PPC Advertising is Good or Not?

PPC advertising has never been recommended as a long-term strategy. With no lasting effects, many internet marketing firms employ pay-per-click (PPC) as a stop-gap to begin a new campaign or to supplement a change in SEO algorithms. But, many within the marketing industry are beginning to think that even the short-term use of PPC advertising is going by the way-side.

Advertising today is built off of trust and brand. In the past, advertising was focused on repetition and snazzy catch-phrases. The internet has made the world much more connected, so the views of others now play heavily into purchasing decisions. Even television, radio and print advertising have changed drastically because of the interconnectedness of the internet. Almost all messages include a hashtag or some sort of social media interaction to help loyal consumers spread the word about the marketing messages they are receiving.

How Many People are Seeing PPC?

It’s a good question that many in the internet marketing community are working to grasp. Many people know the placement of ads on search engine results pages, so they automatically scroll down and skip these entries. PPC advertising shows no third-party validation, so most searchers are leery to click.

Furthermore, many searchers are technology savvy enough to find their way around the ads by opting out of them altogether. A free ad-blocking add-on makes PPC advertising (as well as flashing banners and crazy jumping ads) disappear from all searches and pages. Numbers show that almost 14 million people using Mozilla Firefox and 7.4 million Google Chrome users have installed such add-ons. PPC blocking add-ons are also available for Safari, Internet Explorer and other popular browsers, but the number of users is not readily available.

As consumers move to more social forms of referrals to gain information about new products and services, PPC advertising begins to die out even more. Brands that are personal, accessible and engaging are the ones that are dominating the market. These marketing messages are built on trust and transparency, and businesses are beginning to change strategies to catch up. In fact, only 18 percent of businesses report ever seeing any success with PPC – but, where do you go?

Learn to Earn Attention, Not Interrupt Someone’s Life with It

Inbound marketing has become a key component to building leads and earning new business. Studies show inbound marketing as a responsible party in more than 90 percent of clicks on the web (the other, slightly less than 10 percent, goes to paid advertising and typical outbound marketing). Typical outbound marketing practices, including advertising on the internet, within social media, on TV, billboards, paid reviews, trade show booth displays and mass email marketing campaigns, have come to be known by many in the business as interruption marketing. These types of messages interrupt a consumer’s day and try to force them to make a move. They often gain attention, but for the wrong reasons. From a business standpoint, outbound or interruption marketing makes budgeting easier, but often results in a higher average cost for customer acquisition.

In comparison, inbound marketing looks to earn attention, gaining it organically without customers viewing it as an interruption. Public relations activities, earned social media mentions, word of mouth marketing, content creation strategies, SEO tactics, event sponsorships and opt-in email communication are all a part of a robust inbound marketing strategy. PPC advertising can be too – but it has to be done with inbound messaging and brand building in mind. This means that PPC advertising should be seen only as a way to increase momentum and push other campaigns forward, not simply as the entire internet marketing strategy.

The Keyword Message

PPC advertising is much closer to organic search than traditional advertising when it is viewed as a way to bring people in. The short-comings of PPC are the inability to retain. That is where PPC advertising works – as part of an entire inbound marketing strategy. In effect, PPC advertising and organic search engine optimization have the same goals (and typically use the same keywords), but the tactics they use to bring people in are different. Both practices, however, must be supplemented with good content building strategies and other inbound marketing tasks that help to build community among customers and keep them engaged and supportive of the brand image.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/28/ppc-advertising-obsolete/

To Pin or Not to Pin: Questions to Ask Before Adding to Your Boards

SEOWEBMOUNT

It is so easy today to add new images and videos to your Pinterest boards. Most pages on the Web now have the ‘Pin It!’ button so you can quickly share what you find. But if you want to maintain a certain image for your brand, you cannot be pinning everything you see.

Everything you add to your Pinterest boards should meet a certain set of criteria. When you ask yourself these six questions, you will make sure that you are pinning only those things that are going to benefit your board followers and your brand.

Does it send a brand-right message to your audience? 

If you are a home decorator, then you probably don’t need to feature a lot of images of funny cats. Your followers are looking for decorating tips, trends and ideas, so make sure that is just what they are getting from your boards. Whatever you pin needs to help create a better picture of what your brand is for your audience.

Is it appropriate? 

Pinterest has set guidelines on what is considered objectionable content. This includes nudity, porn, hateful speech and symbols, graphic violence or attacks on people and spam. You do not want to alienate members of your audience because of some questionable pins. Also, make sure that anything you pin does not violate your or another person’s privacy.

Is it something people will enjoy? 

Pictures that are funny, visually stunning, cute or interesting are more likely to draw in an audience. You want to reach out to people through your boards and show them what your brand is all about. If they like what they see, they are more likely to click on your bio and visit your website.

Does is tell a story? 

You can use your Pinterest boards to tell a story to your audience, to send a message. Some images can work as an emotional connection with your audience. Try finding images that match a word or idea or message that you want to express.

Do your boards have a good mix? 

You don’t want to have simple and boring boards that are full of your products or brand. There should be a good mix of content that will keep your audience visiting your boards. You want content that will inspire them and content that will educate them. Pin instructions on how to do something that relates to your business. If you are a florist, for instance, you could pin instructions for arranging a Thanksgiving centerpiece.

While you want to use Pinterest to grow your brand, you do not want to use it to shove your business and products in the faces of your followers.

Is it the right size? 

Make sure that the images you pin are the right size for Pinterest. The horizontal width is just 735 pixels. Anything over that will be resized automatically, which can leave you with only a partial image. That can mean a less powerful image for others to see and then your message gets lost. You also don’t want to have images that are too small because they won’t be as impactful.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/26/pin-pin-questions-ask-adding-boards/

Top 10 Android Apps For Web Application Developers

Android’s market is booming and now has a large user base. Little more than one year back, iPhone was the king of the Smartphone industry with its horde of useful applications but, when Google purchased Android, Android entered the application competition with a big bang.

Here we give you a brief on our top 10 Android apps for Web application developers:

AndFTP:

It is an FTP client app that enables you to access your Web browsers through your mobile phone. It supports FTP, SFTP, SCP and FTPS.

Just like a standard FTP client, you can create files and folders, upload and download files with resume capability, rename, remove, copy and set permissions. It has very easy to navigate interface and it’s free.

kWS — Android Web Server:

kWS is a fast and lightweight HTTP Web server. It’s hardly Apache and only supports server-side includes, but can be useful for testing and demonstrating HTML, CSS and JavaScript applications. If you are loading pages from it using your local Wi-Fi network, you will hardly be able to spot a difference from any other Web server you have access to.

View Web Source:

While surfing the mobile Web, if you come across something for which you want to check out the page’s source code, then the View Web Source app is just the right app for you. It will download the full source code of any Web page into a text editor, where you can make changes or notes, and copy/paste it out to an e-mail for later review.

JavaScript Reference:

This one’s a reference app. This app is copied from the W3CSchool’s private documentation, and makes use of a clean and user-friendly interface. The app has detailed properties and methods for each object with examples. It’s a remarkable resource that includes all integrated JavaScript objects, such as browser objects and HTML DOM objects.

Magic Color Picker

Magic Color Picker is a free powerful color selection tool suitable for designers, artists and programmers for selecting colors using different color models. It makes you able to browse different colors through color-wheel. This application provides you the value of colors in different formats like RGB, HSV, YUV, HSL and hexadecimal. This also provides different choices for the display of Web palette.

WordPress:

As most blogs use WordPress, this application is designed to facilitate the bloggers who want to stay updated with their website. By using this application you can write new posts, edit content, and manage comments with built-in notifications. This application is open source and free.

Webmaster’s HTML Editor Lite:

This app not only allows you to edit HTML, it also enables you to edit and work with CSS, PHP and JavaScript, and features syntax highlighting and code completion.

Adobe Photoshop Express:

The ultimate photo editing software can now be on your mobile. With Photoshop Express you can edit and share photos virtually anywhere. Touch to crop, rotate, adjust color, and add artistic effects. Access all your photos and videos directly from your photoshop.com account.

Analytix for Google Analytics:

If you have been using Google Analytics (GA) for your website, you most probably want to install Analytix app that can fetch most of the details in real-time from your Google Analytics account. This application is secure, fast, light weight and supports date range comparison, Graphs and charts for each report, custom date ranges, favorites, geo-location reports, Regex-enabled searches which come in very handy for SEO work.

Hacker’s Keyboard:

There’s nothing terribly wrong with the standard Android keyboard or third-party alternatives. They’re just not designed for coding. Hacker’s keyboard provides a full five-row desktop-like experience with multiple layouts and language options.

The apps that we have mentioned here are very useful for Web application development on Android devices. But we have just skimmed the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous other Android Web development apps that are equally useful and fun. Please tell us about your favorite apps in the comments!

Resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/26/top-10-android-apps-web-application-developers/

Are Synonyms the New SEO?

Until recently, keyword research had been about what differentiates the meaning of words. Hence the SEO obsession with targeting long-tail keywords.

In the wake of Google’s algorithm updates – Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird – a new and more subtle approach may be needed to accommodate more clearly what unites the meaning of words… and thereby extend the Depth of Reach of SEO copy.

For more effective SEO copywriting, we should be looking at using keywords or phrases that are broadly synonymous – as semantic ‘alternatives’ rather than ‘options’. This observation was prompted by a recent article on Wordtracker’s blog – but also by my own vast experience as a website and SEO copywriter.

The difference between ‘alternative’ and ‘optional’ may not be immediately apparent, but consider this nugget from a 2011 Google patent (that was also quoted in the Wordtracker article):

“A search query for a search engine may be improved by incorporating alternate terms … that are semantically similar to the terms of the search query.”

Now this can obviously be open to interpretation – especially what looks like the mis-use of the word ‘alternate’ – but here’s how I see it from a copywriting perspective…

The best copywriting response to a ‘search query’ (as Google describes it) is obviously a keyword-based solution. If Google then says that a specific search approach can be ‘improved’ by including ‘alternate terms’, it obviously places a totally different onus on the copywriting response!

Setting language free…

Long before Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird, I had often felt that optimizing web pages for a narrow keyword range was somehow missing the point in that it restricts the richness of language that can be used to create the copy.

To explain this thinking: the richness of the English language means there are frequently many ways of saying something. In some cases, these may reflect ways of introducing nuances of meaning. In others, it may be more a question of syntax, where a particular phrase reflects formality or informality; colloquial style vs. ‘streetwise’ expression; or a so-called ‘educated’ style vs. simplicity.

In all cases, these alternatives are (on the face of it) trying to say the same thing. Each approach, however, may be trying to incorporate individuality, personality or stylisation, a particular tone of voice, social approachability – or exclusivity.

Whatever else changes in SEO – and that’s been plenty of late! – the one constant will always be the importance of keywords. Looking at the different ways keywords can be approached to explore nuances of meaning has to be another step along the way to ‘search nirvana’.

The insight that this ‘alternative keyword’ approach brings is that suddenly we’re looking down the opposite end of the telescope. Instead of adopting the default position of using keywords to reach beyond the intended meaning and context of a keyword or phrase – and thereby diluting the ultimate meaning and validity of search results! – we can now introduce a greater intensity of meaning into the search process by focusing on synonyms.

Practical realities…

In practical terms, this would mean introducing tightly connected synonyms into all aspects of the copy – tags, headlines and body. It means treating every page of copy holistically (from both a SEO and usability point of view).

Pages of content should follow a distinct theme where synonymous keywords and phrases are included in a disciplined way that enhances, rather than interferes with, the overall meaning of the page. For a SEO copywriter, this is both a constraint – and an opportunity.

Following Google’s direction (as quoted earlier), finding ‘alternate terms’ as synonyms will require some discipline in both the keyword research and subsequent copywriting. On the other hand, synonyms have the potential to provide opportunities to develop in-depth semantic themes that increase the power and persuasiveness of the copy enormously.

If we consider the somewhat old-fashioned usage of the thesaurus in the search for synonyms, it’s immediately apparent that intensity and accuracy of meaning – as well as maximizing impact and effectiveness – are what we have in view.

Similarly, using keyword research in the present-day online context to incorporate synonyms that reflect the overall theme of the content you’re writing is a serious – and exciting! – copywriting challenge that will chime with Google’s expectations and deliver ‘improved’ search results.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/25/synonyms-new-seo/

Learn to Write Blog Headlines Search Engines Love - Five Tips

By Seowebmount

It’s like having bad breath.  If your blog’s headline turns people off, they are not going to stick around to find out what you are really about.

You want people to be captivated, engaged and interested in the title of your article so they actually read it.

But you also want it to say to the search engines, “Look at me!  Look at me!”  And in order to do that, your headline must be optimized correctly for those search engines (hence, search engine optimization).

Five Tips for Optimizing your Blog Headlines for SEO

1.  Take the time.

According to Copyblogger’s 50/50 rule, half of your time spent writing content should be spent on developing the headline. Half of your time. Know the importance of your headline: only 20 percent of online users read anything more than headlines.  So before you get started on your blog, plan on devoting a decent amount of time to crafting the headline.

Sometimes it helps to write your headline after you have the body of the article finished, especially if you are one of those writers (like me) whose words often veer in a different direction than originally planned.  Personally, I find it easier to think up a headline after my article has already taken shape.

2.  Know your keywords.  

Do you know what key words or phrases your business is trying to optimize?  Make sure you know what these are (it’s worth consulting with an SEO firm if you haven’t figured this out yet) and incorporate one of them into the headline.  If you are trying to increase your search ranking for the word “cupcake,” be sure to include that into your headline.

(I feel the need to point out here to only focus on ONE keyword in your headline; avoid cramming it full of multiple keywords.  Remember, you want it to sound like a human being wrote it.)

Be very particular here.  If your keyword is cupcakes (plural), use the plural form in your headline, and the same goes if you are using a singular keyword.  But be careful not to focus so much on your keyword that you forget to make the headline enticing and engaging.

3.  Know what your audience is searching for.

Here’s a nifty little trick: go ahead and plug your keyword into Google AdWords and you can see how many people are actually searching for that keyword, as well as what kinds of things aboutthat keyword online users are searching for.

For example, when I plug my pretend headline, “How to Make Homemade Cupcakes” into the keyword field, I can see how many people are actually searching for information pertaining to my headline.  In this example, there are 2,400 global monthly searches for this exact headline, and the phrase “homemade cupcakes” by itself also receives 22,200 monthly searches.  I can also see people are searching for “fancy cupcakes,” “how to make cupcakes from scratch,” and “homemade cupcake recipe.”

4.  Use numbers when possible.

For some reason, people like reading from a list.  And you know what?  Search engines like lists, too.  So whenever it makes sense, include numbers in your headline, like “Seven Steps to Making the Perfect Homemade Cupcake from Scratch,” “Six Kitchen Tools you Need to Make Perfect Cupcakes,”  and so on.

A big part of the reason people (myself included) like lists is because it is easy to quickly scan them.  If I don’t feel like sitting down and reading a 1,000-word article, I can skim through the list and get the gist pretty quickly.  It’s readable, organized and less intimidating than a large chunk of content.

5.  Solve a problem.

Remember the whole point of your blog — you want people to read it so they end up on your website.  That’s the second part to SEO; once people find your blog through the search engines they have to actually click on it.  So do a little research. Find out what problems or questions your target market is dealing with and aim to address those problems/questions in your headline.

Headlines that include phrases like “How To…,” “Why…,” “What You Can Learn From…,” etc. are proven winners.  You can also try mentioning words that are often keyed into the search engines like “benefits,” “tips,” “tricks,” “ways” and “reasons.”

When in doubt, start reading the blogs you follow with a critical eye; take note of which headlines tend to get you to click and start implementing those ideas into your own content.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/19/learn-write-blog-headlines-search-engines-love-five-tips/

Social Media Acceleration with Facebook, Twitter and Vine

Twitter and Vine… for those in the know, what a great combination.

For those less familiar with Vine, however, we are definitely not talking about a street intersection in downtown Manhattan, even though when I first heard of these two great social media platforms in combination I couldn’t help myself imagining the voice of a gnarled traffic cop shouting out to his dispatch team that he is hot in pursuit of the bad guys on the intersection of ‘Twitter and Vine.’

But amusing wordplay aside and stepping back into the world of the practical, what is Vine and what is its relationship to Twitter?

And even more importantly, how can this be of value in your Social Media Marketing Campaigns?

In a nutshell, Vine was launched by Twitter in January 2013 with the idea of creating video capability which in its snappy brevity would be the video equivalent of a 140-character Tweet.

Thinking back to the start of 2013, the timing was perfect as we were beginning to see a massive acceleration in the use of video downloaded from mobile’s and smartphones suddenly being integrated into many personal blogs.

And just as suddenly, in January 2013, Twitter now had its own option — VINE — allowing for the inclusion of short, snappy video links with a maximum duration of six seconds — perfect in the high-speed, short attention span, digital marketing world that surrounds us all.

Some Key Facts About Vine:

It was Twitter that launched Vine to the world in January 2013 — but cleverly Twitter ensured that Vine videos can also be posted to Facebook.

The six-second duration is counterbalanced by the fact that the short Vine videos are on ‘loop’ — so despite being brief the better constructed videos can be incredibly powerful at re-enforcing key businesses messages.

So When Might You Use Vine Video?

Well first, you might want to consider all of the ways that a brief six-second visual snapshot could benefit your brand or product and you might also want to take some inspiration from some of your all time favorite commercials BUT to help you along here are four key areas that come to mind:

Product Demos:

In cases where you can quickly and easily demonstrate key product benefits and simplicity — here the shortness of the video can only enhance the beneficial simplicity and straight-forwardness of a product.

Behind The Scenes:

Consider what a great way this is to introduce yourself and business colleagues to your audience and customers while at the same time giving them a rare glimpse ‘behind the curtain’ of your business so to speak.

When this is done well it can really re-enforce the sense of a real connection with your business and massively enhance loyalty to your brand

A Taster Of Things To Come:

If you are running or attending an exhibition, putting on a webinar or Google Hangout or about to announce a new product launch, creative Vine video can really drive anticipation and customer commitment to attend the event.

Think of those brief ‘trailer’ videos that are aired a few weeks before a new movie comes out – and how they can often create a real sense of anticipation and a desire in you to attend a film that you may actually know little about, just because they are so brief and so effective at ‘whetting your appetite.’

Testimonials and Case Studies:

Six-second sound-bites of satisfied customers or before and after clips of how your product or service has transformed the customer’s experience — can you think of how powerful that might be in your business?

At this stage you may be asking yourself: “Great, so how do I get onto Vine?”

Very simple.

Here is some advice from Twitters’ own help center as to how to set up a new Vine account:

“Vine is currently available for iOS and Android devices. You can download Vine for iOS in the Apple App Store, and Vine for Android in the Google Play Store. After installing Vine on your device, you can sign up using an email address or sign in with your Twitter account. Once you’ve logged in, you can find people to follow, post your own videos, and more”

And just to help get you started with some new ideas:

Check out the link to the Vine blog below for really superb examples of great and engaging videos that you can model and learn from for your own business.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/12/social-media-acceleration-facebook-twitter-vine/

Find The Best Cloud Service Providers

There is a pretty good chance you’ve heard the term “cloud computing” before, at least in passing. For some of us, it’s tempting to write it all off as jargon or even a passing craze, but the truth is something else entirely: Cloud computing may very well represent the next step in the evolution of the Internet.

What is a Cloud Service?

In the simplest terms, the term “cloud” refers to a set of interfaces, services, networks and hardware that comes together to deliver computing power, infrastructure, collaboration tools and business processes to single users or corporate subscribers.

That’s a fairly nebulous definition, so it might be worthwhile to take a look at some examples. One company that’s shaken up the cloud computing landscape pretty thoroughly is Amazon. Most people know Amazon as a sort of online department store (or the website that killed Borders), but the truth is that much of Amazon’s success comes down to its cloud services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has seen significant growth over the last couple of years. They’re not real forthcoming with the exact figures, but best estimates in 2011 put its annual business at roughly $750 million. What AWS does is essentially rent out computing power to other companies for just pennies per hour.

Elsewhere, cloud computing is making an impact on an individual basis. The battle of cloud providers is in full swing, spearheaded by companies like DropBox, Google (Google Drive), SugarSync, Microsoft (SkyDrive) and Apple (iCloud). Personal clouds are a way for individual computer users to keep their most important personal information and documents in the cloud, ready to sync to all of their various devices.

Cloud Storage in the Business World

With cloud service providers taking off the way they have, businesses large and small are creating their own cloud networks to help them pursue improved efficiency and productivity.

For smaller businesses, a private cloud may well be enough to fill their needs. The common applications of cloud technology in a small business setting often include online backup of sensitive documents and collaboration features. It used to be that backup was performed locally, onto drives or servers that could be just as vulnerable as the computers themselves in the event of unforeseen disasters. Offsite backup gives businesses of every shape and size a degree of security and peace of mind with the knowledge that their data can be quickly and easily retrieved later on.

For larger companies, the advantages of cloud computing can be even more important. As the size of a company grows, so does its required infrastructure. As with Amazon’s AWS, companies can essentially rent their servers and other equipment rather than purchasing them outright. This can be extremely cost-effective in the long run.

Important Cloud Service Features

While cloud services can provide a wide variety of feature sets and cater to different corporate and individual needs, there are a few fundamental things to keep in mind if you find yourself in the market for a cloud service provider.

Chief among these is experience and expertise. Things have become borderline Darwinian in the world of cloud computing; it seems there’s a new provider every week that boasts of having the “best” this or the “most efficient” that. When it comes to putting your company’s important data on the line, you’re going to want to place your trust in a company that has experience and the expertise you require for getting your system setup the way you want it, the first time.

A related issue that’s worth mentioning on its own is customer service. You might find plenty of products out there that sound like they’d be a perfect fit for your company, but if they’re not backed up by competent and passionate customer service, it’s not worth the investment or the possibility of technical troubles down the road.

Equally important is a cloud service provider’s commitment to security. Quite honestly, few other considerations should rank as highly on a CSP’s list of priorities. More and more companies are migrating their sensitive data and applications to the cloud. If there are trade secrets or sensitive employee data in play, you’re going to want to know that it’s being closely guarded.

Uptime guarantees are second only to security in terms of importance when it comes to choosing a cloud service provider. With companies in a variety of industries turning to the cloud as an inextricable part of their daily workflows, it goes without saying that an unpredictable or unreliable cloud service provider should be avoided at all costs.

The term “uptime” refers to the percentage of time that the services of a given CSP were available to customers. Before you make any decisions or sign any contracts, do what you can to get a sense of their customer satisfaction. See if the CSP’s existing customers have anything to say about previous outages. A general rule of thumb is that any cloud service provider that has more than one hour of downtime per month is doing something wrong and should be avoided.

A Look at Leading Cloud Service Providers

Because uptime guarantees are so important, it’s worth taking a look at some of the leading cloud service providers in the industry today to see how they stack up to the competition. If your company is thinking about making a move to the cloud, you want to know that your data isn’t going to be unavailable in the middle of a busy work week.

Recently, a study was performed by Uptrends that took a look at 184 of the leading cloud computing companies for a period of 30 days. The findings were a little bit startling.

One of the study’s key data points was this: 42 out of the 184 CSPs they examined did not meet the SLA standard of 99.9% availability. That’s 22.83%, or nearly a quarter of the cloud providers in question. In other words, only about three-quarters of the companies examined lived up to industry-acknowledged standards. In an industry that relies so heavily on reputation – and customer satisfaction in turn – this is disappointing.

On the other hand, the average downtime of the entire sample group clocked in at 31.62 minutes, which you can either take as good news or bad news, depending on whether you are a glass is half full or half empty type of person.

The providers with the lowest availability were Actifio, with 7.98 hours of downtime; Adaptive Planning, with 4.72 hours; and oDesk, with 3.83 hours. Remember: This was only over the span of a month. On the other hand, industry leaders such as Hubspot, Mailchimp, and Netsuite boasted 100% availability.

The Bottom Line

By now you probably have a better understanding of the importance of cloud computing and its place in a successful modern business. As you can probably also see, cloud service providers are not all created equal. As with most sevices, it pays to have the whole story before you make decisions that concern the future of your company.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/14/best-cloud-service-providers/