Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Ten ways to get more out of LinkedIn
You may have a profile, several connections and even a handful of peer recommendations. But are you really using LinkedIn to its full potential?
Here are 10 tips and tricks to help you improve your experience on the world's largest professional network:
1. Raise your profile
Your LinkedIn Profile is one of the easiest ways potential clients, employees and industry partners can track you down online.
To get your profile to appear higher in search results, customize your LinkedIn Profile URL so that your first and last name appear as one word (i.e. JoeSmith). Also, make sure you profile is visible to everyone by selecting ‘public’ in your account settings.
2. Put your best foot forward
Make sure you fill out the summary and experience sections of your profile. People with at least one past position listed on their profile are 12 times more likely to be viewed for potential opportunities. Include keywords and phrases that clients might search in your profile description. Also add skills to your profile and don’t forget to upload a photo. Professionals with a photo are seven times more likely to be viewed in general.
3. Update your status
Let your connections know what you’re up to and how your business is growing by updating your status regularly. Use status updates to announce new products, to post interesting articles, and even to get answers to business questions you’re pondering (like, “Does anyone know a great corporate realtor? I’m hunting for office space.”). Another time-saving tip: Sync your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts so your updates get posted to both networks.
4. Create a company page
Create a LinkedIn Company Page so clients can “follow” your company. There are more than two million company pages on LinkedIn. Add a “Products & Services” tab so you can inform potential clients about your offerings. Make sure you follow competitors, clients and companies that you admire so you get the latest information from those companies.
5. Grow and nurture your network
Connect to at least 50 people that you know and trust. It’s the ‘magic number’ of connections to have on LinkedIn. When you connect to at least 50 employees, clients, business partners, friends, family members, etc. that’s when you start seeing more first, second and third degree connections that can help you get in touch with people or companies that will help propel your business. Import your address book to find out which of your contacts are already on LinkedIn.
6. Let customers vouch for you
Recommendations are one of the best ways to secure new clients, because they spread virally on LinkedIn. They also enhance your professional credibility and create a good impression when potential clients read your profile. Request recommendations from happy customers and don’t be afraid to hint at some of key things that you’d like them to mention in the recommendation. (For example, “Sarah, I’d love it if you could post a recommendation on my profile. If you could note that you’ve been using out product for X years and also discuss how we were able to customize it to fit your company’s needs, that would be fantastic.”)
7. Find other passionate small business owners
Search for “small business” or “entrepreneur” related LinkedIn Groups. Groups are a great way to engage with like-minded people who can provide you support and answer SMB-specific questions. Also join groups that are related to your industry, city or province. Look for groups where you can get information about potential clients too. (If you usually sell to marketers, join marketing related groups to get a better feel for the topics and discussions your potential customers are concerned about.)
8. Find employees and experts
Whether you want to hire a rock star salesperson or if you’re looking for an expert to help you solve a problem, LinkedIn’s Advanced People Search is an easy way to search by title (vice president of advertising), company name (RIM) and even zip code to find exactly the person you’re looking for. Any member can search those facets for free by clicking the “Advanced” link in the top right hand corner of LinkedIn after they sign in.
9. Get info on the go
Use LinkedIn’s Android, BlackBerry or iPhone apps to get info when you’re on the move. Are you running late to a meeting and want to get more information about someone before a meeting? Use the app to look up their profile. You can also use the apps to find connections you have in common with people before you see them in person at a conference.
10. Gain insights
Visit LinkedIn daily to get valuable insights about your connections and their activities. Follow the top trending news each day on LinkedIn Today so you’re up-to-speed on industry news.
Friday, April 1, 2011
How To Get The Word Out Quickly and Successfully
Today’s digital marketplace offers B2B marketing professionals a plethora of tools and channels to distribute messages. However, the quickly expanding net also provides challenges.
Internet users have dynamic activity patterns and today they spend more time on the web than ever. A 2010 study by Forrester research found that online viewing now equals that of TV viewing. The average North American consumer spends 13 hours a week on both.
They have become the drivers of the buying cycle rather than passengers on the sales train. They are smarter and tougher to convince. But the good news is there are a lot of opportunities in the marketplace and with a little creativity; a well written and distributed press release can turn into a successful marketing campaign.
Consider these 5 B2B marketing tips for press release success:
1. Use Social Media for extended reach – Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are great outlets for extending your carefully-crafted public relations’ messages. Successful content appeals to the community-oriented atmosphere and offers valuable information that research-oriented viewers crave.
When your message is well-received, you can cover a much wider audience with less distribution costs.
This exposure advantage must be balanced with the quality of message you send. It’s one thing to get thousands of hits on a video, for example, but if the viewers don’t fit your target market, you are likely wasting resources.
2. Update your email marketing strategies – Targeted email marketing is still a B2B favorite. A Forbes Media study showed that email and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions, finishing slightly lower than Search Engine Optimization.
Be sure to integrate your press release and email marketing efforts where it makes sense. For example, a PR campaign intended to announce a new product/service offering is also well suited for an email campaign/newsletter to prospects (so they have the opportunity to see the message in multiple places) or existing customers (who might be interested in upgrading or expanding).
3. Leverage keywords to make your content visible – Integrating the phrases your brand is trying to be visible for online is critical in reaching your online marketing goals with your press release
Leveraging relevant keywords ensures that the content is optimized and your press release can be found when prospects are searching for information.
4. Keep brand information consistent – You’ve got multiple channels to share your press release through and each has its own communication style.
If you’re leveraging Facebook and Twitter to extend the reach of your press release, for example, do you present the same information on both outlets? The answer is yes, but each needs to be tailored to the outlet and any audience nuances that may exist between the two.
Also, keep the look and feel of your brand consistent both online and offline. Despite the different places viewers find your messages, in order to achieve the highest levels of brand recognition, consistency is key.
5. Get the most out of your content. With all the messaging you create, there are multiple channels to recycle a message.
To get the most out of your content creation efforts consider using parts or all of your press release in blogs, email letters, landing page, media kits, interviews or even creating a video to support the message. Get creative about where you can re-tool/re-purpose the information to increase the life of the message.
Examine how you can insert key words and anchor text that will continually drive readers to your brand.
The sky is the limit when it comes to creating informational campaigns for the net. B2B marketers who stay on top of Internet trends and continue to maximize the reach of the message will outpace the competition. A well written and promoted press release is a great tool for reaching a larger audience and beating your competition to the sale!
Internet users have dynamic activity patterns and today they spend more time on the web than ever. A 2010 study by Forrester research found that online viewing now equals that of TV viewing. The average North American consumer spends 13 hours a week on both.
They have become the drivers of the buying cycle rather than passengers on the sales train. They are smarter and tougher to convince. But the good news is there are a lot of opportunities in the marketplace and with a little creativity; a well written and distributed press release can turn into a successful marketing campaign.
Consider these 5 B2B marketing tips for press release success:
1. Use Social Media for extended reach – Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are great outlets for extending your carefully-crafted public relations’ messages. Successful content appeals to the community-oriented atmosphere and offers valuable information that research-oriented viewers crave.
When your message is well-received, you can cover a much wider audience with less distribution costs.
This exposure advantage must be balanced with the quality of message you send. It’s one thing to get thousands of hits on a video, for example, but if the viewers don’t fit your target market, you are likely wasting resources.
2. Update your email marketing strategies – Targeted email marketing is still a B2B favorite. A Forbes Media study showed that email and e-newsletter marketing are considered the second-most effective tool for generating conversions, finishing slightly lower than Search Engine Optimization.
Be sure to integrate your press release and email marketing efforts where it makes sense. For example, a PR campaign intended to announce a new product/service offering is also well suited for an email campaign/newsletter to prospects (so they have the opportunity to see the message in multiple places) or existing customers (who might be interested in upgrading or expanding).
3. Leverage keywords to make your content visible – Integrating the phrases your brand is trying to be visible for online is critical in reaching your online marketing goals with your press release
Leveraging relevant keywords ensures that the content is optimized and your press release can be found when prospects are searching for information.
4. Keep brand information consistent – You’ve got multiple channels to share your press release through and each has its own communication style.
If you’re leveraging Facebook and Twitter to extend the reach of your press release, for example, do you present the same information on both outlets? The answer is yes, but each needs to be tailored to the outlet and any audience nuances that may exist between the two.
Also, keep the look and feel of your brand consistent both online and offline. Despite the different places viewers find your messages, in order to achieve the highest levels of brand recognition, consistency is key.
5. Get the most out of your content. With all the messaging you create, there are multiple channels to recycle a message.
To get the most out of your content creation efforts consider using parts or all of your press release in blogs, email letters, landing page, media kits, interviews or even creating a video to support the message. Get creative about where you can re-tool/re-purpose the information to increase the life of the message.
Examine how you can insert key words and anchor text that will continually drive readers to your brand.
The sky is the limit when it comes to creating informational campaigns for the net. B2B marketers who stay on top of Internet trends and continue to maximize the reach of the message will outpace the competition. A well written and promoted press release is a great tool for reaching a larger audience and beating your competition to the sale!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Top Search Engine Optimization Tips To Get Noticed
Following these simple tips will definitely boost your traffic and search engine rankings for free.
1. Make sure your site is not under construction, incomplete, with little or no unique content.
2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submitting to other search engine but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Submit also your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, etc.
3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)
4. Offer sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)
5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but same content.
6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keywords stuffing.
7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.
8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.
9. Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.
10. Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters including spaces. (about 25-30 words)
11. Meta Tag keywords must be 15-20 words maximum.
12. Optimize Pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site’s primary keywords.
13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.
14. If your site contains dynamic pages(i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engines’ spiders having difficulty indexing dynamic pages.
15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as link farm by search engines.
16. Use Lynx as text browser to check your site. (http://lynx.isc.org/)
17. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.
18. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since last crawled your site. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.
19. Use Robots.txt file to manage and control search engine spiders in indexing your site. You can allow and disallow spiders and choose directories you want to be crawled and indexed. But with bad bots or spam bots you need to modify your HTACCESS file to properly and effectively manage bots or spiders. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn more about Robots.txt file.
20. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.
21. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engines ranking.
22. Avoid links to bad neighborhood such as web spammers, link farms, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, porn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affects your search engine rankings.
23. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.
24. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings and other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as spam.
25. Do not use hidden text and links. Show to search engines what you show to your visitors. It will greatly affect your site’s reputation.
26. Do not attempt to create pages that contains phishing, scam, viruses, trojans, backdoors, spyware, adware and other malicious programs.
27. Make your site useful and informative.
28. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links are far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site’s visibility, popularity and rankings. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.
29. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.
30. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some uses illegal and questionable ways to improve rankings.
31. Do not buy or sell links.
32. Do not create sites that contains purely affiliate links and no valuable content that are useful to the users.
I hope these tips will add more popularity and visibility to your site. Enjoy!
1. Make sure your site is not under construction, incomplete, with little or no unique content.
2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submitting to other search engine but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Submit also your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, etc.
3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)
4. Offer sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)
5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but same content.
6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keywords stuffing.
7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.
8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.
9. Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.
10. Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters including spaces. (about 25-30 words)
11. Meta Tag keywords must be 15-20 words maximum.
12. Optimize Pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site’s primary keywords.
13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.
14. If your site contains dynamic pages(i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engines’ spiders having difficulty indexing dynamic pages.
15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as link farm by search engines.
16. Use Lynx as text browser to check your site. (http://lynx.isc.org/)
17. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.
18. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since last crawled your site. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.
19. Use Robots.txt file to manage and control search engine spiders in indexing your site. You can allow and disallow spiders and choose directories you want to be crawled and indexed. But with bad bots or spam bots you need to modify your HTACCESS file to properly and effectively manage bots or spiders. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn more about Robots.txt file.
20. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.
21. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engines ranking.
22. Avoid links to bad neighborhood such as web spammers, link farms, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, porn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affects your search engine rankings.
23. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.
24. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings and other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as spam.
25. Do not use hidden text and links. Show to search engines what you show to your visitors. It will greatly affect your site’s reputation.
26. Do not attempt to create pages that contains phishing, scam, viruses, trojans, backdoors, spyware, adware and other malicious programs.
27. Make your site useful and informative.
28. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links are far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site’s visibility, popularity and rankings. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.
29. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.
30. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some uses illegal and questionable ways to improve rankings.
31. Do not buy or sell links.
32. Do not create sites that contains purely affiliate links and no valuable content that are useful to the users.
I hope these tips will add more popularity and visibility to your site. Enjoy!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)