Reputation Management is Important!

Each and every project that you take on should be treated with the same level or respect and hard work put forth by you. You can further enhance you’re your experiences and thus your reputation by doing superior work, focusing on the client, collaborating with others in your industry, and forming personal and business relationships that are strong along the way.

However, no matter how much effort you do put forth you will at one time or another have to deal with some negative feedback. This can happen for any number or reasons such as a misunderstanding, but there are also those in life that are simply never happy no matter how well you treat them.

Your reaction to the negative feedback depends on several factors such as who said it, what they said, where they said it, and the like. While there are no hard and fast rules for how to react to negative feedback there are some general guidelines that can help you determine when you do need to react and at what level of severity.

The worst thing to do is to react to a negative feedback right away. Give yourself some time to calm down and really take a minute to see what it is you think the person is trying to say about you or your business. Ask yourself these questions:

*Is the feedback accurate?
*Am I in the wrong?
*Could my actions really be viewed this way?
*Was there a misunderstanding?

Negative feedback always seems to hit you on your blind side but it is important to try to fix the problem in the correct manner. Spouting off obscenities online may be what you feel like doing, but it will not help your online reputation at all.

The question then becomes should you respond to the negative feedback or just let it go? Every negative feedback should be treated as unique and some will require a response and others will not. If the impact that the negative feedback will leave is relatively small, you may decide to let it lie as adding any gasoline to the fire will simply increase the flames. If there is no need to do so then don’t.

If you can deal with the person who left you the negative feedback offline then that may be your best approach. Meet with them and try to see their point of view. If there is any damage control that can be done on your part then execute it. When the problem has resolved itself simply ask that the party retract their negative feedback or follow up the original bad feedback with corresponding positive feedback.

If you do decide to respond online do so with couth. Blasting back at the party with nasty comments only enforces their position. Kill them with kindness and gently give your point of view on the matter.

Above all else use the negative feedback as an opportunity to better your own situation. Perhaps you needed to hear the negative comment so that you could discover a better way to do something. Always look for the positive despite the negative and always strive to learn from your mistakes. While you cannot control the words or actions of others, you can control your own and you should never lower yourself down to anyone else’s negative level.

In the world of search engine marketing (SEM) there is a relatively new technique that is proving to be worth its weight in gold. Videos that have proper search engine optimization (SEO) done to them are quickly becoming more than simply an option that can be included in your SEM procedures, they are becoming a necessity.

The reason is simple; Google and other major search engines love videos. Perhaps it is because there are many people who still prefer to watch something rather than read it and this can play into your advantage. Because Google loves video so much that it has a whole different set of standards for videos that will actually allow them to get raked. The end result is your website’s URL occupying more of the search engine results pages (SEPRS) and instead of showing up once, you can show up twice. For that reason it is imperative that you have a well thought out video marketing campaign put into place.

The first variable you will need to figure out is what you are going to do your video on. You could tackle a number of topics in relation to your products and services and really you are only limited by your own imagination. By examining your website you can easily come up with a number of topics to create a video such as:

Product Video
Service Video
Compliance Video
Industry Standard Video
Tutorial Video
So much more…

Once you have figured out what you want your video to be about and whether or not you will design the video or you will have an Internet marketer create on for you, you will need to know where to submit your video so that it will be seen by not only web surfers, but also the search engines. There are many video submission sites these days, but these six stand out from the crowd:

YouTube: Probably the most popular and most used among free video site submission sites. YouTube lets you open a free account and will also let you upload your videos to their site for free. Getting started with an account is as easy as filling out some forms and giving them your e-mail address and some personal information and you are ready to go. YouTube is owned by Google which is another reason that so many people enjoy using the service.
Revver: Revver also lets you open a free account and upload your videos for free and they also offer you a way to make some extra money. Once your video is uploaded to their site Revver will embed it with advertisements. If a viewer buys due to clicking on those advertisements Revver splits the ad revenue 50/50 with you. This gives you the unique opportunity to earn as you share.
Google Video: Google Video was created before Google bought out former competitor YouTube. Google Video allows any member of Google (meaning you have a Gmail account) to upload videos for free and is also a powerful video search engine for all to use. Many companies will host large amounts of videos on Google Video remotely so that they don’t have to worry about bandwidth problems on their website.
Atom: Atom allows you to sign up for a free account and once you do sign up they give you the option of directly linking your new account to your FaceBook account. Atom has been around for about ten years and they tend to thrive on the younger generation as they are now owned by MTV Networks. The videos that are submitted to Atom are usually of a more entertaining quality rather than informative quality so keep that in mind when creating videos to submit there.
Flickr: Flickr started out as an image host (pictures only) but has since grown to allow the uploading of videos as well. Flickr has two types of accounts; free and pro. The free account will allow you to upload up to 2 MB of images per month and two videos as well and the pro service (fees involved) let you load an unlimited amount of both.
FaceBook: FaceBook is going the way of many social sites these days and is now allowing video sharing. This can represent a great opportunity for you if you already have a FaceBook account as you can share your videos with everyone on your friend list and they in turn can share with others. If you do not have a FaceBook account, it is free to join and you just have to provide them with some information and you are off to the races.

A successful video marketing campaign will not only allow you to share your thoughts and ideas with others, but it will help you on the search engines as well. More and more people are beginning to understand the power of video marketing and once you start, it is doubtful that you will want to stop.

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When it comes to driving traffic to your website there is little that can offer you a higher return on investment (ROI) than if you take advantage of all the freebies in the online world. However, though the strategies may be free they do include much of your time and efforts so really how free are they?

This is not to disparage the free stuff, far from it, but it is to say that paid advertisements should also have a place in your marketing strategy. There are so many different ways in which you can pay to advertise your website, but you want to be sure that you will be getting the best bang for your buck (or ROI). Here are some sure ways to drive traffic to your website that are cost effective as well:

E-Mail Newsletter: You can find companies that will put together e-mails in the form of a newsletter and they will include a link to your website somewhere within the newsletter. These newsletters will be sent out to an opt-in group of consumers and they will all be interested in your area of business. These newsletters are in the form of information, not advertisements so they have a good chance of being read. If the reader clicks on your link then bang, you have targeted traffic.

Rent or Buy Targeted Lists: If you have a flare and a knack for e-mail campaigns then all you need is a list of willing people and you can have at it. These lists are actually for rent or for sale and these lists can be a bargain if your e-mail campaign is good enough. Be wary when you do obtain these lists as you need to be sure that the names are all opt-in. If they are just random names then you will be risking having your campaign and yourself being classified as a SPAM producer. This is bad because online there is no quicker death than SPAM. SPAM is like the plague and when you get this classification nobody will want to come close to you. Knowing that don’t just go with the cheapest list. Anyone can throw together a list of names and e-mails in a couple of hours, but if those names do not want to be e-mailed then they are no good to you. Stick to lists that are derived from an opt-in scenario and you will be just fine.
Banner Ads: Banner ads were extremely popular back in the ‘Good Old Days.’ However the click through for banner ads is so low now that you literally have to wait months at times in order for the banner ad to pay off. Don’t pay too much for this type of advertisement and when you are looking at potential sites to place your banner ad on be sure that they have a high page rank with Goggle. Yes you will pay more for a higher page rank, but if you advertise on a low page rank website you will have to wait even longer for results than if you go with a website that has a higher page rank.

These three paid advertisement methods only scratch the surface when it comes to how to drive targeted traffic to your website, but they are all effective. Just keep in mind that there are literally thousands of companies out there that will promise you the world but not delivery you squat.

Many advertising companies will drive traffic to your website for a fee, but if this traffic is not your target audience then what is the point? By implementing the strategies above you can be sure that whatever traffic does come your way will be interested in what you have to offer.

There are two items that every person in America has in their homes; a computer and a phone book. Guess which one is used more often to look up a local business? Nobody uses the phone book these days, and if you even know where yours is it probably has an inch of dust on it.

It is estimated that there are 10 billion unique searches conducted each and every month on the internet and of those it is estimate that 40 percent or more are all local business searches. Is your website local search friendly? If not you are missing out on a ton of potential business.

So what are the best ways to get your website found when someone is conducting a local search? Here are some of the quickest and easiest ways to get your business’ website noticed at a local level:

Your Website: To begin with you should be sure that your full address appears somewhere on every page of your website. You should also include your phone number and five to ten surrounding local communities which you also serve.

Free Listings Online: When you do a local search on Google have you ever noticed how it will pull up a map and show all the businesses that are related to your search on that map? Notice how that map is before any search results? You can accomplish the same thing by registering with Google Maps for free. Additionally Yahoo has a service that is similar called Yahoo Local so take advantage of both!

Check Resources: There is a great resource you can check that is at getlisted.com. Using this resource you can see if your local listings have taken hold on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other local search sites and you will also get to see a snapshot of your business profile.

Now more than you have to have your website optimized using  a SEO that Specializes in Local Search. In the old days people had to search by business type followed by a city and state, such as ‘Plumber Buffalo, NY.’ Now though the search engines are using a technology called ‘geotargeting’ and all that needs to be searched now is ‘plumber.’ If the person conducting the search is in Buffalo, NY that same listing will come up as if the person searching types the search in the old fashion way.

More and more technology allows for people to conduct searches for businesses without ever cracking open a phone book. Now with cell phones being live and online it is easy for people to conduct a search for a business on the fly. If your website is not local search friendly then you are throwing away money.

Face it; no one is using their phone books for anything more than propping up a toddler at the dinner table. By making your website not only SEO friendly, but also SEO local friendly you are giving yourself an advantage over all of your competitors that still think the Yellow Pages are the way to go.

Even if you do not know how to make your website SEO local friendly you can still take advantage of the free resources listing above. Additionally, if you no longer having to advertise in the phone book you will be saving yourself some valuable marketing dollars. Those dollars will be much better spent by acquiring some SEO local help in the form of an internet marketer.

The bottom line is that your business and your website can either continue to go on the way they have with little results, or you can become a local authority. Imagine how much more your business can make if every time someone conducts a local search they see your website and business name in the top spots of the search engines. Whatever you decide to do, stop advertising in the phone book because chances are nobody will look for you in there.

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One of the best ways to get your website ranked just so happens to also be one of the least expensive. Using proper search engine optimization (SEO) means that your website will be ranked naturally or organically as the search engine spiders (robots) will find your designated keywords and index you accordingly.

Many people will use SEO tricks to fool the spiders, but the thing is that the search engines know all the tricks and this type of activity can actually end up hurting you in the long run. In order to get the most out of your SEO exploits you don’t want to fool the search engines but rather let them know in a clear manner that you are indeed online and worthy of being ranked.

Here are some ways to use proper SEO techniques in order to be naturally ranked by the search engines:

Title Page: For each page on your website you should be writing a title page. This title page should be heavy with keywords that you would think will be used when people are conducting a search for your site. Using five to eight keywords is a good rule of thumb and you want to limit the number of fluff words such as “and,” “the,” and the like but you also need to be sure that the title page reads well. This title page is what the person searching the web will see as a returned result on the search engine itself. You will want to be sure that the keywords or key phrases that people will use first, will appear first in your title page. If you sell dog food for example then be sure to mention dog food even before the name of your business.

META Tag: Certain search engines will have this type of description just under your hyperlinked title in the search results. For this reason you have to be sure that you are using keywords and phrases that are also contained in the web page that the hyperlink leads to. Use a maximum of 255 characters when typing your META tag for your best results even though only 60 or so will be seen inside search engine giant Google because what isn’t seen can still get you ranked.

Headers: Be sure to include your keywords in your headers. As far as the search engines are concerned the page headline and sub-head line are important to the page. Because of that fact you want to be sure that you have your main key words for that page within the headers. Many designers will not designate H1, H2 within their set up of your web pages. Be sure that they do however as this is a big clue for the search engines and leaving it out is like leaving a treasure to be found with no map to lead you to it.

First Paragraph: It is a common practice for a writer to have the first paragraph of content to be an introduction of what is to come, but this approach often leaves the keywords out of the equation of the opening paragraph. It is of utmost importance that your keywords (especially the main keyword for the page) are included in your first paragraph. However, you cannot simply “stuff” in your keywords and end up with a paragraph or page that doesn’t read right. The opening paragraph and the entire page have to read properly or the search engines will not recognize the content as legit. Your overall keyword density per page should only be about two percent maximum so avoid the urge to overuse your keywords.

Image Tags: In order to cater to those who are somewhat site impaired and to leave even more clues to the search engines that you are worthy of a good ranking use descriptive keywords in your ALT Attributes of all Image Tags. This will in turn help get you ranked higher for image results.

This is all basic stuff, but you would be surprised at the number of websites that do not use even half of these simple yet effective SEO techniques. Therefore you can see your website do better than a great majority out there if you take the time to properly optimizes your web pages.

Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques come in a wide variety of implementations. Some of these techniques are easy and some are more complex, but each is important in its own way. Once you have the basics of your SEO complete it will then be time to fine tune your SEO so to speak.

Here are some ways that you will want to fine tune your SEO for the highest possibility of search engine rankings:

·    Navigation System: You will want to be sure that the navigation system within your website is not only user friendly but also search engine friendly as well. Java and Flash is really appealing to people, but not to search engine spiders. If you are going to use a lot of Flash on your pages that is fine, but you must be sure to supplement this with HTML links at the bottom of the page so that the spiders can crawl all of your pages and get there from your index (home) page.

·    Site Map: Creating a site map is the best way to lead both visitors and spiders through the maze of pages that you may have within your website. You can use XML-Sitemaps.com to create a site map that will be recognized by the major search engines. Once your site map is completed and uploaded you will want to be sure that you submit it to Google, Yahoo, and Bing by following their specific instructions.

·    Multiple Web Pages: When it comes to getting ranked more is better with web pages. Using external doorway or gateway pages can lead to a lot of web page duplication. Even if the pages are not 100 percent alike, Google and the others may say, “Close enough,” and this may earn you a penalty. Instead, create pages or articles for each keyword no matter how similar, such as one page for canned dog food and another for bagged dog food and so on. You won’t be able to fully optimize each page, but you will be able to avoid getting on the search engines bad side.

·    Use Tools: Using software such as WebPosition will help you determine where you’re currently ranked for each page on your website. Once you know where you stand you can further tweak and finesse your pages in order to help get them ranked higher.

This is the point where you may be scratching your head and wondering how the heck you are going to do all of this and when will you have the time. This is also the point where many will seek the council of an experienced SEO marketer.

This is nothing to be ashamed of and if you do decide to go with an SEO marketer at this point be sure that they are reputable and available. While price is certainly “a” factor it should not be “the” factor when making your decision. Always ask for examples of the SEO marketers work and references as well. A quality SEO marketer will be delighted to showcase their successes for you.

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Links links, and more links. Links are a vital part of your website for more than just the obvious reason that the more people link to your website, the more traffic you are bound to get. Links also mean that the big search engines can determine how popular your website is and reward you accordingly by placing you higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Yes the online game is certainly one that is a popularity contest and links are a great indicator of just how well you are fairing in the contest. However, all links are not created equally. You will get much more credit when a website that has a high page rank is linking to you over a couple of different low page ranking websites that are linking to you.

So how do you get the links to start rolling in? Here are some methods to try when you want to make your website fit in with the “popular” crowd:

Submit to Directories: Submit your website to key directories as links from these types of directories will help your ranking. Some link directories are pay and some are free. While you may thing that free is better, in this case it may not be. Look at the actual page rank of the directory before you make that decision. Page ranks of zero and one that are free will do you little good, but page ranks of five and seven that may cost you a buck or two will be beneficial. DMOZ.com is a great freebie and you can go for the big dogs like Yahoo but you will pay for it (Yahoo is $299.00 per year).

Submit to Trade Organizations: Submit your website to specialized directories known as trade organizations. These types of directories are often pay directories but if they are specialized in your industry such as finance or business, then it may be worth your while to give them a few dollars. Be careful of the specialized directories that offer you a free link but ask you to upgrade. These types come and go and usually give no precedence to those who only opt to use the freebie link.

Ask for Reciprocal Links: If you don’t ask you won’t know. Search for other websites within your niche and get in touch with them and ask if they would be interested in exchanging links. This should be done via e-mail and once you start to accumulate some of these and your popularity goes up you will begin to get requests in your inbox on a rather frequent basis. However, don’t jump at every opportunity to link with another website. Only link with websites that compliment your own no matter how high the website may be ranked. The search engines love relevancy and hate irrelevancy. If the search engines don’t like your links, they don’t like you (unpopular) and your page rankings will suffer for it.

Write for Others: If you have a talent for writing then you can use this to your advantage. Not everyone is an eloquent writer and so you may be able to find websites that are in need of some articles to be written in exchange for a link to your website. All you have to do is find high ranking websites within your niche and offer them an article to use for free as long as you can have an anchor text linking at the end of the article with a one or two sentence description about your website. This is a win for a website that needs quality content and a one way link win for you that can end up producing a huge amount of traffic for you.

Use Press Releases: Find newsworthy events within your niche and create a press release about them. Many press release services will allow you to put a link to your website at the end of the press release and this link can end up being in their queue for months at a time. The result will be more traffic and a temporary increase on your popularity. Be sure that you are preparing the press releases in the proper format as many press release services have a different way they like their press releases to be written.

The building of high quality links on your website is a long and often boring task. However, there is no better way to help the popularity of your website and once the popularity is high enough you will begin to see lots of traffic which can translate into lots of sales and finally lots of money. Just as with many things in life, sometimes you have to work hard to reap the benefits and rewards, but once you do you are happy that you did. Link building is no different.

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Everyone has a passion for something. In my case it is teaching others how to generate unheard of online traffic using the latest SEO techniques. What is your passion?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could somehow turn your passion into an online school or university that will not only teach others what you know but will also help you to earn a little money on the side? What about earn a lot of money on the side? That is precisely what I set out to do and am in fact getting ready to do. So how do you get in on this game?

There are websites online that will allow you to turn what you already know into an online course so that you can actually market the course to others, have them take the course, and make extra money. It really is as easy as it sounds too.

Take for example www.prfessor.com. Here you simply log on and let them show you where to add content. The course that is designed is entirely up to you because it is your passion that is going to be transformed into a school.

After you have created your specialized online course you can use a number of methods to track your students and you professors. Utilizing this type of information will allow you to determine exactly how you can make your online university even better and realize more passive income as a result.

Now the natural though that occurs is how costly is this? While you may think that you will be charged an arm and a leg for services such as these you may be pleasantly surprised to know that all of these features and more can be obtained for under 50 bucks per month. The best part is that most online course development websites will let you go on a month to month basis so there is no need to sign a contract. If you do run into a service that wants you to sign a contract then run the other away because there are many quality services that will not require a contract.

Yes the online world has done it again. We truly live in a virtual reality these days and thanks to that fact you can now take your hobby, your passion, your life and mold it into an online school or university that will teach others and bring you in extra income month after month. What are you waiting for professor? Your online school is only a small amount of work away.

These days it seems that everybody is involved in social media at some level or another. Yes no matter young or old, the world is taking advantage of social media outlets such as FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to share thoughts, feelings, interests, and expressions and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the popularity.

The sudden and strong surge in social media frenzy that is going on has not gone unnoticed by the search engines either. In fact, Google has already begun the implementation of real-time ranking with its new Google Caffeine and will continue to reward websites that are mentioned more often on a real time basis and a great way to accomplish this is by utilizing social media outlets.

Because social media is catching on at such a rapid pace there seems to be no end to the social media websites that are popping up on almost a monthly basis. However, no matter how many come out there will always be what is considered to be the big three and these include:

FaceBook: FaceBook allows people to connect and old classmates to even reconnect. This is a wonderful way to not only share your interests but also to get reacquainted with your past relationships. What it means for a business is the opportunity to promote their website and their services by being interactive within the FaceBook community. FaceBook even offers you a place to blog so that you can share your expertise on your given field.

Twitter: Everyone from regular Joes and Jills to the Hollywood stars and starlets are using Twitter to “Tweet” the latest in what is happening. A Tweet is a short one line statement that tells everyone what is going on. A smart business can use Twitter to Tweet about interesting articles that they have written all the way to Tweeting about a special they may have running. If you Tweet responsibly and interestingly then you will begin to have people follow your Tweets. Before you know it you will have a loyal group of readers just waiting for your next Tweet.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is more for professionals to get together and share ideas. However, with over 60 million professionals as part of the community, LinkedIn represents one gigantic opportunity for your business. LinkedIn is an invaluable networking tool for any business of any size and by interacting frequently within the community you can help to make your business begin to realize its full potential.

Face it, when it comes to the world it has by and large gone digital. So too has the way that people get together and connect and reconnect. Ideas are now shared at the social media sites as opposed to social clubs and again, this trend is only picking up steam.

If you don’t already have a FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account you should strongly consider getting on the ball and signing up for all three. Just as with any other aspect of business, if you don’t conform then you fall by the wayside.