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Social Media for Your Company: SlideShare

One of my clients asked me about the benefits of SlideShare and SEO. I decided to poke around online and see what I could find and how people are using this social media site that appears to be targeted to businesses (hence the presentation part).

I found this informative, introductory article for the new Slidesharers out there. It touches on relatively easy and basic SEO techniques for optimizing each presentation (tagging, titles, etc). SocialSEO also gave us some creative, out-side-of-the-box ideas on how to create more presentations:

  • Explain a complex business process that could use a few visual aids
  • Create “how to” tutorials
  • Give a sales presentation
  • Show off pictures from an event
  • Breathe some life to case studies
  • Bring existing presentations to the web
  • Repurpose old articles by turning the main points into a presentation

Our Charlotte SEO company is working to help make our clients more visible online. Increasingly important, companies need to  build their social community by engaging customers, becoming resilient to negative feedback  and implementing the ’sharing’ factor. Sharing presentations ( like on SlideShare), coupons on Google Places, asking for feedback on Facebook and connecting Twitter followers with popular news is eminent in the realm of today’s social media marketing.

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Posted Thursday, April 29th, 2010 in Branding, Link Building, SEO, Social Media | No Comments »

Google is going Places

On Tuesday, Google Local Business Center became Google Places.

Google Places exists to help local businesses reach local customers. Currently, Google reports that about 4 million businesses have already claimed their virtual dot on the map. Also, Google reports that  one in five searches relate to location.  Business owners partner with Google Search to bring in more site traffic and business by using old features with new ones.  Familiar features include directions, hours of operation, uploaded photos, customer reviews, coupons and real-time updates.

And the drum-roll for Google Places’ new features…

1) Service Areas:

2) Advertising Program: For $25 a month, business can add ‘flare’ to their listing on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags.

3) Free Photo Shoot: Request to get Google to snapshot your Google Business photos. These pics will supplement those under your current photo section on your Places page.

4) Customized QR Codes: What is a QR Code? A QR Code is a two-dimensional bar code, or a matrix code that stands for ‘quick-response’. Mobile phones can quickly read this code with its camera. To see how QR code and how to use, please view the video below.

5) Favorite Places :

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Posted Friday, April 23rd, 2010 in Branding, General, Link Building, Search, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook’s New ‘Like’ Feature

“For Facebook’s next act, the social networking site will break free of its domain and let you “like” things all over the Web, according to two news reports.

The New York Times and the Financial Times tell a similar story based on unnamed sources: Facebook wants to expand beyond its core site with a “like” button that Web developers can embed in their pages. Yes, it’s yet another media sharing tool in the style of Digg and Reddit — it just happens to be aligned with the second-biggest Web site in the United States.
A Digg Killer?

A lot of sites already use a “share” button to connect with Facebook, letting users post links to their news feed, but a “like” button seems more in line with the simple interaction offered by Digg. In other words, your commitment starts and ends with a simple thumbs up. It also could allow interaction with non-editorial sites, as the New York Times suggests Yelp could use the “like” feature to show users how many of their friends enjoyed a restaurant or business.

That said, we don’t yet know exactly how the concept will work. Does liking a page automatically create a news item for your Facebook friends, or is there some other way for Facebook to determine which liked stories get shared?

The rise of Twitter and Facebook have hurt Digg’s popularity, but part of the site’s allure is its anonymity, and sharing among random strangers. Facebook is all about interacting with your friends. Still, the sheer volume of people using Facebook could quickly cement the “like” button as the premiere way to share Web content.
Privacy Issues, Of Course

It seems like any time Facebook does anything, privacy is part of the discussion. That’s likely to be the case here, as some marketers tell the Financial Times that they’ll use “like” information to target ads at users. Analysts tell the New York Times that privacy concerns are possible as shares more details about users with external Web sites, though that seems like a more general issue than a specific flaw in the “like” service.

Facebook denies that it will use the service to track users across the Web, saying that it bases ads only on information users fill out in their profiles. “We have no announcements or changes planned to our ad offering and policies,” a Facebook representative told the Financial Times.
More “Like” in More Places

Back on Facebook.com, “like” will be implemented in advertisements, replacing the “become a fan” functionality for brands, says the Financial Times. It’s not clear what this means for the messages and news postings you get in exchange for brand fandom. Again, liking something seems more casual than becoming a fan, so I’m a bit skeptical that one feature is completely replacing the other. We’ll see what happens at F8, Facebook’s conference on Wednesday where it’s expected to announce the new features.” ~ Source: PCworld.com

Stay current with ebasedEVOLUTION and Facebook News!

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Posted Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 in Branding, Social Media | No Comments »

Google’s Froogle… What is it exactly?

ebasedEVOLUTION has a reputation for being a leading internet marketing company among the logistics industry, but we do have our fair share of retail clients. These clients are always looking for new venues in which to sell their products. Popular sites to list your products include ebay, Amazon, and Yelp, but lately, we have been getting a lot of inquiries regarding Froogle.

Froogle was launched by Google in 2002. Unlike it’s competitors, Froogle does not charge a fee to use its service. Rather, in order to generate revenue, Google does display it’s infamous Google Adwords advertisements on the right-hand column. Retailers and merchants supply the data the Froogle displays in its search results.

To achieve high rankings on Froogle, simply apply the same rules you would for achieving high rankings in other search engines, with a couple tweaks. For example, let’s say you sell tennis shoes. For good site optimization, you would include “Tennis Shoes”,  in your sites title and meta-tags. However, if you are aiming to boost rankings in Froogle, you would want to revise these tags to include phrases such as: “Buy Tennis Shoes”, “Purchase Tennis Shoes”, “Tennis Shoes for Sale”, etc.

Froogle is not for all industries, and is mainly designed for retail.

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Posted Thursday, January 14th, 2010 in Branding, Search | No Comments »

Latest News on Google Caffeine (and it’s important!)

If you haven’t heard about Google Caffeine yet, just know that it is a new system in which Google will be indexing pages. With the vast popularity of social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, Google has decided to place more emphasis on these sites in their search results. Don’t worry, it will not be officially implemented until after the holiday season, so you do have time to prepare.

Matt Cutts (Google Mastermind Employee) recently discussed some of the new features you will notice (and may not notice) with the revised search engine…

To begin, if you are a business, and are looking to boost rankings in Google, you have got to have presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Google will start listing these sites at the top of search results. Even live ‘tweets’ will be included in the search results! Sounds crazy, but that’s the direction the search world is heading.

Google will also be rewarding those sites that load extremely fast. For those individuals who have visited a site, only to sit and wait a couple moments for the page to load will no longer have to worry about this issue.

For those companies who are thinking “well, how do I know how fast my page is loading”, I have a tool to help you out… Please go to: www.code.google.com/speed and insert your URL. The results will speak for themselves.

For more tips and news related to search internet marketing, please contact one of our analysts.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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Posted Friday, November 20th, 2009 in Branding, Browsers, General, Link Building, SEO, Website Design | No Comments »

What’s in a Landing Page?

With all of the internet marketing jargon that exists, one may become easily confused. One important term is a ‘Landing Page‘. For those who are unfamiliar with this term, let me try to help you out…

First, there are two types of landing pages, reference and transactional. Reference provides information that is of relevance to the visitor. Transactional serves the purpose to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction, such as filling out a form.

Now I’m going to give you some tips on how to best utitlize these landing pages to get the most bank for your buck.

1) Relevant Content: Your landing page needs to be directly related to the search results a visitor is searching for.

2) Try Multiple Pages: Your landing page does not necessarily need to be your homepage. More often than not, your subpages will be more relevant to what the visitor is searching for.

3) Functionality: Just because a page is visually appealing, doesn’t mean you’ll get the visitor to convert. You need to figure out the exact steps you want the visitor to take in order to achieve your goal with the page.

4) Clear & Concise Message: Having too many advertisements, flash, or clutter on your pages may turn off visitors. Make sure to strongly emphasize the biggest reasons they should carry out the applicable call to action.

5) Who doesn’t like free stuff? Possibly considered one of the most powerful conversion tools, using an incentive such as “click here  for a free massage” (if you run a massage clinic) can actually go a long way, and attract a broader audience.

For more information on landing pages, or our industry leading search engine marketing firm, please contact us!

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Posted Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 in Branding, SEO | No Comments »

Internet Marketing Goals for your Company

2009 will be over before we know it. You may notice those yearly marketing budgets are starting to look a little empty, and it may be time to start considering cutting some costs. Luckily, a vast majority of internet marketing tactics are either cheap, or free.

Here’s some tips I feel may be helpful for your organization to continue creating brand awareness, and driving sales…

1) Promote your products. Use directories that allow you to list your services or products for the sake of informing your audience what your company has to offer. Increasing your presence in directories is a sure way to increase leads.

2) Use Social Media. Business chatter is becoming more-and-more popular in every companies overall marketing plan. Utilizing social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can be used for sharing business tidbits, company news, and other valued information.

3) Utilize Public Relation Resources. There are several outlets online that can be used to distribute your company’s press releases. The trick is to make sure you are using the correct outlets to reach your target audience. This will help build brand awareness.

4) Track Marketing Campaigns. Are you familiar at all with Google Analytics? First off, it’s FREE. Secondly, it’s operated by Google, the dominating force in the www world. It allows you to keep track of visitors coming to your site, plus countless amounts of data.

Maintaining internet marketing campaigns and initiatives can be time consuming and slightly overwhelming. Luckily, there are companies like ebasedEVOLUTION to assist your company with every step.

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Posted Thursday, August 20th, 2009 in Branding, SEO | 1 Comment »