engines, and it is guaranteed that future upgrades of the algorithms will rely even more on this medium, so you may as well embrace it because it’s the new reality.

Press Release Marketing

Earlier I discussed at some length the structure of the press release. Now I just wanted to touch base on why this kind of marketing should be an important element of your marketing campaign.

Two things have happened which have changed the way we live in our modern world: The internet has allowed anybody to access information anywhere at any time instantly. And advances in technology have made smart phones, portable electronic tablets, laptops and eReaders affordable enough so that almost everybody can afford to buy them.

While this has been a boon for internet marketers like you and me, there have been some industries that have been destroyed by these two developments, namely traditional media such as newspapers, television and radio.

As recently as ten years ago, these three forms of media monopolized the advertising industry. If a business wanted to promote its goods and services, it was forced to do business with the local newspaper and the local television and radio station.

Today, however, more people are getting their information from the internet, streaming their videos from video sharing sites, and looking for goods and services by using search engines.

This has spelled doom for many long-standing newspapers. Some of the biggest and most important newspapers in the world have shut down or severely reduced the size of their publications. Those that remain are desperately trying to find ways to digitalize their content so that they can hang on to their dwindling influence. Ad revenues have been decimated as loyal readers flock to media that is easier to use and quicker to respond.

In the same way, TV and radio stations are cutting back on their news reporting budgets and focusing more on getting content from other sources. One example of this is how “news” shows are beginning to use Twitter posts from celebrities and sports figures as a regular part of their content.

While Edward R. Murrow may be spinning in his grave, the result of all this is that the press releases now have a better chance of being used by traditional news media. While in the past, editors may have had enough reporting staff to go out and find news on their own, today newsrooms are almost empty and editors must rely more on news releases to fill their newspapers, radio shows and television programs.

Plus there are more places today that require content than there ever have been in the past. Not only has cable and satellite television increased the average viewer’s options in to the hundreds, but online websites, podcasts and streaming media are quickly becoming one of the most important ways people get information.

And all of those outlets need a constant supply of content. As a result, press releases that may have been given a lower priority in the past now take on a new and improved status.

In order to get maximum exposure for your press release, you are going to have to be your own press agent. That means reaching out to the leading media outlets to make sure they are aware of your press release and asking them if they would like to do a story on it. Make yourself available for an interview, either over the phone, in person or, more commonly these days, online via Skype. This will have the dual benefit of promoting your product and improving the profile of your brand.

Because more people are searching for content online than are reading newspapers, watching television or listening to the radio, your press release gives you the opportunity get your message directly to the public, without the filter of reporters or editors. This lets you spread the exact message that you want to distribute.

Now that your press release can get more attention, let’s talk about some ways you can maximize its impact.

The first thing to remember is to use the same keyword techniques you used when creating your web content to SEO your press release. This will ensure that people searching within your niche will be able to find your press release quickly.

The second thing is to keep your brand information consistent with every press release. For example, people love tag lines. These are short phrases that “sum up” the message you are trying to get across. Here are a few examples:

“Just do it”
“I’m lovin’ it”
“Things Go Better With Coke”
“Have it your way.”
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”
“Even a caveman can do it.”

Tag lines just get stuck in people’s heads. They are a great way to build a brand’s presence, if you choose the right tag line, that is.

Tag lines should be brief and catchy. The longer a tag line is, the less impact it will have with your reader. Once you find a great one, make sure to use it frequently because they are a fast, easy and effective way to keep your brand information consistent.

Finally, make sure you get the most out of your content. Once you create a press release, don’t just post it on a press release circulator such as PR Newswire and forget about it. Use that same content again in blogs, articles, videos, podcasts and any other way you can repackage that same content.

Break out your key points and create Twitter posts out of them. Post links to your press release on Facebook. Search for blogs relevant to your niche and post replies containing the key elements of your press release. And in every case, don’t forget to include a link back to your website.

You can rewrite the same content in your press release in endless variations. Identify the top 10 points in your press release and then rewrite it 10 times with each of the key points as the press release’s primary focus. Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to do and will give you ten times the exposure.

But be sure to keep your press release newsworthy. Think about what the “hook” of your press release should be. What is it that will capture the attention of your readers?

For example, if you are promoting a particular product, such as roller blades, that’s not necessarily newsworthy. Roller blades have been around for a long time.

But if there has been some sort of substantive design change to the product you are promoting – these roller blades have three wheels each! – then there’s your “hook”.

The same hook can be repackaged in several different ways. Here’s how to get nine news releases out of a single hook:

1.    Announcing a new product or design change
2.    Primary benefits of product or design change
3.    Secondary benefits or product or design change
4.    How product or design change came about
5.    Why product or design change will change the industry
6.    What’s the best way to use the product or design change
7.    Who are most likely to benefit from the product or design change
8.    Why is the product or design change timely
9.    What differentiates the product or design change from competitors

Another benefit is that online press releases can be tracked so you can know how many times your press release was clicked on or downloaded. You can also track how may clickthroughs resulted from each version of your press release. You can use these tracking tools to determine what works well and what doesn’t, and tweak future press releases accordingly.

Writing Influential Copy

We’ve talked a lot about the best ways to market your content through on-page and off-page SEO, identifying the best keywords, creating your site and building backlinks to drive traffic, easy ways to create video marketing, and the newfound importance of press releases.

Before we sign off, however, it’s important to touch base on one of the most important elements of your marketing program: How to create influential content.

It’s one thing to get people to click through to your site. But how you engage them once they arrive there is truly important to converting visitors into customers.  Fortunately, there are several proven techniques for creating great content that I am going to share with you now.

In order to write persuasively, it is necessary to grab your reader’s attention quickly and intensely. You need to provoke a resonse, not because you want to get your reader’s attention, but because you want to draw them into the text and want to keep reading through until the end.

Regardless of you are selling or what your subject matter is, there are five primary tools of influential writing that are designed to provoke a response from your readers.

When you write content that includes one or more of these techniques, you will be far more likely to create a bond between you and your readers. Once you cement this bond, it’s easy to manipulate your reader during your final Call to Action (CTA).

The first technique is one of the most powerful of all: Storytelling. We all love to listen to stories. It’s hard-wired into our consciousness since birth and dates back to pre-history, when cavemen would sit around the fire and share tales of their adventures.

Telling stories is one of the best ways to immediately engage your reader on your niche topic and allows you to convince readers to buy into your narrative.

People love stories because they can relate to the characters and the plot. They associate the details of your story with things that have happened to them in their own lives or in the lives of people they know. As a result, stories provide a social connection between the listener and the outside world.

In most cases, people are hoping for a happy ending when they read or listen to a story. If you can provide one for them, they will be satisfied with the story and be more receptive to your ultimate objectives. Always try to leave your readers satisfied by giving them a happy ending.

Let’s say, for example, that your product niche is an acne cream. You could describe the benefits of the acne cream, or you could talk about the years of scientific research that went into developing the acne cream and how it is based on cutting edge technology that originally was developed for the space program, for example. Or you could just tell the story of Loretta:

“Loretta was an ordinary teenager. She was never the most popular or prettiest girl at her high school, but she had a few close friends and had a lopsided smile that boys liked.

“But one Monday morning, Loretta woke up to find a few zits on her face. And by the end of the week, two or three pimples had become a full blown outbreak of acne. There were so many unsightly blemishes and pimples that Loretta cancelled her weekend plans and spent the whole time crying in her bedroom.

“Loretta felt humiliated about the way she looked and she worried that she would never get another date again.

“Loretta’s mother made an appointment for her with a dermatologist and he prescribed different medications, but nothing seemed to work. In fact, the acne seemed to be getting worse!

“Pretty soon, Loretta started staying home from school because she was embarrassed about the way she looked. Although she had always been a straight “A” student, her grades began to suffer and then she started to wonder if she would get into the college she wanted to attend.

“In no time at all, Loretta had changed from a happy, carefree teenager to a depressed and girl who spent hours in her darkened room crying inconsolably into her pillow.

“But one day, one of her close friends told Loretta about this incredible product that was guaranteed to get rid of acne quickly and make it stay away forever. She tried the product and miraculously her acne disappeared overnight.

“Loretta started feeling happier and more confident. Pretty soon she was dating the captain of the football team and they were named king and queen of the senior prom. Her grades improved and she got into the college she wanted. And all thanks to this amazing product.”

Now, there is no Loretta and the events in this story never actually happened. But that doesn’t mean the reader wasn’t drawn into the story and believed in the benefits of the acne cream.

Telling a good story is one of the most effective ways you can provoke a response from your readers, compelling them to reach the conclusion you desire. In this case, it would be that the acne cream will have a permanent, positive impact on your life.

The second technique to consider is social proof, also known as the bandwagon approach.

This is when you tell your reader how successful your product is and that everybody is using it. It’s a natural human response to want to be part of the popular group. Everyone wants to be associated with winners, whether it’s the champion sports team or the most popular underarm deodorant that everybody is using today.

One of the best ways to use social proof is through the use of testimonials. These are brief, first person accounts in which somebody explains how the product benefitted them. Ask your previous customers if they would be willing to write a testimonial about your product. You will be surprised how many people will be willing to do this.

Then, include testimonials with any of the marketing you create for your documents. Ask the person to send you a head shot with the testimonial because people put more value in a testimonial if is attached to picture of the person.

A word of caution: Read through the testimonial first, don’t just copy and paste it.  I’ve seen a lot of testimonials that are off-topic, or in which the person references the fact that you asked them to write it.

Also, don’t make up testimonials. It’s unethical and also unnecessary. Most people will be thrilled to write on for you if you simply ask them.

Used effectively, testimonials are one of the best ways to create social proof for your product.

Other forms of social proof include outside referrals, such as quoting experts or citing scientific reports. We’ve all seen how Wikipedia has been used as a source for “expertise” about various topics. Be cautious when quoting the information directly from Wikipedia because it is not always 100 percent accurate.

The website allows anyone to submit and edit entries. The result is that it can sometimes be factually wrong or at least misleading. A better tool is to look at the footnotes that are quoted in Wikipedia entries and then use these as your source materials. In most cases, they are from academic or professional research papers or trade publication articles that will give your social proof more weight.

One of the most recent forms of social proof is to reference your product’s popularity on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. If you have created a Facebook Fan Page for your product and it has thousands of members, or if your product has a Twitter account with a lot of followers, mention this. Not only will you give your product more credibility, but you may even get more Fan Page members and Twitter followers.

Everybody is on these social media sites now, so they are a great way to add social proof to your products because people can relate to them easily. Success breeds success, and if people think your product is wildly popular on these hot sites, you may even get it to go viral.

If your product doesn’t yet have a lot of Facebook Fans and Twitter followers, it’s a simple matter to get them. There are many internet entrepreneurs currently selling products that will instantly give your product or website hundreds of fans on Facebook and Twitter, creating your product instant credibility among some of the most desirable customers anywhere: internet-savvy young people.

Your first place to look is Fiverr, but these entrepreneurs are everywhere and it is a simple matter to find them. Google it.

The third tool for persuasive writing that I want to discuss is repetition.

One of the side effects of information overload is that people have shorter attention spans. They are far less likely to read all the way to the end of an article or blog post, or watch a video from start to finish.

That means when you do have their attention, you need to drive your point across multiple different times in multiple different ways. In other words, by using repetition.

Reinforcing your point in different ways multiple times has proven effective in getting people to buy into your product.

Readers today are bombarded with information at a rate faster than they can process it. As a result, many modern readers have lost the ability to absorb lots of information at once. Instead, they are constantly processing small bits of information quickly, and disposing of data as quickly as they take it in.

Repetition lets you present your point numerous times so that you readers can absorb it regardless of how quickly or intently they read your copy.

It’s also important to note that if your CTA is to have your readers click on a link or give you their email address, you will want to make sure that they have multiple opportunities to do so.

Post your link at least three times throughout your copy: Near the top, somewhere in the middle, and absolutely at the end. That way, as your readers scan through your copy, you have more chances of them acting on what you want them to do.

If you wait until the end to post your link, there is a high likelihood that the reader will never make it that far in the copy. If you are effective in making your point right at the beginning, your reader may click on your link just to move on to the next thing.

Repeating your key points and making sure you have links posted in multiple places will substantively improve your chances of getting your readers to act on your CTA.

The fourth tool for persuasive writing I want to discuss is Addressing Objections.

We live in a savvy world today. People are naturally more suspicious if they think someone is trying to sell them something. That’s why you want to make your copy as personal as possible. If your readers sense you are a spammer or just there to sell them something, it will turn them off and you will lose your opportunity to get them to act on your CTA.

One proven method to get your readers to buy into your copy is to address objections. That means countering objections to your central argument before your readers can even think of them.

Think about it like this: Back in the Old West, traveling salesman would move from town to town selling “elixirs” that were supposed to help people feel better. In most cases, they were alcohol or some sort of drug, but many of these “snake oil salesman” were successful because they would address objections during their sales pitch.

This had the effect of getting people on their side and created a loyalty bond between the seller and buyer. It was surprisingly effective.

When you think about the product you are promoting, consider what negatives it could potentially have: It is more expensive than competing products? Does it have negative benefits?

An effective way to counteract doubt about your product is to address these potential objections even before they are raised in the minds of your readers. You can beat your readers to the punch, in effect, by addressing these objections on, arguing rationally and effectively against objections even before your readers can think of them.

Let’s say, for example, your product is a tanning light or a tanning bed. Most doctors will tell you that the ultraviolet rays in tanning beds may be linked to skin cancer, and that people should stay away from them. You can anticipate this objection in your reader and address it even before your reader thinks of it.

One way to do this would be to call into question the statements of these so-called medical “experts” who want to link tanning beds with skin cancer, saying there has never been any definitive evidence connecting tanning beds with any kind of illness.

In fact, the deep, glowing tan will make you look better and healthier than you ever have in your life.

Address objectives eloquently and convincingly in your writing and your readers will become your most die-hard defenders and, ultimately, your most loyal customers.

The last persuasive technique involves creating Exclusivity.It’s a natural human response for people to want to think they are special. They also put a higher value on privileges if those privileges are denied to others. That’s the whole theory that has made country clubs successful for generations. You can go anywhere to play golf or swim in a pool, but if you are allowed to do it at a country club and other people can’t, you are willing to pay a lot of money for that privilege.

One way of applying exclusivity to your writing is by telling readers they have been selected to receive an exclusive offer, and that most people won’t ever be given the same opportunity. It targets the natural impulse people have to be part of the elite social group. The best content provokes a response from readers and engages them into the text. You can use the techniques of Storytelling, Social Proof, Repetition, Addressing Objectives and Exclusivity provoke a positive response from your readers and get them to take the action that you want them to take.

Conclusion

In this report you have learned the easiest ways to research for a keyword, and then build your sniper style site properly. You then learned how to rank your site FAST in Google and other search engines. You learned about the backlinking tools I use to help rank my sites the fastest. And finally, you learned to automate the entire process through outsourcing. Now it’s time for one more thing:

ACTION!

Make sure you take action on the info in the book and videos and FINALLY start building an income online. So many people buy every wso and online course, and just let the info sit and gather digital dust on their hard drives. Don’t be that person! Go over my material, and take notes if you have to. Take action and finally start enjoying some success online. It really isn’t rocket science, but it’s not push button riches either. It takes work and dedication. Just follow through once you get done reading the material and you’ll be well on your way!

Facebook’s New Timeline

Filed in Marketing Guides by on April 16, 2014

Everyone is talking about Facebook’s new Timeline for Pages. It is brand new and different from the Facebook business pages you are used to. Facebook is striving to showcase a more personal way of seeing your business or brand. Many people are anxious about the changes that will occur in their Facebook business accounts on March 30, 2012. Beginning March 30, Facebook will be automatically converting your existing account to the new Timeline for Pages type of account. Don’t get into a panic, though, because you can preview your new look before it takes place.

If you would like to preview the new Timeline for Pages look, just log in to your existing business account as you normally would. Then you can click on the “Turn on Preview” box. This will allow you to see what your existing page would look like in the new style. You can preview just one page or all of the pages. This will help you get an idea of how you want to build your new look for the Timeline. Facebook has convenient tours that you can take that will guide you in understanding what Timeline is about and the different features it offers. In this way you can take your time and plan out your new look or, if you think you are ready now, you can just push “publish” and you will be instantly converted. If you choose to do that, you can make any changes you desire at any time.

The basics of the new Timeline for Pages encompasses a more personal approach. Your Cover image is big and bold and will let people know up front something important about your business. It makes a statement, so you might want to consider what you are trying to convery before you choose an image for it. The biggest innovation is the timeline feature itself. Facebook now allows you to place milestones along your timeline that showcase the highlights of your business. The first milestone will show when your business was founded and you may choose as many others as you like to bring attention to important events in the history of your business. The timeline provides a story about your business. It allows everyone to know when you started and how you have progressed through time. You can also add photographs of your business or logos to enhance your timeline and add interest. Many people are happy with the abiltiy Facebook is providing for you to send and receive private messages and to use your new Activity Log to view insights data.

Facebook is not allowing any contact information or calls-to-action, but they are allowing you to pin posts up on top of the feed for a week at a time. This could prove helpful when you are trying to draw attention to something important. Another big change is that Facebook is no longer allowing you to use an app for a landing page. It will take some time to see what new features are most popular and what old features will be missed, but one thing is for certain… Facebook has made great strides into the future with Timeline for Pages.

How to Edit your Timeline

As the largest social media platform in the world, Facebook provides individuals all over the world with the opportunity to connect and speak with one another instantaneously.  As the front runner of the social media industry, you can rest assured that the majority of individuals who use the internet will undoubtably have a Facebook.  Considering that Facebook is an industry leader, providing new and innovative features can prove to be exponentially beneficial, thus Timeline was presented to the general population.

Essentially with the implementation of Timeline, Facebook users are able to take advantage of new and innovative features and an easier navigational aspect to the website itself.  Also, it provides users with the ability to manager their privacy setting in a more efficient manner and to personalize their page to meet their own personal taste.  Although the majority of users find that the Timeline has been beneficial, some critics are stating that it has made the Facebook experience far more difficult.

One of the largest requests to Facebook from the users was to have a type of personalization feature, whether it be to change the layout of your profile page or to be able to use CSS or HTML to manipulate the colors and fonts of the page.  Although this was not granted to the general public, users are now able to upload a cover photo.  Essentially the cover photo is a giant banner that is at the top of your page and you can change it to whatever image you like.  As an example, if you are a Coldplay fan you can change your cover photo to a picture of Coldplay.

Some other features that you will be able to manipulate on your profile page include: subscribing to new and/or old friends, editing your general Timeline, and even creating life events.  With the subscription option you will be able to see recent posts by the individual that you subscribe to instantaneously as they take priority over your other friends.  You will also be able to receive alerts that detail what the individual posted and when.  With the general Timeline editing, individuals will be able to remove certain posts from their Timelines and even block certain users from reading a particular post.  As for the life events, you will be able to update certain activities that occur throughout your life such as the birth of your first child or a brand new engagement.

Inevitably the new Timeline layout has made the Facebook experience far more in depth and interesting than the first design of the social networking site.  With the abundance of features you will be able to customize your Facebook to maximize your usage.

Choosing a Great Cover Photo

With all of the excitement over facebook’s implementation of the new Timeline for Pages, it is importnat to understand how to get started and maximize your business. Everyone knows how important it is to have a great cover picture on your account, but how do you choose the best photograph to use?

The first step in choosing a great cover photo is to know the rules for cover photographs for the new Timeline for Pages. The size of picture is much larger than the old format called for. The new preferred size is a width of 851 pixels. It is an extremely wide picture and it presents you with an opportunity to draw the viewers’ attention and make a visual statement about your business.

Sometimes a phootograph of your company logo makes a good cover image for your account. It allows viewers a chance to mentally link your logo to your business and might well stay in their minds after they have moved on to other pages or sites.

Facebook has implemented some of the following rules for cover photos for your business or brands. They do not allow people to share your cover photo or click “like” on it, to begin with. Facebook also doesn’t allow you to share any contact information or prices or purchase information in your cover photo. As might be expected, they don’t allow any misleading information to appear in your cover image or 3rd party infringement. As you can see, it is extremely important  to be, thorough in  determining the correct picture to use and how it will effect the viewers. It is a wonderful idea to get the opinions of others about possible cover images before you commit to one. Family and friends can often be helpful in assisting you in describing how well the cover image suits the business. Photos can be easily replaced to make it possible to try various looks for your Timeline Page. It is also a good idea to be sure that your cover image fits in well with any photos of your business that you plan to place along your timeline. Not only do you want your cover photo to be appealing on it’s own, and be a good representation of your business or brand, but you want it to blend in with your entire Timeline, so it can be also thought of as a whole, complete package.

After you have chosen what you feel is the very best photo for your cover, don’t be afraid to boast about it to others. Not only will it gain you more traffic on your page, but it might also help you receive some valuable insights into the way others view your cover photograph.

Building Your Story With Milestones

Facebook has created a wonderful new opportunity for you to share your business on a more personal level with their new Timeline for Pages. They have devised a system for sharing the history of your business with the assistance of milestones and photographs. By using milestones along your new Timeline, you can create a sense of telling a story.  Your audience will have the opportunity to see how your business has grown and changed over time by the milestones you choose.

Your first milestone will be generated by Facebook asking you for the date that your business was founded. This makes it easy to get started and to begin assembling your story through milestones. There are several events that come to mind that would be perfect for choosing milestones for. Some events that might be perfect for marking with a milestone might be when your business went public, when acquisitions were made, when buildings were expanded, or when ownership changed hands. There are some fun milestones that you can add also, such as when your company earned its first dollar, when your logo was created or changed and when new services or products were added.

Some great advice to consider is to try to include events that were happening in the world at certain times. The focus should always remain on your business, but it adds interest to place your business events in the midst of world events that viewers can relate to. How fun is it to embed a few events like man’s first walk on the moon or the introduction of the first laptop computer into the Timeline with your company’s important events? This will certainly make your business timeline more memorable to your viewing audience.

Adding photographs to your timeline is also a good idea for adding interest. People love to see pictures of what a business looked like when it started out compared to what it looks like today. Don’t forget that interior photos are as desirable as exterior ones. Sure, it’s great to see the front of your business with your sign proudly displayed in front, but people are also interested in seeing what it looks like inside too. Another photograph that holds great appeal is one of any partners or staff you might have.This is sure to add a more personal touch and attract potential customers.

Facebook also allows you the option to hide your milestones from the news feeds of your fans …but why? If you build a Timeline complete with well thought out milestones and images connected with your business, then share them!

Tabs and the New Timeline

Whether you are a business or an individual looking to promote your talents, company, and/or products, the use of Facebook can prove to be exponentially beneficial.  Considering that there are millions of users who are constantly looking for new companies and products to suit your needs you will be able to tap into a gigantic resource of potential clients and/or customers.  With the business pages, Facebook has provided companies and individuals with the opportunity to maximize their computing experience.

Timeline is a brand new layout that Facebook designed in order to provide a more user-friendly and exciting computing experience for individuals all over the world.  With the implementation of the new design, users are provided with an abundance of new features such as adding life events, having an array of showcased photos, and blocking certain information from reaching certain groups of people.  Not only did the Timeline upgrade enhance the experience that the generic user will have but it also helped to make businesses have an easier time gathering demographic information about the people that visit their page with the use of tabs.

Tabs essentially allow users to venture to different parts of your Facebook page and then allow you to determine how many individuals visited a particular area of your page.  As an example you will be able to see how many people visited your welcome page or how many people clicked on your information page.  Having the ability to acquire this information will drastically increase your knowledge of what the more popular areas of your Facebook page are.  With this knowledge you will be able to build up the page in order to maximize the customer experience meanwhile provide enough details to the other pages in order to shift traffic to the other areas of your Facebook page.

With the user-friendly nature of Facebook and the implementation of new and innovative features, individuals will be able to have a better navigational experience while they are sifting through the copious amount of business pages on Facebook.  As a company, you will be able to gather the required information in order to ensure that you can maximize the benefits that your Facebook page will provide to current and new customers.  Tabs have helped to make Facebook feel more organized and professional in nature which alone can help a company to acquire a better first impression from new clients and/or investors.

Timeline and Private Messages

With the impending change to Facebook for Timeline it is important to understand what this means for messaging.  Previously you had posts on your page and private messaging was not allowed, but now you have options and it is a really great feature that has been added.  So the decision you now face is whether you will allow private messages from your fans.

With the new implementation taking effect on March 31, 2012 you need to weigh your options and make your decisions very soon.  As the new timeline design is rolled out your fans can choose to send you a private message instead of posting on your page publicly.  There will be a message button placed underneath your cover photo and on your side you will see the messages displayed on the right side of the admin panel.

There are many great reasons for this feature and while it means more customer service from your side, it could offer up some very good business opportunities.  First you can now communicate information that could be private, or sensitive in nature directly to your fan without having to require an email address or locate another contact method.  The feature will also allow you to really showcase your customer service and provide support that otherwise might not be really seen by our fans.  The privacy thing works both ways as well, as this allows your fans to reach you privately about issues without having to tell everyone about the problem or discussion that can be one on one.  Of course it means you might have to add resources that you currently do not have to respond and handle the message traffic.  It could be that it simply does not fit for your business and could be better to disable the feature from your page.

If you decide you do want to disable the feature, then simply go to your admin panel and click on manage, and edit page.  Under the manage permissions tab you will find the check box to disable the message feature.  It is easy and quick and could be you want to change it later on when you have the ability to handle it better.  In order to prevent spam and protect your privacy there are some restrictions you need to be aware of.  Since Facebook does limit the way the pages can interact with the messaging feature, it will limit the back and forth messages.  So if you happen to be communicating with a fan that is going to require quite a lot of this, you may want to opt out for email, as you will be limited in that exchange.

The timeline feature is going to be a great change and will bring on many opportunities for the business.  You have to decide what works best for you and for your business and how your fans are best managed.  Just review and understand so you can have the setting in place and be ready for the big conversion as you want your timeline page to be a great reflection on you and your business.

Building a brand with the new timeline

Unless you live under a rock, you have probably heard that Facebook has released the new timeline for brands.  So if you are confused or trying to understand how you can adapt to this new format, we will try to provide some guidance on how it works.

First, if you have not chosen to upgrade to the new timeline format, you will have no choice as of March 30, 2012.  So since that date is just around the corner, let’s focus on the things you can do to prepare for the structure change.

Photographs or something creative for your cover – Facebook is giving you a chance here to customize a pretty large space on your page, and let’s face it they do not relinquish control on much of anything.  However, here you have 850 pixels and 315 pixels wide to totally create your own cover.  Ok, yes there are some things you can’t use here.  You cannot put price, purchase information, go to our website, contact information, no email or mailing address, nothing that really should be on your “about” section.  You are not allowed to have any call to action, and you cannot reference anything to the “like” or “share” buttons.  So just follow the rules, but be creative.

Choose your profile image carefully – you may want to choose a great picture for you larger image and use the company logo on the small image.  You might need to play with this somewhat so you are happy with the results.

Update your timeline – the main feature in the timeline for brands is that you have a chance to chronicle your history, and while it will only show activity since you joined Facebook, you can select previous years and add important events that have occurred.  A great site to view is Coca-Cola and see how they developed their timeline.

Facebook apps need to be presented in order of importance – you can only display four apps at a time, so it is important to prioritize.
To activate or not activate the message function – you now have an option to open communication with your fans on a private channel.  It can set expectations and mean additional customer service level support.  You can turn this function off, but you need to address any issues in a public forum instead of the private message area.

As with any change it is going to take a little getting used to.  You might try things that work, and some that do not.  The key is to prepare and plan and be ready before you are forced into the change.  Find the pictures you want, reflect a good picture of yourself that defines who you are and utilize the new features to bring results.  Change is good, and embracing it, finding a way to make it work for you, that is the key and the secret to success.

Timeline and Your Business

With the introduction of Facebook’s new Timeline for Pages, you might be wondering how that will effect your business. This is a natural concern when you have been happy with your businesss pages on Facebook until now. Just as your business grows and changes, so does Facebook and their ideas for showcasing your business grow and change. By adding their new Timeline for Pages, you can actually tell (and show) the story of how your business has grown and changed over time.

People are naturally interested in the history of companies they associate with, and Facebook has decided to take advantage of this interest.  By introducing the new Timeline, they are offering you, as the business owner, the chance to share the story of your business. They have provided milestones that you set along your timeline to highlight any and all important events associated with your business. The first milestone you will be prompted to set is commemorating the date your business was founded. From that point on, you will be able to choose milestones for any date or event that you deem to be important for your business. Another great innovation, is that you can also add photos or logos along your timeline to add interest or to emphasize events, a special logo, or a symbol that might be easily associated with your business. Another great photo to add might be an image of the front or the inside of your business.

The cover image you use for your new Timeline for Pages is very important. It is large and bright and is the first impression anyone visiting your page receives of your business or brand.  You will need to choose a photo that is clear and fits the new larger specifications of a width of at least 851 pixels.

Some features that Facebook has changed are the ability to use landing pages, and no calls-to-action and no contact information are allowed. Obviously, this will have an impact oh how you do business on Facebook. Everyone will have adjustments to make with the new Timeline for Pages, but it does offer an opportunity to add a more personal touch to your interactions on Facebook. Another feature that emphasizes the personal aspect of your business is the ability to send or receive personal messages. With a little time and patience, your business might benefit greatly from the new Facebook Timeline.