Companies, just like people, can get a bad reputation. The problem is that it is not always easy to find out what the “word on the street” is about your business name. Protecting the integrity of your image and name is crucial to the success of your internet marketing efforts and the success of your business. The best thing to do is to keep your brand identity clean in the first place. The problem is that isn’t always possible.

The next best thing is to be able to defend the honor of your company or brand name. Of course, the only way you can do this is by reputation monitoring or buzz monitoring in order try to find out what it is people are saying about your business or brand. Even if you are getting direct feedback or reading comments on websites such as Facebook in relation to your brand, you still may not be getting the insight you need. So, the trick is to find out what the buzz around the social media networking sites is when it comes to your business. Read more

There was a time when contributions to the comment section of a blog were actually useful or at least interesting. With time, however, this seems to have become a dying art. The few remaining contributors seem to be posting under false pretense merely to promote their own business. Is there even any point to having a comment section where others can comment on blogs anymore?

It seems that nowhere online is safe from the potential spamming from blogs to other popular social media marketing approaches. Even Facebook users find their fan pages can get bogged down with spamming content instead of anything with real substance. The bottom line is that the act of commenting on blogs is dying, and other social media networking sites are taking their place, although even this approach is not without fault. Those who create, maintain and post blogs are wondering if the work and effort is worth it. The return seems minimal when compared to the amount of time and effort spent blogging, especially if the only comments a blog fetches are spam. Read more

There are so many useful tools online that companies and businesses can use these days to improve their inbound marketing campaigns. In fact, many of these have become so commonplace a business could very well be lost if they do not take advantage of it. While in the early days of the World Wide Web, just having a website for online presence was enough, those days have long gone. Now it is more important than ever to have visibility on various social media networking channels and blogs.

Of course, maintaining a blog takes time. Keeping your content marketing fresh is crucial to the process. It is, in fact, critically important to keep your blog posts up to date if you are going to bother to have one at all. Part of the most important aspect of this is not only attracting an audience, readers and followers, but letting them know you are still around and in business, as well as current with your industry.

How Often Should I Post to My Blog?

According to HubSpot, “companies that blog at least 20 times per month generate 5X more traffic than those that only blog a few times per month.”  The truth is there is not a set answer for this. What is important is that you do so on a regular basis. Content marketing and using sites such as WordPress to create a blog are ideal ways to use attraction marketing for your inbound marketing campaign. Some of this really has to do with the number of visitors you are getting to your blog. The less traffic you have, the less often you need to post. Read more

Search Engine Optimization can be one of the most important aspects of making your business not just run but run successfully. For many business owners, relying on an SEO company is the best way to make sure the effects show a return. Though it means investing money, it can also mean generating revenue in return. Unless you are an expert in SEO, it is probably a good idea to use one, at least to get you started.

The tricky part is knowing which company to chose. Without spending too much capital for too little return there are some questions that can help you make the right choice for your SEO firm and your business.

Possibly the most important question to get a response for is:

# 1 — What Is Your Approach to SEO and How Will This Relate to Me?

Avoid working with those companies who claim they cannot divulge the information because it is part of their organization’s secret. Without a firm having to give away all the details, they should have an answer about having a multifaceted approach. Read more

Content marketing appeal relies heavily on the quality of the content as well as the interest it generates. Obviously the better the content, the more regular the following and the more likely it is that content sharing will occur. All of this equals greater traffic flow to your blog or ecommerce site. Of course, keeping the content fresh and coming across as a knowledgeable expert in the field can be difficult to do on a regular basis.

Even those who truly are well versed on a particular subject can run out of fresh content or get lost when it comes to tracking down the latest information on a topic. There is so much information to filter through online that trying to find relevant and current data can be tricky. Not to mention, not everyone has time to do this kind of research just to track down data to spruce up your content marketing to increase your inbound marketing. However, there is a very useful tool that can help make it possible for you to get exactly this type of useful and current information. Read more