Online Business Strategy

There is no doubt that when trying to build your business, it is imperative to have a written business strategy. You need to have a clear plan laid out on how to bring in customers to make your business grow. With today’s ever changing world of technology, not including an online business strategy is a mistake that can cost you thousands.

Many brick and mortar businesses neglect an online business strategy and it DOES in fact cost them. ALL classes of people are using the internet to either find products and services they are looking for or to validate products, services and companies that are referred to them. By not having a website, or even a poorly made one, you lose credibility if someone Google’s your business. You would be viewed as a business that is not real or is poorly run. After all, who DOESN’T have a website nowadays? In addition, by not being listed on the front pages of Google for your product or services, you are losing the eyes of potential clients.

An online business strategy is about exposure and brand recognition. How did Home Depot, McDonald’s and even Google get so big? From brand recognition. A large part of brand recognition is through having an online business strategy that incorporates your website, blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. All four of these components are imperative to have and all four of them should be integrated. This gives potential clients a way to get to know your business and YOU, allowing them to make a decision on whether or not to purchase from you. Remember, people do business with people… people they know, like and trust. The goal of an online strategy should be an additional way for potential clients to get to know your business and YOU as a business owner. Leave this out of your business plans and you will surely push your potential clients away.

Until next time,
Tula Rainwater

P.S.  Don’t forget to visit our main page to receive your Free Competitive Analysis, Search Engine Marketing Plan and SEO Evaluation Of Your Blog Or Website.

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business strategy

business strategy

business strategy

Google Traffic

No matter what business you are in having access to Google traffic could be a huge benefit for you. Just looking at the traffic numbers from the various search engines including Bing, Yahoo, and others, there is much more Google traffic than the other search engines. And sometimes even double the combined traffic from non Google traffic sources. It depends on what is being searched for and that is where you can gain some very good traffic numbers. If your website  or blog post is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase that pertains to your business, the benefit could be massive. Just look at the chart and you can see how Google traffic has been on the rise for a long time. And I do not think that that trend is going to change anytime soon.

The best Google traffic comes from doing research on what keyword or phrase to use to optimize your site for. To find them sometimes you have to dig beyond the root keyword. There are tools that you can use to assist you with finding just the right term. Google has a keyword tool that is very helpful. It shows the google traffic generated from any given keyword or phrase. SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool is another that shows you the traffic numbers from Google and other popular search engines.

By using these tools to help you find the terms with the most traffic you can then optimize your site for that term. There are other tools out there that can help with this task. Using more than one can give you a different perspective on what the traffic numbers are and also show alternate terms that may be able to be used to help generate traffic. Once your site or blog post is up and the search engines know about it, you now can have access to the kinds of Google traffic that will bring in new website visitors and potential customers.

Having the right keyword is important but there are other factors as well that will give you access to the Google traffic that you want. Backlinks are a key part of putting your site at the top of the search engines and keeping it there. Back links are just that. Links to your site from other sites. It helps when other people come to your site for information. Google and the other search engines see that, and will give your site higher value based on how many others visit your site and how long they stay on your site.

You can optimize your site and have it up and live, but to get the full benefit of Google traffic you will want to be at or near the top of the organic search results. Needles to say, it usually doesn’t happen over night but we have seen a few instances where it can happen almost immediately which is very rare. But in time you can have any content that is optimized get to the front pages and tap into some amazing Internet traffic.

It is important to use the tools and strategies we talk about in the right way. Use them  wrong and you will be hard pressed to find your site at all in the search engine listings. And that would not be a good thing when trying to improve your business using the search engines.

Tapping into Google traffic can boost your web presence and the bottom line for your business whether your business is a traditional brick and mortar type or an online business. As long as you have a web presence, a product or service people are looking for your business will definitely benefit.

So yes, your business does need Google traffic!

Let us know if we can help your business become more successful by putting you on the front pages of Google.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bill Rowe and the Paragon Marketing Solutions Team.

google traffic

google traffic

google traffic

Take Advantage Of The Mobile Marketing Explosion

First of all, just what is Mobile Marketing? Since it is a relatively new phenomena, there does not appear to be any one single universally accepted definition. The definition of is evolving. However, if you happen to be one of those that thinks Mobile Marketing is grocery shopping at a drive thru, let’s see if we can narrow it down a little better for you.

What Is Marketing?

To begin to understand Mobile Marketing, we need to first understand what Marketing is? It is common to hear someone say, “I’m in Marketing” or a college student say “I’m a Marketing major” or I got my degree in “Marketing”.

To the outsider, these one word references seem to imply that Marketing is a singular entity. In reality, Marketing is a complex set of numerous processes that include for example creation, communication, and delivery of value to customers. Underlying these processes are strategies for implementation which is also a part of Marketing. In addition, Marketing is used for managing customer relations. This includes customer identification, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.

In order to fully benefit from marketing strategies, a business needs to shift from focusing on the production of goods and services to the identification of its’ customers perceived needs and wants as the method of remaining profitable. By engaging in the marketing process an organization identifies the perceived needs and wants of a target market and then tries to satisfy them more efficiently that its’ competitors.

Mobile Marketing Is A Subset Of The Marketing Process

Broadly speaking, Mobile Marketing is a subset of the marketing process. This subset includes all of the marketing processes that allow businesses to have a relevant, interactive exchange with their customers via a mobile device or network.

Now that we have given a working definition for Mobile Marketing, how is it important to your business? For starters, all current statistical trends indicate that Mobile Marketing will become bigger than television, radio, and the PC – combined! Unless your target market is in prison or made up of individuals whose religious beliefs ban the use of electronic devices, it is made up of a large percentage of individuals who own mobile devices. That percentage is growing larger and larger every day.

Just a few amazing Mobile Marketing statistics are:

1. 

   Your Customers Use Mobile Devices Every Day

   Of the 6.8 billion people on earth, 5.1 billion (75%) own cell phones. (Ref-Mobile Marketing Association Asia)

2. In the U.S. 91% of all citizens have their own mobile device with them 24/7. (Ref-Morgan Stanley)
3. Mobile phones outnumber televisions worldwide. (Ref-Jupiter)
4. The average time to respond to a text is 90 seconds. (Ref-CTIA.org)
5. Mobile coupons are redeemed 10 times more than regular coupons. (Ref-Borrell Associates)
6. The population of some countries is less than the number of mobile subscriptions. (Some people have multiple mobile phones.)
7. Within 1 hour of a mobile search, action will be taken 70% of the time. (Ref-Mobile Marketer)

Your current customers and your future customers are using mobile every day. Mobile is not just here to stay, it’s taking over. If you haven’t already, you need to consider making Mobile Marketing a part of your overall marketing program and take advantage of this exploding market.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing

Mobile Marketing

Get Mass Traffic To Your Weight Loss Blog, Here's How!

So, you started a weight loss blog… good call! While there are numerous reasons WHY you may have started a weight loss blog, the fact that you did, whether you realize it or not, just set you up to earn a substantial amount of money, even if that was not your original intention.

One of the best way to generate advertising revenue, using Google AdSense for example, is through a weight loss blog. Weight loss is one of the two hottest niche markets right now. Companies are paying big money to people who have the skills to create a weight loss blog and generate advertising revenue.

Six months ago We started a weight loss blog known as Ask The Weight Loss Maven. Within six months of creating the blog We received an offer of five figures simply because the blog had proven that it COULD generate revenue. Since We received that offer, the revenue of the blog has increased dramatically which, in turn, has more than tripled it’s original value in less than 45 days since the offer came in.

Whether you already have a weight loss blog or a considering starting a weight loss blog, HOW you choose your keywords will have a huge impact on how much revenue the blog generates on a daily basis. Taking advantage of opportunities like Google AdSense, Click Bank, Commission Junction and Amazon is much more profitable when you select the right keywords to optimize and rank for.

Here is a listing of weight loss keyword and key phrase strategies you can use to target the front pages of Google for quick listings in high traffic locations:

1.) Celebrity Weight Loss Stories – When you think of Drew Carey, Kirstie Alley and, most recently, Charles Barkley, there’s a very good chance that weight loss comes to mind. People follow these stories and look at pictures daily. The Jonah Hill weight loss story has been responsible for more than 30% of the total traffic received at Ask The Weight Loss Maven since that post was created. use the Google AdWords keyword tool and look at the trends for the keyword weight loss. The majority of the breakout keywords are based on celebrities.

2.) Commercial Weight Loss Products – Optimizing for the commercial name of the top weight loss products is a great way to plug into high volume traffic fast. Most bloggers are so focused on generic weight loss based keywords that they overlook these. It’s much easier to plug into traffic fast, using these keywords, because so few people target and optimize for them. If you open Google, right now, and type in “slim fast reviews”, for example, there’s a very good chance that you will find WeightLossMaven.com in the top position for the key phrase on the front page.  This listing provides consistent traffic on a daily basis, and because of the way we create and support the content, it’s not going anywhere.

3.) Weight Loss Programs – Programs like Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, Weight Watchers and others are great targets for keyword optimization. A listing on the front page of Google for these corporate names can plug you into mass traffic in short order. Programs like Weight Watchers are being searched into the millions of times per month. Imagine how much of that will come your way when you optimize for keyword and phrases like that.

Visit Ask The Weight Loss Maven today and look at some of Our latest posts. You’ll see our strategy for creating content that both edifies the companies and programs as well as offers valuable insight to the reader in regards to the use of that product in their weight loss transformation.

To learn more about choosing the right keywords for your weight loss blog, call Rex @ 239-692-1468 for a free, no hassle, no obligation consultation.

Cheers!

Paragon Marketing Team

weight loss blog

weight loss blog

weight loss blog

Market Share

So how does a business improve its market share?

Advertising is one way of increasing your market share. Television, print media, billboards, Internet, Social Media, are all forms of advertising that will increase the visibility of your business to gain market share. The size of your advertising budget and your ad copy will determine how successful your marketing campaign will be. The product or service your company offers will also have an effect on your market share. In other words, how much competition do you have? You have to be aware of what other businesses are in your niche and how much market share they have.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization marketing is a way of optimizing your business web site so that the search engines will place your site at the top of the listings for keywords and phrases pertaining to your business. How does that improve your market share? Well, by having your business listed near the top of the search engine listings your business web site will have more traffic. Now traffic is good, but targeted traffic is better. By using certain search terms and phrases that relate to your business, you will get targeted visitors to your web site. This will convert to more customers, and thus more sales which will increase your market share.

One thing that I found very interesting is that when I checked the term market share and the rising trends associated with that key phrase, the terms that came up. Things like android, tablet, ipad, and netflix all showed up. All of them very popular terms. Now think about how you could incorporate those terms into a business newsletter or blog to gain top positioning in the search engines. By doing something as simple as that your business will gain exposure and market share.

No matter which way you choose to go its all about letting people know what you have to offer and converting them to customers. Using as many marketing strategies as you can will help you to increase your market share. Sometimes it comes down to how much your business can afford or whether you have a marketing team in place that can do that work for you. Studying what venues are working the best for your business will allow you to put your marketing budget to the best use. One thing for sure is that having a web presence is becoming more and more important to both small and large businesses. Knowing how to take advantage of the technology available to business will help them to become successful and maintain profitability.

There are many strategies that we at Paragon Marketing Solutions have seen concerning SEO and advertising. Some of the information is good and some of it just plain does not work. We know this because we have heard from people who have paid top dollar to gain a solid market share for their business but have little or nothing to show for it. And we have tested a lot of them. The game can change at any given time for a business. By testing the strategies that we come across and knowing what works and what does not, gives us an edge when it comes to helping our customers gain market share for their company.

Wishing you and your business the best in 2012,
Paragon Marketing Solutions

market share

market share

market share

Quality Content = Quality Ranking

Before the internet, when researching a topic, people would most often use an encyclopedia to find some content. They would start in the front with the broad index of topics and then go to the back for a more targeted areas. To find something specific in large print publications took a lot of time.

Today, instead of sorting through volumes of printed material to find the information we want, there is the internet. For the most part, the internet is all about content and can been viewed as a giant article directory. Google’s, or for that matter any search engine’s main purpose is to offer a fast and accurate system for us to locate what we are searching for.

Search Results Are Getting More Personalized

As time goes on, Google will test and tweak its’ search engine algorithm. The ultimate goal being to produce within milliseconds the most relevant results to our search and actually personalize it. This being based on our search and surfing habits along with our demographic. It’s all pretty amazing when you consider the billions upon billions of pieces of information that are put out on the internet daily.

Anyone that’s involved with SEO understands that one of the challenges to providing relevant search results by Google is the sorting out of duplicate content. Obviously, the quality of a search result is diminished if it returns a bunch of listings that all say the same thing.

It is important for Google to be able to determine the source of published material. An article’s author should get precedence above anybody else that re-publishes it. Rewarding the owner with higher ranking than a self-interested replicator is critical to the proper functioning of a search engine. Failure by Google’s algorithm to identify and reward quality material properly will cause a false search outcome.

Duplication And Poor Quality Are Being Targeted

Another big area of concern for Google is the content that resides in Article Directories. There are a two major issues. The first issue has to do with duplication and the second issue involves poor quality.

Article Directories Are A Google Concern

Article creators many times utilize several article directories after publishing on their own sites. Usually they are looking to get back links or maybe appeal to niche syndicators. In any case, the content is duplicated. Often, if you search for unique content in an article directory, you will find something that reads very poorly. In most cases this is the result of content that has been mechanically spun.

It is in Google’s best interest to keep pursuing the goal of improving the content quality on the web. Therefore, areas like Article Directories that regularly house duplicate or poor quality content are not going to receive favorable rankings. Be prepared to re-evaluate your approach if this is a major part of your content publishing process.

content

content

content

Increase Website Traffic and Increase Your Sales

There is absolutely no doubt that if you increase website traffic the chance of increasing sales also increases. But notice the word used here: a CHANCE. Hmmmm… when you’re spending money to increase website traffic do you really want to hear that there’s a CHANCE your sales will increase?

Of course not. You want to hear about the method that will bring you the biggest bang for your buck, or the highest ROI as we discussed on my last blog post. There is a serious reality to consider here when spending money to increase website traffic. That reality is this… any ‘ole traffic simply will not do. The key here is to have TARGETED website traffic!

So what does targeted website traffic mean? It means that the visitors to your site are people that are truly interested in your product. If you own a sporting goods store, is your money well spent to place an ad in a new Mom’s magazine? Nope. Same thing holds for website traffic. You want to bring the people most likely to buy your product to your site.

This is why search engine optimization is so important to increase website traffic. It’s easy, efficient and organically draws your potential customers based on the keywords they type into the search engines (that means it costs less!). When your website is optimized for the right keywords and you can easily be found on the search engines (top 3 pages), the correct targeted consumer will be driven to your website. Getting your website in front of your target market is absolutely key to increase website traffic.

I know quite a few people that use traffic exchanges to increase website traffic. They will boast about how many visitors their site has received since joining the traffic exchanges. My next question is always “how much have your sales increased?” The answer is always the same, either “not much” or “not at all”. This happens on traffic exchanges because the only guarantee that is offered is ‘site visitors’, not ‘visitors that are interested in your product’. So by using them, you are not drawing target visitors of your business niche, you’re just drawing numbers. If the people coming to your site aren’t even interested in the products in your niche, no sales will be made regardless of how good your products, customer service or website may be.

So, if you increase website traffic will it guarantee you to increase your sales? NO. But an increase of TARGETED website traffic will definitely increase your sales!

Until next time,
Tula Rainwater

increase website traffic

increase website traffic

increase website traffic

Does your company have a proper Marketing Mix?

Marketing mix is a broad concept which includes several aspects of marketing which are related to creating awareness and customer loyalty. The term is often summarized as referring to the “four P’s”: price, promotion, product, and placement. This definition is provided by Wikipedia. When these are effectively blended, they form a marketing program that provides want-satisfying goods and services for the market that the company is in.

In 1993 the four P designation in relation to Marketing Mix was changed to the four C classification. Consumer, Cost, Communication, Convenience. Either way you classify it you have to have a product that people want, a competitive price, a way and a place to promote your product.

Having a marketing mix within the promotion or communication area will be of great benefit for the company. Utilizing all of the various means of communication would be ideal. Some times this is not possible so you will have to analyze each of these and adjust where to use your promotional budget the best. With technology becoming what it is, some types of media may not be as effective as they used to be. So having the proper marketing mix in this area will be important to the success of the company. But do not dismiss any of the promotional venues available to you. They all have benefits that can help your company succeed.

Making it easy for customers to find you and having a message that will attract them to your product or service is an important aspect of your marketing mix. You could have the greatest product the world has ever seen but if nobody knows about it your product or service will not see success. The message in your promotion should be one that attracts the customer based on fulfilling their needs.

The price of your product in the Marketing Mix will also have an effect on your success. If your price is too high, no one will buy it. If it is too low people may think that it is not a very good product or service. So do some investigating and find out what is being charged for a similar product or service. If your product or service is brand new you have the advantage of setting your own price. But that may need to be adjusted in your Marketing Mix to meet the needs of your target market.

All of the aspects of the Marketing Mix are important. The key is to find the balance that best fits what your customers needs are and provide them with the best customer service that you possibly can. By finding and maintaining that balance you will ensure that you will have loyal repeat customers and a successful business.

To the success of your company!

The Paragon Marketing Solutions Team

marketing mix

marketing mix

marketing mix

Top Google Search Results-The Trust Factor

Where your site winds up in a Google Search is certainly not an exact science, unless of course you are paying for it. The determination of the organic results of a Google Search has long been the subject of intense study, analysis and debate. Google’s goal of fine tuning its’ search engine algorithms to produce the most relevant content to a Google Search query is constantly being challenged by those looking to manipulate the results for their own monetary gain.

What The Heck Is A “Petagig” Anyway?

For most of us, I think it’s very challenging if not impossible to really comprehend the massive amounts of data that must be tracked, ranked, and eliminated in order to achieve a relevant Google Search result. Yes, I’ve heard the numbers but they become so large that I’m now kind of desensitized to them. Just a couple days ago I heard the term “petagig” in reference to some humongous amount of information being generated daily worldwide on the internet. A “petagig” is a one with 15 zeros after it. That’s even more than the United States government is currently spending! (But I digress). It is hard for me to truly understand what a petagig is because there is nothing nor has there ever been anything tangible in my daily existence of that size that I am consciously aware of.

I even did a Google Search of petagig and the closest it could come up with was some photo albums with a title “peta gig”. Seems like even Google Search has a problem with a number that large! My point is that maybe sometimes we get too caught up in the numbers game. Don’t get me wrong, I know it is a top priority for every successful business to keep track of and be on top of all it’s numbers. But tracking numbers just for numbers sake is not what makes a business successful. What is more important is understanding the meaning of what’s behind those numbers.

For the most part, anyone that is concerned with where their website shows up in a Google Search has heard of PageRank. Google determines a value or degree of importance for a specific web page and comes up with a number between a low of Zero and a high of Ten. That number is referred to as the PageRank of that web page. PageRank is one of the main factors that goes into a Google Search result, but it is certainly not the only factor. PageRank is re-evaluated every few months by Google and depends mostly on the amount of links coming into your site, as well as the PageRank of the sites that those links come from.

Google Search Results = PageRank + TrustRank

In addition to PageRank, another concept that influences a pages Google Search result is TrustRank. There doesn’t seem to be any specific official definition of this term from Google itself. It is described as a link analysis technique in a Stanford University and Yahoo! research paperback in 2004 for semi-automatically separating useful webpages from Web spam pages. A Web spam page is basically a page created without any original relevant content with the goal of tricking search engines. Several different techniques are used , mostly for commercial purposes, to obtain a better-than-deserved Google Search result.

The only 100% truly reliable way to combat Webpage Spam is by having manual reviews and evaluations by human experts to determine a pages relevance. Obviously, with the amount of information and pages that hit the World Wide Web each day, it would take a “petagig” of experts to accomplish this and obviously be way too expensive…unless you’re the US government (but again I digress).

Top Google Search Results Includes TrustRank

The TrustRank concept is based on choosing a sample set of reputable webpages called “seed pages” that are reviewed by a human expert. After these “seed pages” are reviewed manually, a crawl is started that extends outward from the sample “seed page” set. This crawl looks for other related reputable and trustworthy pages. As the distance increases between the crawled pages and the sample “seed page”, set it’s level of TrustRank reliability decreases.

Bottom line, to achieve and maintain the highest possible result in a Google Search it takes both volume and quality from your backlinks to earn Google’s trust and blessing for your site. Some examples of site sectors that have high TrustRank backlinks would be government sites (.gov), education sites (.edu), top news sites, experts in a particular discipline, industry leaders etc.

Paragon Marketing Solutions can give you the services and guidance you need to maximize your Google Search results.

Click here to review our marketing services!

Google Search

Google Search

Google Search

Advertising on Facebook vs. Organic Search Engine Optimization with Google

Is advertising on Facebook the way to spend your marketing and advertising budget? Is it worth the money? Or are you better off saving the money and going after organic search engine optimization on Google?

These are important questions for any business owner but especially so for small businesses or start-ups. It’s extremely important to look for the biggest impact on each dollar spent in an advertising and marketing campaign (otherwise known as ROI – Return On Investment). Advertising on Facebook seems to be the new trend for businesses and many small businesses are debating on whether to use this new trend to boost sales. Hopefully, this blog post will help your research on whether advertising on Facebook is the right move for your business.

Let’s look at cost. Advertising on Facebook is set up the same was as advertising on Google. You have to choose between CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impressions). Then you have to bid on the cost. What you bid determines if your ad is even shown. So now it becomes a game… which has a learning curve… which will cost you. I remember I tried Google ads for a very brief period of time. I only spent a few hundred dollars here and there, but before I knew it, the money added up. Admittedly, I didn’t understand what I was doing and that cost me. That’s what I mean when I say there is a learning curve and it will cost you.

For organic search engine optimization, there is minimal additional cost to your website or blog, especially if you do it yourself. It is wise to purchase a few programs imperative for SEO to aid in back linking (like Social Monkee or EZArticle Link). In comparison to the thousands of dollars you could spend on advertising on Facebook for it to be effective, the cost of organic search engine optimization is a small fraction. You could even pay someone to do your organic search engine optimization for you and still save thousands from the learning curve of advertising on Facebook.

Next let’s look at target audience. When advertising on Facebook, the algorithms do give you a good chance for your ad to hit your target market. The ads that are shown to someone are based on their searches in Facebook, groups they like, fan pages they follow, etc. However, ads are also shown based on one’s friends. So, there is a good chance many of your ads aren’t going to hit your target market.

With organic search engine optimization, you are more likely to hit your target market based on keyword research as long as you are on the first few pages of Google for that keyword. Analysis has shown that most people do not look past the first 3 pages of Google produced searches. So if you’re not on the front 3 pages, you’re not always going to reach your target market.  It pays to do organic search engine optimization correctly.

Finally, no matter which method you do choose, it’s important to have solid marketing in the back side to capture your visitor information.  Too many small businesses have no way of capturing the information of their visitors and, therefore, have no way of following up with potential customers.  This is a big mistake even if you’re not spending a lot of extra money.  But it’s definitely not worth your money advertising on Facebook when you don’t have a way to capture your site visitor’s info.  Therefore, marketing giveaways or newsletters or any kind of freebie on your website where you provide your visitors with something of value in exchange for their information is critical when you’re driving traffic to your site. One of my past mentors once said “The fortune is in the follow-up”. If you don’t have your visitors information, then you can’t follow-up with them. Potential sales are lost.

The bottom line is, whether you choose advertising on Facebook or organic search engine optimization to drive more traffic to your site, your site needs to have the right marketing in place to convert your visitors and make them paying customers.

Until next time…

Tula Rainwater

advertising on facebook

advertising on facebook

advertising on facebook