Internet Marketing News – Search Engine Marketing

Unless you’re in high school, recently applied for a business loan, or have been studying management, you have probably blissfully forgotten all about SWOT tools. Not any more! SWOT tools are useful for just about everything in life, including marketing blogs. If that sounds a bit odd to you, come on the journey of explanation that follows…

What is a SWOT tool?

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Some people have trouble distinguishing between a Weakness and a Threat, and a Strength and an Opportunity. In some ways, these are simply two sides of the same coin – but it is useful to articulate them as such. So:

Strength: An innate characteristic that makes it more likely that your blog will succeed. So, what resources or assets do you have? What aspects of blogging are you good at? What makes you better than other bloggers?

Weakness: An innate characteristic that makes it more likely that your blog will fail. In blogs, weaknesses are things that are stopping you from utilizing your strengths; bad workflow practices, distractions and technical difficulties.

Opportunity: An outside factor that could help your blog succeed. These could include friends in the blogosphere, new tools and technologies, and trends within your industry.

Threat: An outside factor that could cause your blog to fail. These might be things like search engine practices, negative media coverage, etc.

Before you do your SWOT analysis…

You’ll need to define your goals. Obviously, analyzing the factors that will help you reach your goals (succeed) is difficult if you don’t know what those goals are.

Analyzing your SWOT chart

Once you have those Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats clearly listed on a piece of paper, just sit on them for a while. Give them time to percolate. Put the paper up in a spot where you’ll see it every day, and let them settle in.

Create an action plan for marketing your blog based on the analysis

You’ll want the strategy for updating and marketing your blog to…
* Play to the strengths
* Mitigate the weaknesses
* Take advantage of the opportunities
* Fend off the threats.

This tool for marketing blogs can seem a bit vague on its own, but it is very useful to review every so often to keep you on the right track.

Incoming search terms:

• Define strenghts weaknesses opportunities and threats in regards to strategic management

So help me! Now I’ve seen everything. Having my site hacked is nothing new. It happens for all kinds of reasons. One person even hacked my PayPal site. Thank goodness, PayPal is as good as its word. It paid back the $2,000+ the thief stole. Now, I have a friend who had several websites who got a very unpleasant surprise. One of his sites had been hacked and he couldn’t think of a reason under the sun why anyone would want to hack it. To his knowledge, there wasn’t anything of value to be gained by hacking. Vandalism, he thought. Or a more-stupid-than-usual practical joke. However, it turned out not to be a simple hacking job. The hacker had thoroughly messed up the website, and redirected traffic was the purpose of it all.

He finally tracked down the whole sick story. The hacking was done to boost someone’s search engine ratings. These hijackers use the sites they are hacking into to generate links to other sites. Purpose? Increase those sites’ rankings. Thanks a lot! Just when we thought we had done everything to keep our websites safe, there’s a new monster out there!

What happened with my friend was that the hacker had loaded a script on the server that spawned pages on the website that were hidden. All of a sudden, thousands of new links were sending spam to those pages. The clues suggested illegal activities. Then those pages were used to redirect traffic to other websites to increase those sites’ ratings. He needed professional help to even find some of the hidden links because a standard browser couldn’t see them. Even after those were removed there was still code that was generating more hidden links.

If you have a website, believe me, you’re vulnerable to this redirected traffic activity. It sort of makes a slave of your site. What can you do? Well, first of all, keep an eye out. Unfortunately, it can happen and you won’t see any evidence. Also, it may take awhile for the extent of the redirected traffic to be apparent. It’s a good idea to read up on hacking activity so you know what to look for so you can learn to avoid it before it happens.

Also, it’s a good idea to add a layer or two to your security. For example, backing up your site code and databases is a good preventive measure. Also, have an expert webmaster take a good look at your server for places where you might be vulnerable. It’s also a good idea to stay up to date with upgrades because they sometimes will fix the vulnerabilities. You need to be on the lookout for redirected traffic that is flowing from your own website.

Incoming search terms:

• products hackers use to redirect traffic
• redirect to slave hackers

General wisdom within the web marketing world is that Pay Per Click (or Search Engine Marketing) campaigns are the instant results but fickle cousin of organic SEO, which is slower but more worthwhile in the long run. Of course, both are necessary in any website campaign, and site launch is always the best time to start your PPC campaign. Today we check out the 4 most important considerations for a business owner before getting started with your search engine marketing strategy!

Know what people are interested in
People in general are always interested in money, improving their health or relationships, and that three-letter word that starts with ‘s’ and ends in ‘x’! However, there will also be plenty of micro-buzz within your industry. A couple of months ago in SEO firms, everybody was talking about the effect of Google’s personalized search on the results that people see. In the construction industry, 3D modeling software has been a niche but important buzz topic for a while. You can probably already think of a couple for your own industry – and it’s very helpful to tie your search engine marketing campaigns to something very hot, very current, and very short term like that.

Know where people are going
Many novice search engine marketers send people to the home page of the website. More experienced campaigners have special landing pages set up, that allow people to navigate back to your home page from them but aren’t part of the regular site information architecture. Make your landing page tightly correlated with your search engine marketing copywriting, and the buzz that you’re trying to pick up on.

Know your visitor goals
If ‘visitors’ is the goal you have in mind when designing your campaign, ‘visitors’ are all you’ll get. You won’t get leads, bites, or purchases. Aim high, and think about how your copy and design can lead people to the goal.

Know your campaign goals
Search engine marketing campaigns can very quickly get out of control if you don’t set a goal for the campaign, and a time limit by which it should reach it before reviewing your general strategy. It’s easy to get caught up in bidding wars … but definitely not good for the purse strings!

Incoming search terms:

• Begin a search engine marketing campaign

There are quite a few things to consider when you begin press release distribution. Will you use all of the free sites, or just one or two of the paid sites? Will you use your home page or deep links to your website? As a matter of fact, will you get an Internet marketing service or another professional to do all this for you, or will you go the hard yards yourself?

In fact, one question looms above all the others in importance, almost the sole determinant of the breadth that your press release distribution will achieve. That is whether your topic is newsworthy, or not. So, how do you write a press release that is worthy of the news? We give you a guide to some common occurrences, which news sites will pick up.

Specials and Promotions

People like to know about specials and promotions. The more coveted these are, the more newsworthy they make your press release … so choose your specials carefully! A 5% discount storewide might cost you more money, but garner less free press than putting on a promotion where all drinks are free every Wednesday from 3-6pm. Press release distribution breadth is generally good for this type of release.

Competitions

In the same way as promotions and specials, competitions are sure-fire attention getters for the public, and so very newsworthy. They cost extra money – but the breadth they give your press release distribution is well worth it.

Product launches

This may not be a big attention-getter in the world of press releases, but it is definitely newsworthy. If you recently launched a new product or service, write a press release about it!

Celebrity encounters

You don’t have to be Yves Saint Laurent to put out this sort of press release. If you have any famous customers, it is reason to publicize and celebrate … as long as you are not violating any privacy laws by doing so.

Staff changes

For major companies, changes in staff are often picked up by industry news sites when your press release distribution includes details. Get a positive quote from the outgoing and incoming members of staff, and you may even create a buzz about the event!

Commenting on social phenomena and news, making predictions

The success of each of these tactics depends on you being seen as an expert in your field. If you are based in Wisconsin and sell horse-riding supplies, you may not be seen as an expert in horseback riding … but you’re an expert on riding in Wisconsin, so start local. People desperately want to know what the future holds, so if you are fairly certain of any element it can bring a lot of unexpected coverage from your press release distribution.

Incoming search terms:

• are promotions newsworthy?

You have taken the time to set up your website and you may have even gone through the steps to market your online identity through a number of outlets on the Internet. Now what? Certainly there is a whole lot more to website marketing than simply putting up your site, briefly getting the word out and then sitting back. In order to get on top in the search engine rankings and drive the proper amount of traffic to your website, then you need to have a good marketing campaign in place that can grow and change with your business. That can encompass everything from email advertising and blog marketing to web linking and article marketing.

As you get started, you need to make sure that you have a website that is up and running properly with the right amount of SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimization. This is basically the frosting on top of the cake when it comes to making sure that your website is a well oiled machine that draws consistent traffic and keeps you high up in the search engine rankings. It may take you a while to get there, but the right amount of keywording, links and tags are a great combination to really put your website over the edge and driving in the traffic that you desire.

After you have taken the steps to achieve a certain level of search engine optimization, you really need to stay on top of all of the current website marketing trends. Because the online industry is constantly growing and changing, you really need your website to do the same. This will mean always adding fresh, relevant content to your website as well as promoting it through any variety of online marketing campaigns. While this area of website marketing can vary depending on your budget and of course the types of products or services that you provide on your website, it will be necessary for you to monitor and track the current trends.

It can be difficult to remain on top of your website marketing needs, especially if you start to see the type of traffic flowing to your website that you have been longing for. When you find that keeping up with all of the content and advertising is a bit too much to do on your own, there is nothing wrong with enlisting the help of some of the professional SEO companies that you can find online. They know all about the current website marketing trends and know how to reach your target audience on a constant basis. Once you are in it for the long haul, you will find a rhythm that you feel comfortable will as you keep your website on top and running in good order.