If you’re doing any keyword research for yourself or a little manual market research you know you’ve got to dig pretty deep into the search results to get that relevant data.  You can use these 4 tricks to help bolster your own research and get some of that data a little faster.  I use these tricks more than most others in my arsenal.

Omiting Results:

I tend to use the “-site:” command to dump some listings from the SERPs, often if I’m looking for specific competitors for a product and the big players keep appearing such as comparison shopping engines and affiliates.  This can help you get a better feel for the other players on the field.

You can try this yourself by putting in any major product currently on the market such as electronics.  You’ll likely get fed sites such as amazon, best buy or bizrate.  You can eliminate these from your search results (and they can take up a lot of those results) by using the -site: tag followed by the url.

-site:www.amazon.com  would omit amazon from any of your results.

Related Keywords:

Need help finding related keywords but you’re drawing a complete blank? Google can serve you up with pages containing keywords related to the actual keyword you’re searching for.  To get an idea of what keyword variations that Google is considering, add a “~” to the beginning of your query.  You can also get some ideas for additional keywords by using Google’s WonderWheel.  It will examine the keyword you’ve entered and show you a number of relevant, similar keywords.  You can then click on those alternatve variations to discover even more variations.

Indented Listings:

You can figure out where those indented listings truly rank within Goggle.  Indented links are pages from the same domain that show up anywhere within the bracket of those 10 results.  Google just tends to lump them together for user value3.  When working towards domination in the SERPs for your particilar market you its important to know where all the pages lie so you have a good idea of who you need to smack around in order to get to the top.  Add &num=x to the end of a Google search queyry where X is a number less than 10.  Keep changing the value of x until the indented listing disappears, then you’ll be able to figure out where the actual position of that indented listing is.

Exact match searching:

Most users search for something by simply typing in a query.  That yields millions of pages in many cases.  If you surround your search term in “’s however you’re telling google to search for the exact phrase, used as you typed it.  This generally slashes the number of pages being returned in half (or more) and shows you who you’re really competiting with.  These are the sites you’ll need to push past in order to gain true dominance for a particular keyword.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

It’s great to push a lot of traffic to your site but if you want to have any hope of turning that traffic into a sale then you need to take a few preparations into account so that your site is ready.  Here are some tips to help change that traffic into a $

The Call To Action

If you’re forwarding traffic to your blog then make sure what you want them to do most is extremely obvious within the pages of your site.  If you’re calling people to a specific post, then make sure the only real action you want them to take is linked and obvious.

The more links you have within your blog content, the more distractions you have that could lead people away from your page.  Other clicks give you no value.

Brief Posts With Multiple Offers

If you were to write a promotional post trying to draw attention to something, like a Blue Widget, you would put the offer in multiple places – the top, the middle and some where at the end.  Make it pretty clear what you want the reader to do.  What I see wrong most frequently with other pages across the web that are promotional in style is that people tend to throw their offers down at the bottom of everything else.  Before people even get to the offer they’re worn out and mentally exhausted.  You’d be hard pressed to get their interested again.

Do yourself a favor and make the offer obvious, then make it often enough that they won’t miss it or forget about it.

Try Using Big Buttons

If you’re REALLY persistant and want to close a sale then try a giant button to get their attention.  They really won’t miss the obvious sign.  If they don’t click through then it’s obvious they just aren’t interested and you wouldn’t have landed them anyway.

Take Multiple Approaches

Another great way to convert that traffic is to try a few different sales tactics.  Your first attempt could be a clear post promoting the product or service while another post or page could go into a story about the success of someone else selling the product.  Another post could simply be a promotional direct offer with a better value.  Spread your tactics out with other content so that you don’t frustrate your readers.  In the end, some will respond and take the bait.

Don’t Hard Sell

I don’t like hard-selling, and I’m not a big fan of the in-your-face ads that can pop on a screen.  Popunders annoy me (the ones that pop up under your browser and wait for you to discover them) and I dislike Lightboxes even more because they interrupt what I’m doing – and not in a favorable way.  They block the content and at that point I leave.  Those things oversell a product or service and like me, many people aren’t interested.  Even if it’s done electronically it’s still extremely pushy.  It works on some, and that’s why people still do it, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Typically, people who use these methods don’t really care what you think, they’re just in it for business.  Do you want to be just another source of income?  Think about that when make decisions on doing business with someone – and use that perspective for your visitors.

Comments Off

If you’re trying to get people to do a specific task like opt-in or sign up then you may want to consider shutting your comments down .  If you leave them on then you’re setting up a distraction that can people engaged in the content and not on your product or service.  Don’t let people wallow around in comments where they will eventually forget your call to action.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Press release marketing is an integral part of content marketing that a lot of people take for granted.  It’s so widely UNDERutilized which amazes me given the potential that press releases have in pushing traffic, and targeted traffic at that.

Individuals and organizations pour money into search engine optimization techniques in the hopes that they can get certain pieces of content or landing pages to show up on page 1 of Google.  What’s amazing is that they don’t consider that press releases automatically show up on the first page of Google.

Granted, just writing a press release isn’t enough to start that flow of traffic.  Like other pieces of content you use for marketing must deliver a proper message in a solid format in order to sink in, your press releases need to be crafted with expert precision to hit their mark with the targeted buyers within your market.

Here are 10 tips to help you start producing better press releases:

1. Make sure that the information is newsworthy.  It doesn’t need to be on the level of a 2012 disaster but you also shouldn’t write a press release for something that is completely irrelevant.  People do this enough on Twitter, so keep your content pertinent to the desires of your target audience.

2.  Craft content that clearly states what the information is and why the audience should be reading it.

3.  Start your press release with a description of the content and then point out who is making the announcement, not the other way around.  Potential customers don’t care about who you are, they want to know the why.

4.  Ask yourself how people will relate to your content and if it will connect with them.  Find a better way to make the connection and improve your engagement.

5.  Make sure the headline, those first handful of words, are the most effective and deliver the strongest punch to keep them reading.

6.  Stay away from fluff, color and fancy language.  Stay on task with your press release content

7.  Stick to the facts and avoid content that delivers assumptions or vague generalizations.

8. Provide as much contact information as possible in the About or Company segment of your press release.  This included individual contact info, addresses, phone numbers, faxes, email, web site address, etc.

9. You may feel like you need to wait until you have something with enough subtance to do a press release but that’s not true.  If it’s relevant to your target audience, then share it – especially if there is value in it.

10. Avoid free press release distribution services, as they pepper your press releases with ads and often won’t allow embedded links.  Invest in a premium press release marketing service such as Newswire or PRweb

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Companies need to do everything they can to get more out of social websites.  This is the social era, and consumers as well as organizations are turning to social media to handle their business.  One of the ways to properly manage a social media presence is to bring on an online marketing manager.

Without having an online marketing manager in place, there’s no one to be accountable for the decisions that are made.  What often happens is that individuals are assigned to the online marketing with no real manager in place to direct the work that’s done.  This poor planning leads to a number of common mistakes that we see individuals and organizations make on a regular basis.

Here are 5 common mistakes that turn up in social media marketing when there is no online marketing manager or strategy in place:

No Blog

With the ease of use around Facebook and Twitter, some people are asking why a blog is even necessary.  It couldn’t be more relevant.  Your blog is your plot of land.  It’s your real estate on the web.  You may think you have a presence on Twitter and Facebook, but that’s nothing more than having a vendor cart on a street corner.  You don’t own the space, you’re just standing there.  You may spend a lot of time and money building a presence on Facebook, but what do you do is Facebook has a downward shift, is taken over, shuts down, etc?

Far-fetched concepts, but it puts your “presence” on those sites in persective.  Your blog is the best place for you to engage and interact with your target audience.  If you don’t have one, then it’s time to get one – any experience online marketing manager will give you the thumbs up on that concept.

Mixing Business & Personal

It’s important to give your company some personality through sites like Facebook, and that human side is vital for building relationships but it can be extremely confusing for followers when you start mixing personal post and personal life issues into business content.  If you were to discuss this with an online marketing manager they would hammer home the importance of keeping your personal social media profiles set aside for friends and family.  Create a Facebook fanpage or other business page for your company or marketing business and use that page to connect with business followers, customers, clients, vendors, etc.

Lack of Integration

If you want to be efficient like the organizations that utilize efficiency experts and an online marketing manager then you have to be efficient with your time.  The first step is to link your social sites together to simplify your marketing efforts.   Your blog content should be feeding into all your social networking profiles, and you want your various followers across multiple networks to know that they can connect with you by other means if they want to do so.

A Lack of a Consistent Image

When you want to brand yourself or your company online, you have to develop a specific persona so that you can easily be identified across multiple networks.  When someone finds you on Twitter and follows your breadcrumb trail to a blog or a LinkedIn profile you want to make sure that they are comfortable with where they land.  Without appropriate online marketing, you’ll manage to have an inconsistent image that will turn people off your company and make it difficult to remember who you are.

Hard Selling

In case you hadn’t heard, it’s not ok to push your message without participating.  Haven’t you heard that you have to give a little in order to get a little?  An online marketing manager will help you achieve the engagement and connection you need to build relationships.  In the end, it’s about the conversation.  Those things all come together to create credibility.  If you try to be the next great used car salesman pushing snake oil then you’ll get absolutely no where.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

So you’ve started a business blog, you’ve manage to create a social media profile and even setup a Facebook page.  so now what?  What’s the next step in social media marketing?  Tips can take you a long way, and I’ve included 5 quick tips here to get you rolling in the right direction.

Social media marketing tips #1. Make it easy for people to participate

Of course your content matters but personality plays a big part in your marketing as well.  You need to make sure that your position within social media makes you accessible and approachable to anyone who is interested.  You should avoid talking at people and work more toward engaging them in dialogue and speaking with them.  Make sure you’re engaging them in a manner that inspires them to join the conversation.

Social media marketing tips #2. Write content that is worthy of being shared

The more you share really powerful content with people through your social media marketing, the more they will want to carry it across the web to the far reaches of the Meme world.  Granted, not every piece of content you put out there is going to be share worthy but regardless of the response you need to continue to post new content as often as possible.  Broaden your expose and prove your authority.  If you do so, you’ll also be adding to the value of your social media presence.

Social media marketing tips #3. Recognize your audience

Relations are the fuel of social media marketing and you need to do all you can to foster growth in those relationships.  In order to achieve the strength that is necessary to build brand ambassadors you need to acknowledge those people when they reach out to network with you and your business.

You wouldn’t ignore someone that approached you at an event where networking was the theme, so you shouldn’t ignore anyone that is trying to engage you through social media.  The most successful business owners and marketers make it a point to spend time responding to every e-mail, comment, tweet and so one.  Recognize your audience so that they feel needed.

Social media marketing tips #4. Integrate your marketing efforts

This is a simple matter of making sure that all of your marketing efforts come together, especially within social media.  If you’ve got multiple social media accounts then the best thing you can do is like those accounts so that you’re cross promoting your content.  If you’ve got a blog, and twitter, then set up plugins so that your Twitter content posts to your blog in a sidebar and your blog posts are announced via Twitter.

Social media marketing tips #5. Don’t run with the Jones’

You are not your competition, you are something completely different and you’re better.  The last thing you want to do is copycat.  You know they are getting customers but you don’t know specifically what is bringing those customers.  If you start copycatting, you could end up mimicking something that’s not really good for your business.

Your actions should be based off a carefully planned strategy that is specific to your business.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

If you’re one of the many internet-based companies trying to thrive and compete on the web then you know that there’s a lot of competition that you have to wade through and you’re more than likely aware of how SEO marketing can help improve your position.

Where many businesses get tripped up unfortunately is that they know just enough about optimization and marketing to be dangerous.  In an effort to shave some money off the budget they try to move forward with techniques that they picked up from an eBook and they often end up spinning their wheels or even harming their presence online with the search engines.

SEO marketing isn’t a fly by night simple kind of gig.  A lot of blogs paint optimization as an easy DIY project that a business owner can take on but SEO isn’t really a “thing”.  It’s an umbrella that encompasses a lot of different techniques, strategies and more.

It’s also about as intricate as you could possible get and while the individual techniques may seem simple enough they all come together to form a very complex marketing machine.  If a part within the engine driving your position online is faulty or handled wrong then it costs you.  You should no sooner fix your own vehicle without experience than you should try to do SEO on your own.

Even if you’re capable of mastering the intricacies of optimization itself, and yeah I’ll give over that it’s not rocket science (but it’s not playdoh either), there is still the fact that optimization takes a lot of time on a daily basis.  This isn’t something you can handle with kid gloves, and SEO marketing isn’t a “do when you feel like it” kind of game.

This is your business, and this is about pushing your business past the competition.  When you go to bat against the competition you bring your A game, and if you don’t know how to play then you don’t.. plain and simple.  That’s when you step up and accept the fact that it’s a good idea to let a professional agency handle your SEO marketing.

Yes, it’s always nice to save money but I hear horror stories on a regular basis about individual marketers and internet-based businesses that try to tackle all of their SEO marketing and the results are less than appealing.  They waste money, they waste a lot of time, and some of them end up manhandling the search engine while doing the Google dance and they actually backslide in the SERPs.

Did you conceive that it’s possible to actually backslide?  Can you imagine the feeling of posting new content for your SEO marketing strategy and watch as your site position changes from page 2 to page 5 over night?  There’s nothing quite like screwing yourself, because there’s noone else to blame – and you’d be surprised how easy it is.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

If you’re thinking about starting up a marketing campaign on Twitter, then there are some things you need to consider – rules to adhere to so that you don’t shoot yourself in the foot while promoting through the social media network.

First and foremost, it’s a softsell environment.  There are few places where the hard sell is acceptable online, and it’s not likely to get you anywhere.  Actually, it’s a fast way to get punted from the service and have people unfollow you.

Instead of focusing on actively selling the product or service, you should be focusing on engagement and connecting with people through your marketing campaign.  This way, people can see that you’re actually interested in establishing a relationship and sharing relevant content – not just on screaming into the void.

That connection is important for permission marketing to take place.  It’s obvious to a lot of people that you’re in business, and they know there will be promotion but you really do need that passive permission in order for your marketing campaign to be successful.  Part of that involves being professional and subtle, not “in your face”, and not repetitive .

What to tweet

Your typical posts should bring up or share interesting content that is relevant to the people that are following you, specifically people that have some kind of interest in your brand.  Either that or people that will relate to your brand or services.  The content you use (blogs, videos, articles) shouldn’t just come from the far corners of the web.  Share it from respectable and known resources.  You don’t people to feel like you’re just sending them “whatever” while you’re running a marketing campaign.

The last thing you want to do is over promote, so if you find yourself starting to make posts about your products or services then stop unless it’s in response to a question from someone else.  You don’t want to sound desperate while you’re connecting and networking with people.

Direct sales messaged can quickly seize up a marketing campaign on Twitter, and other social networks, because it will crash your click through rates and bring about the “unfollow”.  People are very cautious about spammers in their follow list and won’t put up with promotional garbage in their live streams.

Soft sell tweet

If you’re taking the softsell approach, use content that gives your follows a choice to look into your product or service and discuss the benefits of their interest and where it could lead them.

This is the kind of sell that is laid back and far more conservative.  It still pushed the “spam” envelope a little bit, but you’re not making hard demands of people that are reading your tweets.  If you’ve been laying a good groundwork around your marketing campaign within Twitter then these softsells are extremely effective and can being in a lot of interest.  The content you share helps people trust you, and from there they are more willing to invest in you and purchase through you.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Is that something that’s attainable with SEO promotions?  Can a business really double their sales in a month, adding thousands of dollars of income just from doing a little optimization work with their website?

That seems like a farfetched question for a lot of businesses that are struggling in the current recession, but that fact is that yes you can indeed improve business that much.  One of the biggest things holding many business owners and marketers back is the cost of the search engine optimization.  It’s hard to justify spending thousands of dollars each year when the results can’t be guaranteed – and that’s what a lot of business owners want is a quantifiable set of results.

It’s not unreasonable, as a business owner you just want to know that the investment you make is going to come back to you.  With SEO promotion, it does indeed happen more often than not.

It can be helpful not to look at the total amount that an SEO agency is asking you to pay in the long term and instead break it down on a month by month basis (as many of them do.)  Then consider the average “ticket” or value of a customer.  That can help you determine how many customers on average you would need to bring in on top of your average sales model in order to cover the costs of the promotion.

For example, if your SEO agency wants you to pay approximately $750 a month for some link building on an ongoing basis, and your average customer value is $425 then you only need to bring in an additional two customers per month in order to cover your SEO promotion costs.  If the optimization that’s being done does indeed push you into one of the top 3 spots on page 1 of Google and other search engines for a well-searched phrase then you can expect your visitor flow to increase with a potential for far more conversion.

As long as the copy is tight on your page and you’re working your sales funnel properly to keep the customers within then the increased traffic should create a number of additional customers that will more than cover the cost of your SEO promotion.

Woe to the business owner who trims or shuts down his advertising budget in an effort to save money.  That’s the type of individual that will always be struggling with bringing in new customers.  You should be willing to push forward and continue with your SEO promotion with the understanding that it will pay for you and your business in the long run.  Being listed well within the search engines is one of the most important things for any business right now.  Without a high listing in the SERPs you simply cannot get found online unless by direct referral.

So will you make thousands of dollars in new consumer business after you start your SEO promotion?  It’s not guaranteed, but I can tell you that if you aren’t doing it then you definitely won’t see that increase in profit.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

There’s no question that social media marketing is on the upswing.  Trends are surfacing that are bringing truth to light on just how effective the social networks are at helping businesses gain traction with their target audience.

Customers want direct engagement, they want interaction, they want interactive experiences when they’re visiting social media sites.  All of this information came to light and became useful to businesses because they had their ear to the ground and they were following social media marketing trends.

That research is key to growth for any business, but especially small businesses that are climbing into a rather large pool with big box retailers and major corporate brands that are also cannonballing into the water.  Those big brands are making a massive splash and ripple effect and they’re happily paving the way.

The benefit to letting the corporate brands lead the way in social media is that they’re setting clear social media marketing trends that others can follow.  While simply following can be marginally effective, a small business can boost their own social media presence by stepping up their game and being a little creative with the road less taken.

A little innovation applied to the efforts of those that paved the way can help a small business strike out just a bit from the big brands and stand out as something different with the potential of setting their own social media marketing trends.

What’s important is that any business stays on top of the trends that do occur, because they are clear indicators of where the market is going.  The market includes the grounds for engagement and the target audience.  If your primary efforts are on Facebook and your target audience shifts then there is going to be a shift in social media marketing trends – and businesses will be soon to follow.

Unlike conventional marketing through television and radio which have remained mostly static for many years, marketing online (particularly through social media) is very liquid.  It changes constantly, primarily because people are extremely fickle about where they spend their time.  Most people go where the mass goes, and if the mass says that Twitter is dying and Facebook is winning them people are bound to stop investing time in Twitter and spend more time on Facebook.  The reverse would also be true.

Business have to watch these social media marketing trends to see how other businesses in their market are performing, but also where the audience is and how they’re reacting to the presence of those businesses.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

For small business, it’s a completely different game when it comes to SEO techniques.  It has everything to do with the market in which they’re targeting of course, but for the most part everything they do is different from the big box retail outlets and global shipment services.

Small businesses generally target a small area or region, often very local in nature with limited reach.  Because of this, their approach to optimization, marketing and the SEO techniques they use has to be more refined.

The audience is smaller, therefore the message must be more precise and targeted for the heart of the listener.  There can’t be any guess work, because in small business and local marketing lost customers can be crippling.

That’s why optimization is of the utmost important so that small businesses can stand out over other local competitors.  If you’re looking for some SEO techniques to improve your presence online, start here:

Claim your local listing and add your details

Google local business listings present your business for a number of keywords within your local target area.  That listing can contain your brand info, the map showing your location along with address, directions to your office, phone, email website, etc.  Unless you’re strictly e-commerce, this is a great way to help publicize your business.

You can have clients upload reviews about your business and even enhance your listing with photos, coupons and more.  This is a great start to a long list of SEO techniques for improving your position online.

Registering your business on Google Product Search

You can create a feed for your products that include information such as the price, specs, the product value for a customer, etc.  List within that the most pertinent keywords, brand name etc and add product reviews to make your claims trustworthy.  If you can do so, motivate your customers to go here and leave feedback for you by offering incentives and discounts.

Generating Buzz Online

Social media marketing is a great way to start turning traffic to your site & get people to start talking about your brand.  If you want to spread the word about your product or service then go where people generally hang out in social media and get your name out there.  Websites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as LinkedIn are great places to utilize these SEO techniques and marketing tactics for building a presence.

Utilize Multimedia

While the web is driven by the written word for the most part, one of the best SEO techniques for catching the eye of the masses is multimedia – either audio or video.  People love podcasts because they can get information on the go, all the time.  Convenience makes it simple.  Video helps put a face to a business and lets people connect with a company on a more intimate level while learning about a product or service.  It’s all about building credibility, and that is easily done through such seo techniques like this provides the content you put out provides value.

Publishing Articles

Search engines like Google love to display new and relevant content for users.  That’s how they get users to continue using their service.  This is another one of many effective SEO techniques to get eyes on your site.  Create content that is relevant to your market, particular content that contains info on trending topics within your market, and you can improve your position within the SERPs by using targeted keywords.  Well written content can bring in a lot of inbound links from other websites and help improve your own link profile and trust with the search engines.

If you’re a small business struggling to push past the competition, you need to understand that it all begins with a proper strategy to leverage the SEO techniques that will get you ahead.  If you’re not applying even basic SEO tactics with your marketing, then you’re going to struggle.  You need to understand that your website will not miraculously improve overnight.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.