Trust But Verify

As a Canton Ohio Website developer its our job to monitor the accessibility and availability of the sites we host.

Its our job to monitor the accessibility and availability of websites we are responsible for. In fact, this is a big and important part of what we do because there is no sense in having a site if it does not run properly. For this reason, we actually have certain tools in place just to use for monitoring whether or not a site is running as it should.

But, no matter who you choose to use for your website development and hosting it is best to use a ‘trust but verify’ approach.

All Systems Fail?

If you are being alerted to the fact that your website is down – it is terrifying news. Your entire livelihood depends on whether your site is up and running. When you receive this kind of information though, you need to confirm this is true. To find out whether it is a local issue, you should use a reliable third party to see what the rest of the world is seeing when they visit our site.  Read more

You may not have yet heard of lead scoring. But this is not something new in the world of internet marketing. This is a tool that has been used in direct marketing approaches for years in fact. It helps by enabling direct marketers to prepare list selection. It also is a great way to match clients to potential new sales opportunities. In the past, the most common approach used was known as RFM (which stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary value).

However, more recently inbound marketers have begun using this to help with their efforts. By adapting their already existing practices to include lead scoring which helps improve upon their online marketing efforts. Of course, before you can determine whether lead scoring could help you, it is important to get an understanding of what it is.

What is Lead Scoring?

There are so many approaches you can use to work with your leads. For example, lead nurturing is the practice in which you take care of the leads you have to transform them into sales. Scoring is similar to segmenting leads in which you divvy up your leads in one way or another. When you segment, you divide up leads so you approach the right groups with the right marketing materials. Scoring is how you decide which leads deserve which type of ranking. Read more

Internet marketing and content marketing is an area where you can make the mistake of actually using frowned upon tactics without even realizing it. In order to avoid making the mistake of using black hat or unethical techniques in your marketing campaign, consider some of these not so favorable ways to abuse SEO and do more harm than good for your effort.

#1: Keyword Stuffing – It may happen naturally if you are genuinely writing about something that requires certain keywords to be used repeatedly but it is still something to try to watch for. While overusing certain keywords once worked to get your site or blog bumped to the top of a Google search, it now has the opposite effect. Saturating your piece with words in an obvious abuse of SEO will now get you booted or offend those who find your site this way anyway.

#2: Paying for Links – Having links and backlinks is something else that should happen naturally. Paying for this type of connection is considered unethical and will probably not get you the results you want. Also creating fake websites just to increase the backlinks for your site is not an ethical practice to follow. This ties into the next one too.  Read more

Chances are, you’ve been hearing a lot about how inbound marketing can increase sales, how important your inbound marketing is…and on and on. The only problem  – you may not know exactly what we mean by ‘inbound marketing’. In fact, reading this you may be thinking, “Inbound Marketing. Outbound Marketing. What’s the diff’?”

Since all of this is actually quite crucial to your business and marketing efforts let us try to explain exactly what we mean when we say “inbound marketing.”

Both inbound marketing and outbound marketing are important elements of any businesses marketing efforts. Outbound has been the more popular among the two, but as  consumers become immune to interruption marketing and more attuned to instant gratification and ‘on-demand’ services, the focus for marketers is now to ATTRACT consumers to your company through search marketing, content marketing and social media. Read more

Do you want to know what are the two most common errors that companies make when it comes to marketing?

1. Set It & Forget It (thank you Ron Popeil)
2. Forgetting it ever existed in the first place

First, you should get an understanding of what a marketing asset is. These include things like emails, sales letters, brochures, blog posts and content from your web site. Of course, then you may be wondering what the point is of keeping an inventory of the marketing assets. This is done to keep an idea of what to use to build future marketing campaigns as well. This is how you can make sure your ROI pays off and to be able to cross-pollinate for the best results for your efforts.  Read more

I know, I know…when it comes to online searches, it is no secret that Google dominates. In fact, recent reports indicate that Google owns 66% of online search. For that reason, much of your search engine optimization should be geared towards your site making more of a splash on Google. However, a common mistake many people make is not taking into consideration how their page ranks on other possible search engines.

By now, hopefully you’re familiar with Google Webmaster Tools and and how to use this service to ensure your site visible through Google. If not, then this is certainly something you need to do so your search engine optimization efforts can actually bring you the results you want.

Bing – Not Even On Your Radar?

Apart from Google Webmaster Tools, you should familiarize yourself with Bing Webmaster Tools. This is how you can ensure your site will be found on Yahoo and Bing for searches. Google may be responsible for two-thirds of the search engine market, but there’s still 33% you could be missing out on if you focus only on Google. And yes, Yahoo and Bing are in cahoots, so by ensuring Microsoft Webmaster Tools can see your site, you’ll be figuratively killing two birds with one stone. Read more

Learning how to use SEO or Search Engine Optimization correctly will enable you to have success with it. Like any tool, knowing how to use it is the only thing that makes it useful. Without the knowledge of how to use it, a tool is of no use.

If you are using SEO as a tool for your content marketing then these five factors will help ensure success.

# 1 — Quality

It is more than just getting the right keywords on a page; it is also about making sure the content is of the highest quality possible. Poor quality content filled with SEO keywords does not ensure that you will get the results you want. If your content lacks quality not only will you not be able to retain visitors, you will quickly drive them away. Read more

These days making the most of your internet marketing campaign efforts can be a full time job, and still leave you with areas you could improve upon. Making sure you utilize Search Engine Optimization and attract leads through inbound marketing is just a small part of what you could be doing to make sure your internet marketing efforts make an impact. Where you stand right now can always be improved upon, but you should at least have an idea of how your site measures up.

SEOmoz – Says What?

One useful tool now is the open site explorer tool called SEOmoz. As the name may clue you in, the focus of the site and the software is to help use SEO or Search Engine Optimization properly. Of course, it depends what level of membership you sign up for on how much optimization you get but even starting with the basic could be a boom for your business. There are benefits aside from the obvious you may expect from SEOmoz, including “Community and Education” where members can share ideas that may help others with their own SEO efforts. Read more

The truth of the matter is that mobile devices are where the future of social networking is. Not only that but this effects the world of ecommerce and businesses of any and all sizes. For this reason, it is important for businesses to get involved in mobile marketing and have a social media presence. This internet marketing need is as important for small businesses as it is larger ones. In fact, it is even more crucial for smaller businesses to do in order to be able to attract inbound marketing.

The increase of the amount of times people use their mobile device to connect with social media continues to rise. This is especially true as the number of people who own devices like smartphones also continues to climb, and quite rapidly. The growth rate in both the US and EU over the past year alone was massive. Those users are the ones now getting on their devices and logging into social media networking sites, like Facebook. In fact, the most popular social media networking sites also have apps that help users connect almost immediately. Read more

If you have a local business and are waiting for the customers to stroll in or contact you for your services, you could be waiting a long time. Unless of course you have your online marketing campaign working for you.

If you think because your business is offline that you do not need online presence this could be exactly why you aren’t seeing those customers coming through your door. Too many business owners make the mistake these days of thinking promoting their business online isn’t necessary to draw in local business. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.

So, as a local retailer how can you get internet marketing to help you earn more business?

• Calls to Action – A call to action is one of the most valuable tools for online marketing. This is a strategy used as part of content marketing that suggests to readers to follow-up with an action now that they have reviewed the material. According to the Duct Tape Marketing website, a call to action doesn’t just get someone to use this call to action online, it gets those customers coming in to their local retailer. For example, internet marketing that offers visitors a free pass as a result to a call to action gets people in your business. Read more