Evaluating the Capabilities of WordPress 3.5

WordPress the most preferred software by bloggers worldwide is of the open source category and is available free of charges. This efficient content management system tool is based on hypertext preprocessor or PHP helping in web development and creation of web pages that are dynamic in nature.  Among the several features WordPress boasts of, the template system and plug-in architecture are the most sought after by bloggers and web developers.

With the release of the latest version 3.5, the blogging community can now upgrade to this version as there are many new useful functions that are included in this version. The all-new sensitive theme called 20/12 (twenty twelve) is responsive and a new feature from WordPress. In order to achieve a concept that is rich typographically, your best bet is the latest twenty twelve concept from WordPress 3.5. There is no questioning the fact that WordPress has come a long way since inception and as far as media posting is concerned, the latest 3.5 version offers many ways to add pictures and create a collection of images.

With the all-new feature that lets you drag the picture wherever you want and drop it at the very exact place you wanted it in,  plus the re-ordering and caption editing In range allow users to experiment and make best use of these features while developing their blog or websites. Especially for people who own the latest version of the iPad that has Retina Display, the 3.5 version should prove to be a boon as the WordPress dashboard goes well with the device that sports Retina Display, offering superior clarity for the WordPress dashboard panel.

Apart from these new functions that make WordPress 3.5 a sought after bit of bloggers software tool,  users will notice that the Link Manager has been done away with, and when you check the configurations for privacy that used to feature under Settings followed by Privacy has now been changed to Settings followed by Reading. You can now set up the WordPress plug-ins right from your favorites itself. This helps save precious time and keeps you less harried.

However, before you hasten to upgrade your website, preferably on your own live hosting server, you need to thoroughly examine the theme capabilities of the plug-in and the website. In case you are stuck with a plug-in that you have been using for too long, it could need a bit of modification. Hence, you would need to validate it before going in for an upgrade to the newest version of WordPress. You no longer need to hire programmers who will not bat an eyelid when they charge you exorbitant rates for coding the functionality on their own websites. However, today with WordPress 3.5 at your command, you have access to thousands of plug-ins, what’s more, when almost all of them are available free of charge. It pays to read in detail the description of the plug-in, it should be easy with language options available that let you choose the language you prefer. Check to see if the plug-in is compatible with the latest version of WordPress before deciding to use it.

Author Bio: Jem is fond of following the latest trends in technology especially on gadgets, Smartphones, social media, networking, internet and computers. She is currently working for buyVerizon.com - a site that offers savings and current information on Verizon FiOS.

The SEO Benefits of Guest Posting

Guest posting is a robust facet of content marketing strategies which has lately enjoyed publicity and prominence due to its contributory role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns. Guest posting happens either by invitation from another blogger of by your own request to post on another persons blog. The overall effect is that as a guest poster, you stand a chance to reap a myriad of benefits both in the short and long-run.

Increases Online Visibility

Guest posting increases visibility of your corporate brand on the online platform. This is achieved through the new audience that you reach out to via your posts. Websites are very instrumental but do not give visitors the opportunity to interact with your brand as opposed to blogging. For guest blogging to be effective, you have to ensure that the information posted is SEO friendly. This means that the posts should be unique, quality and contain the right combination of keyword density.

Link Building

Guest posting is a very instrumental tool in growing your own blog readership. The fundamental format of a guest post allows the author to include a few links within the article body and a bio at the end. Make sure you maximize this opportunity to get more links as well as gain new connections and followership. It is of paramount importance to use different keywords in different blogs so that your link building can appear natural to the search engines. This is inline with the Google panda update.

Establish Relationship with Other Bloggers

Guest posting helps you to establish cordial working relationship with other bloggers in your industry. This is very critical because it enhances industry wide cooperation and can be a platform for the launching of shared services. Among the many benefits that can accrue from such relationships is the fact that other bloggers may decide to links your site and depending on how prominent their blog is, this can improve the page ranking of your blog too.

Generates More Traffic to Your Site

Guest posting has the unique advantage of portraying the author as an authority within the field in which he is writing. This means that avid readers of his posts will tend to be interested in knowing more about the author. Through the bio at the end of guest posts the links embedded at strategic points within the article body, interested and curious readers who may turn out to be potential customers are redirected to the bloggers site. This increases the traffic to the guest blogger’s site.

Powering of content oriented social media marketing drive

Quality and unique content occupies the centre stage in social media marketing campaigns. Most readers are not pleased with content that pushes them into action but rather content that they can interact and reason with. The more a post is shared, the more the search engines see it as being valuable thereby improving its page ranking. This ripple effects in enhancing visibility, brand equity and doubling of marketing efforts.

About the Author: Daniel is a writer for PostJoint. a free platform  for those looking for guest post opportunities.

The Benefits of Guest Blogging

Guest blogging serves as a very powerful tactic in the internet marketing world.  As content marketing continues to rise, guest blogging on high-quality blog sites is becoming more and more common. No matter the industry or business, guest blogging can help you grow in more ways than one. With a few tips and suggestions on how to guest blog, you can increase your brand presence on the web and help build strong relationships with those in and those interested in your industry.

Let’s outline some of the ways guest blogging can be beneficial to you and your business.

You Can Build Relationships:

Guest blogging is the perfect opportunity to develop new business opportunities and connections with others in a similar industry. Keep in mind that building relationships takes time. Submitting just one guest post and walking away won’t be enough. Because your guest post will be featured on another site, make sure you continue to interact and follow up with the audience and publisher. Publishers are likely to turn on a comment feature just so users can interact. People are likely to comment and ask questions about the topic you posted, and if you are there to interact with them, you are building more and more relationships while establishing yourself as an industry leader. This brings us to the next advantage of guest blogging…

You Can Establish Yourself as an Industry Leader:

Guest blogging allows you to expand your reach and provide information to a larger audience in your industry. Guest blogging also provides the perfect opportunity for you to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, as well. When you guest blog, make sure your articles are well researched. The more useful and helpful information you provide to readers, the more likely they are to trust what you say, making you an authority and an expert in your particular field. This also makes users want to check out your website, to see what else you have to offer.

You Can Acquire a High-Quality Link:

Of course one of the best parts of guest blogging is the link you will get back to your site from writing the post. Keep in mind that the best links back to your site come from posting the best content on the best possible blogs in your industry. The link you get from your guest blog can even help drive quality traffic straight to your site. While the link back to your site is beneficial for both readers of the site and for link building, remember that you aren’t just writing for the purpose of the link.

To truly see value in guest blogging, you must go about it the right way and do it for the right reasons. This is the perfect opportunity to provide information to a wider audience about what it is you are so passionate about.  When you are guest blogging to those interested in what it is you do, remember that you are talking to potential clients and customers. Be creative and remember that you aren’t just creating content for the sake of SEO, you are creating content to build relationships with those in your particular industry.

This guest blog post was written by Full Media, an Atlanta SEO firm. Specializing in internet marketing and website design in Atlanta, we offer a high level of skill to help organizations grow through a more effective use of the internet.

Social Media Marketing: FAQs Answered

Social media marketing has been one of the sure-fire marketing strategies that are widely employed on the web. Social media in large part has been spurring on the revolution of socializing and bringing about user generated content. Social media is increasingly becoming a repository for user generated content and region specific users. This is why brands and businesses are flocking to social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, YouTube and more. If you are new to the concept of social media marketing, then the following FAQs will enlighten you up on the topic.

What is social media?

Social media is an online platform that facilitates communications, interactions and information exchange between users over the Internet. You can use social media to create, modify, share and publicize contents within groups and communities. There are different types of social media platforms that facilitate online sharing, forum posting, social networking, blogging, microblogging, podcasting, video & image sharing, and wikis, among others.

What is Internet marketing?

Advertising a product or a service on the web is called as Internet marketing or online marketing. Internet marketing is a type of advertisement that is publicized on the web so as to attract customers and generate leads. There are different types of Internet marketing such as display advertising, email marketing, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, and social media marketing.

What is Social media marketing?

As one of the primary Internet marketing types, social media marketing is an advertising strategy that is deployed using social media websites. Social media marketing helps generate traffic and attract prospective customers. Social media marketing is primarily centered on generating niche related content that will intrigue users to read and share it within their group.

What are the different types of social media websites?

There are many established as well as developing social media websites belonging to different categories that can be used for social media marketing. A few of the popular ones are: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus, Tumblr, Blogger, Pinterest, Vimeo, StumbleUpon, Digg, Flickr, and Reddit, among others.

Why is Social media marketing important?

Traditional marketing is starting to gradually fade out due to the increased dominance and usage of the web. Managing an online presence is becoming a mandate for businesses, and social media marketing is one of foolproof ways to advertise an enterprise’s online presence. Search engines play a crucial role in advertising a website to online users. Search engine crawlers in order to provide authentic and spam free search results frequently index and rank the content that is generated via social media websites. So the bottom line is that if your brand or product is present in and is often discussed about on social media websites, then your brand or product has the highest probability of gaining online visibility.

How to build your brand using social media marketing?

A brand is built by reputation and to build reputation one has to earn the trust of their customers. And for that two things are important – one, visibility and the other, transparency. The latter is usually a problem, as most businesses hide important annotations behind terms and conditions. In this era of public outcry on anything trivial to everything big, the only way to pacify and entertain and build a brand is through talking to them. This is where Social Media Marketing helps. Big time.

Start talking to your customers, allow them to air their grievances, respond to them in kind and then with that as the investment build your brand. Remember, brand is built subconsciously.

Andrea Walters, a freelance writer for www.satellitesales.com – The Lowest-Priced Satellite TV in America. dish network

What You Should Never Miss Out While Designing Your New Site

In order to ensure that your online visitors have the best user experiences from your website, there are some key elements you must not miss out while designing your website. The elements you must not leave out of your website design include; The search functions, a user friendly Navigation system, Your RSS feeds, Responsive web design, Title and Meta Tags, Catchy headlines, Website links, Website Validation, and website Back up.

A User-friendly Navigation

This is one of the most important aspects you must not neglect. Your website visitors become easily frustrated when they can't open links and your web pages cannot be navigated through with ease. Don't get carried away with fascinating web design, make sure your web pages and navigation systems are user-friendly. Check any of your favorite websites and copy the good sides of it.

A catchy header

This area is one of the first noticeable elements of your website, and if you don't get it right at the header, many of your visitors wouldn't bother to read the contents. You can make your first powerful impression in the minds of visitors with the catchy headers you use, such headers create suspense in their minds and they will want to read the rest of your web contents. Make your headers unique and let them follow the theme of your website so that people can easily detect what you stand for.

Keyword and content search function

Your search function is one of the things most bloggers and website owners neglect while designing their websites. Your website's search functions help your visitors visit past articles or contents; it also helps them locate some contents quickly without searching through all your web pages. Your visitors can easily click through archives and tags when you provide them with a search function.

A responsive web design and development 

A beautiful website will remain useless if it is not responsive to your visitors. You should consider the fact that people now have access to mobile devices and are connected to the internet on the go, therefore your web pages must be easily accessible on traditional computers and on mobile devices such as smart phones, and tablets. When your web pages are responsive, they can easily adapt to the screen sizes of different mobile devices . You need to incorporate features that change the layout of web pages to adapt to different mobile devices. A responsive web design is perhaps the most important feature you need for your website in the present time.

RSS feeds 

One of the best possible ways of getting your messages to your visitors is to allow them an option of subscribing to your website's RSS feeds. RSS feeds feature is one of the best ways to capture new readers and expand your visitor's base. The RSS feature updates your visitors or followers constantly when there are any new contents on your web pages.

Validation of your website and Website backup

These are essential elements you must include in your website design. You need 100% validity for your website. No closing tags and no alt tags for instance can lead to your web pages being referred to as "Invalid" , you therefore need to check through all your website features to make sure your website is valid. Website Backup is necessary so that you can save yourself from trouble in case of any future mishap. You need an alternative source for all your website content in case the security of your website has been breached. There are so many options available in backing up and restoring backups for your website.

Browser checks

Many website developers often ignore this important component of a web design, but the fact is that, not all the visitors to your website will use the same browser. You can naturally assume that most people use Google chrome, and Mozilla Firefox, you must not forget about the fact that some internet users are still comfortable using Windows explorer. You need to consider other web browsers such as Safari, Opera, and mobile browsers for phones such as IPhones, androids and windows 8 devices.

The secret of having a successful website design and development is to incorporate all necessary features that will take care of the needs of most of your visitors. You need to do a pre-launch of your website on different internet devices after it has been completed to be sure of its functionality.

Author Bio:

Jason Smith is an online consultant for ABWE . Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation. In his free time he likes to study about web designing and practice Jiu Jitsu.

Google AdWords Tips for local business

Google Adwords can be a great advertising channel to boost your online sales. Purchasing ads through Google is a viable option to get your website to the top of Google search results by successfully bidding on keywords. Let us quickly take a look at some effective tips on how to efficiently use Google Adwords for your local business to generate more leads and improve your online sales.

Track your conversions

As Return On Investment (ROI) is going to be at the top of your list, you need to ensure that you keep track of what is giving you the highest conversion in your website. Although monitoring the click-through rates in your website is an important step, you need to realize that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you are going to monitor only the click-through rates, then it means you’re not utilizing your resources properly. Use Google Adwords to monitor all the e-commerce transactions in your website. Take a detailed look at which area of service or keyword combination is getting converted more and is giving you a higher ROI. For best results, you may also track the non-monetary elements such as downloads, enquiry forms, newsletter signups etc. Identifying and focusing more on the profitable areas is the key to a successful online marketing campaign.  

Manage your ads and bids

Develop ad groups for multiple keyword variations relevant to your services and manage the ads and bids accordingly. One great way to use Google Adwords effectively is to distinguish between the research group and the sales group. That is, a visitor who lands up on your product information page should be treated differently from a person who visits your sales page. For instance, someone who is has done an online research for “treadmill stores in Chicago” is more likely to purchase your product than someone who looks for “best treadmills”. So, you need to vary your bidding strategy according to your target consumer.

Attractive ads

The design of your ad can make a huge difference to your Adwords campaign. Catchy words or images will not only grab the eyeballs of prospects but also get you a high CTR ranking thereby boosting your ad’s quality score, minimizing your cost-per-click (CPC), and guaranteeing your ads a higher placement in the Google search results. This, in turn, results in a high ROI for your website.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions can support your existing ads for improved results. It is for this reason that most e-commerce sites use product extensions for their ads. The ad extensions will display titles, images, snippets, and prices of your products. It’s worth incorporating seller ratings, call extensions and sitelinks for your ads. Typically, seller ratings work wonders when your ads get a higher rating. The sitelinks can be useful to display additional links pertaining to your area of service and the call extensions are meant for call-to-action purposes. 

Custom Landing Pages

Most website owners make the mistake of directing all their ad links to their home page. This is one thing you need to avoid. Instead, have some of your ad links pointing to your landing page and some of them pointing to the other important pages in your website. It is worth designing an optimization strategy wherein you have specific keywords and anchor texts pointing to your landing page. But ensure that the backlinks are more relevant to their target URLs.

Michael Rae, a freelance writer for www.firsthomealarm.com - offers full home security to help protect your family, assets from burglary and other crimes. adt securitysystems

Social Media Etiquette: 5 Tips to Behave Online

Proper etiquette does not end with real-world interactions alone. With the rapid growth of the internet and popularity of social networking sites, good manners stretch out to virtual world interactions as well.

While most of us understand and comply to the commandments of social media etiquette, some others still prove that they have yet to learn what behavior is acceptable and what is not.

The following tips are common sense, social media practices every netizen should abide.

Think before you click.

Before hitting the post, tweet, share, or send button, ask yourself these questions: Does it have spelling or grammar errors? Is it appropriate? Will it offend anyone? Will I feel alright with anyone seeing this? Will anyone else care? Once you hit that button, make sure you’ve thought it over more than once. Editing published posts or retrieving sent mails lessen your credibility.

Reply accordingly.

When someone comments on your post, reply accordingly - especially if it’s a question. Don’t leave your friends and other readers hanging with a question. If someone comments positively, show appreciation by replying or liking. If you don’t respond or provide feedback, most likely they won’t bother reading your posts anymore and completely ignore you.

Don’t make social media sites a complaint forum.

Venting out is a perfectly normal thing to do. But bombarding negativity by complaining about your work and your personal life now and then is not. Constant complaining will make your friends and followers stay away from you. Furthermore, ranting about your work might put you into big trouble. If you need to vent something, play safe and do it somewhere private.

Keep private matters private.

Yes, social networking sites are communication tools that can spread news fast like fire. But if you need to inform a close relative or friend about bad news, don’t announce it in public. If you need to deliver sensitive issues such as death in the family, loss of job, never post it on his or her wall. Instead, send a personal message or call.

Don’t spam.

I mean to say don’t overshare, post chain status updates, comment on every post, retweet every tweet. Do you think your friends enjoy seeing your name pop out in their newsfeed every five minutes? Constant bombardment is really annoying because it prevents your friends from seeing or responding to other people’s statuses.

For me, the tips mentioned earlier are five of the most important social media practices every netizen should follow. But these are only a few, do you have anything to add?

Share them here.

About the author: Melissa Page is a passionate writer and social media contributor who works with My Life, a site that helps you manage all your social network updates and emails in one dashboard. When she’s not busy writing, she plays bowling with her friends.

Latest Digital Marketing Trends for Small Business

Traditional link exchange concept is no longer exists. Social media activity, local SEO or promotion, introducing mobile websites and maintaining blogs are getting high value. PPT, infographic, video and image sharing are also included in recent digital marketing trends. I'll discuss later on PowerPoint presentation, infographic, video and image sharing. Before that watch this video on four most important part of digital marketing. (content source: wikipedia.org)

How Webmasters Can Collaborate Effectively with Everyone in Their Company

As a webmaster, you will be bombarded with requests and demands - especially as your business becomes more and more popular. The natural thing is to feel overwhelmed, but the smart thing to do is to collaborate with everyone in the company in order to ensure that you manage an exceptional website.

Collaboration has actually taken a center stage in the last couple of years in the business world. Collaboration will help you get more work done in the shortest time frame; and your workers will not get overworked in the process.

Social Media Collaboration

Social media collaboration offers an ideal solution for such situations. It will help improve the whole communication process and save tons of work. A lot of companies are quickly realizing that allowing more efficient information exchange makes employees work faster because they would have few interruptions and fewer emails to read, write/type up, and send.

Social Networking vs. Social Collaboration

It is important to understand that social networking is totally different from what is known as social collaboration. Social networking is a process that involves an individual choosing whom they wished to communicate with, and what information comes into their feed. Whereas social collaboration is about a group of people; a group sends messages to another and receives information as well. Everyone in the group sees exactly what is being shared, so the information is out in the open.

Setting Up A Group

A lot of businesses that have invested heavily in social collaboration allow employees to create their very own groups and talk about issues and a variety subjects that pertain to the company. You can get really good results if the management gets involved in setting up a group for separate tasks/projects. One of the great things about this social collaboration effort is that it maintains all the openness that is needed for the free information exchange.

Setting up a group will provide a very specific platform in order to discuss the company's topic concerns; task/project specifics and techniques. The advantages of making use of such a platform is that everyone from the leader of the task to the least contributor is squarely engaged, and they get feedback that will be valuable in helping them execute project tasks effectively. This is certainly way more effective than sending out emails - which can be very annoying to write.

Several studies have been carried out and are still being carried out regarding social media's effectiveness in the business world.

By collaborating with everyone in your company using social media, you will be able to get work done within the shortest possible time and no one will have an excuse of not being in the know - the documents are open for all to see and comment on.

In conclusion, as a webmaster, you can use social media in order to create a well-planned group that will fit in your company's general business strategy - this way, managing and completing tasks can be done effectively. For those webmasters who have not tried it yet; this instant will be good time to start with a variety of collaboration tools.

Erik Gaandt is a freelance tech writer and SEO enthusiast. He enjoys sharing his insights on various blogs. More than 90% of webmasters read reviews when deciding on webhost. WhoIsHostingThis.com is home to hundreds of reviews on the most popular webhosts such as iPage.com.

How to make your articles reader friendly in SEO

SEO is one of the most important tasks that you need to work on, in order to up the ranking of your website. This helps you to bring on the required amount of traffic to your website, thereby improving the amount you can get as return from your business. So, you will have to work on improving your content so that it attracts more number of people to your website. In fact, content is considered to be the king in Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Making articles reader friendly

In order to carve out the articles which are user friendly, it would be important for you to:

Considering the article – It is important for you to consider the whole of the article starting from the topic to the style of writing, the theme and the words you are going to use. These contribute a lot towards how the article s going to look, and if it is going to be of any interest for your readers.

Considering the title – It is important for you to consider providing a good title, so that it says all about the content of the article. Yet, it will have to be a unique one and even small at the same time. This may help you in actuating the interests of the people, all the more. Use some unique symbols and some numbers in order to get more people to read your article. The “how to”, “Tips” and all, help a lot in bringing on more interests of the people.

Considering the keywords – The keywords is one of the most important part of your articles. So, you will have to use the keywords wisely enough, before actually using any particular one. It would be better for you to make sure that you have had done enough research on the keywords, which can help you with bringing more traffic to your website. Another thing that you will have to keep in mind, with regards to the usage of the keywords is that, you should not over-stuff the articles with keywords.

Considering the introduction and conclusion – It is important for you to consider creating a really interesting introduction to your articles. These will have to be the relative precursor to the body of the article, and this can help you with inducing more interest into the minds of the readers. As for the conclusion, that will have to sum up the whole idea of the article.

So, all of these together can help you in making your article a good one and also a user friendly one. If you can add a description or summary to your article, this may help you to gain more interests of the people. This in the long run, is going to help you with earning more revenues from your business. 

SEO – 5 Upcoming trends

Given the upcoming global trends, it’s no surprise that each and every sphere has taken on a new look and form. Similarly, the world of marketing has had to adopt itself even further with the year 2012 coming to an end and the year 2013 setting in. SEOhappens to be one such part of internet marketing world that isn't as simple as it used to be initially. It’s not child’s play and the scenario for search engine marketing is changing day by day. You need some real expertise and innovative strategies to actually achieve better rankings in the search world. Moreover, it does take time as well as patience to build up the right SEO.

The new trends in the world of SEO

The earlier days no longer exist and it’s a new phase in the world of SEO. Find out the latest trends that’ll help you update your search engine to ensure your website’s high ranking in the searches.

1. The mobile search device: It’s now about searching directly. The upcoming changes show that people are now keener on finding direct answers in the search options. This is also being done through different devices including voice search devices like your phone. People are also resorting to social media networks or simply tapping searches into the phone. Digital market isn’t restricted to the computer or tablet anymore. Take note of the fact that mobile search is here to stay and will figure as the biggest search medium.

2. Quality over quantity: It’s true that in the bygone days of search engine rankings, most search engines have at some point or the other made use of the quantity of the pages. In other words, this means that the quality of the website has been judged by the yardstick of quantity at some point of time or the other. However, the picture has changed of late. Now, it’s no longer about quantity, but more about quality. The quality and freshness of the content will generate higher search engine rankings.

3. The social media factor: It’s more about social media optimizers, rather than search engine optimization. There’s a much broader focus on the on-page factors. However, the picture is such now that it means the off-site marketing with the social media integration happens to be its focus.

4. More personalized searches: Most search engines are holding the keys to great social networks. Hence, there’s expected a lot of undercover changes in the search engine rankings. This’ll come about with a lot of personalized searches. Thus, relying on the old style of keyword usage and optimization won’t really help anymore. You’ve got to reinvent yourself with the changing times. Sitting back won’t help.

5. The domain authority: Remember, the trump card still remains the good old classic domain authority when it comes to SEO. Don’t forget that the link graph still remains the most reliable set of ranking signals.

Acquaint yourself with the upcoming SEO trends and ensure you website’s high rankings by developing your SEO techniques accordingly.

Comprehensive Guide: Digital Marketing for Small Businesses

Most businesses have started using digital marketing techniques to promote their businesses. The giants needn't make themselves known because they’re already known by people. It’s the small and medium scale businesses who are trying different ways to get recognized. It is not an easy task to compete with these giants in the marketplace. However, they need to do something to get the attention of consumers to convert them into customers. There are several ways followed by small businesses to market their products and digital marketing is the latest trend catching on among them.

People have access to digital devices and they are not available anywhere, but online. It puts a pressure on small businesses to go online too and reach out to potential customers. With the stiff competition prevalent in the market, it is not enough for any business to just stop with creating a website. Should they try every means within their reach? Maybe yes or maybe not. However, there are certain things that every business should do to make their digital marketing successful. Read on to learn if your business follows the effective ways of digital marketing.

Go Social

It is necessary for every business to go social. Create a Facebook page for your business and enter all social networks that your customers are a part of. If you are going to launch a product or if you find that your product can attract a new group of people, enter those areas where the potential customers of the new product are. You have to be where they are, in order to reach out to them easily. Moreover, when they find you online, they will respond sooner than otherwise. By making yourself available on social networks, you are bonding with your customers and finding new ones.

Act Local

As yours is a small business, you need to focus more on the local customers than the ones residing far away from your business. Of course, you can concentrate on getting more customers from different locations, but your business will catch on well among local folks. Therefore, enroll in all kinds of online directories to promote yourselves. Those approaching online directories for information will be finding a solution for their needs. Therefore, online directories give you good chances of attracting customers.

Make Mobile Website

Lately, many people use mobile devices to access websites. Therefore, if you already have a website to be accessed on PCs, it’s time you design a website which can be accessed comfortably on mobile devices. It might cost you a lot, but it is a wise investment to make because the basic aim of your business is to find as many customers as possible. If you haven’t yet created a website for your business, you can consider making a responsive website which can be accessed both on PCs and mobile devices comfortably.

Interact Often

It is important that you interact with your customers. You can enroll in forums and strike up conversation with more people on forums. There are plenty of forums available online. Choose your niche and enroll yourself in at least 3 forums. Comment regularly and offer to help if you find someone looking for a service or a product that you sell. When you share your knowledge with them, you can build trust and lead them to your website. This way, you will be able to build a portfolio of loyal customers.

Blog

Start your own blog and also write guest posts for other blogs within your niche. It is important to choose a relevant niche. You can enjoy several benefits by blogging. Therefore, include it as one of your key tasks. Though blogging is seen as an SEO strategy, it’s basically a marketing effort. Build links to your website and your social networking pages through the blogs.

These are some of the efforts you can make to make your digital marketing successful. Not all strategies work for all businesses. Therefore, measure results regularly and stick to what works best for your business.

Andrea Walters, a freelance writer for www.satellitesales.com – The Lowest-Priced Satellite TV in America. Click here

What to Know About Facebook's New Local Search

Local search capabilities throughout social networks started out small but have gained more and more attention throughout the year. With the growing popularity of mobile utilization in many markets, there is a new emphasis on keeping local search even more widespread as we go into 2013.

In fact, Facebook just updated both their iOS and Android apps to improve on the “Nearby” feature that many have already become familiar with. The update just happened this week, and it is now allowing users to look into businesses that are close by based on a number of different factors. Users have long been used to being able to see who has been checking in among their friends, but there has never been quite an elaborate level of suggestion making. 

According to Search Engine Land, the metrics that these recommendations run off sound be crowd-sourced. Combining factors such as check-ins, ratings, Likes and others will determine what recommendations the user sees.

Based on some screenshots of the iOS update, users should have access to many subsets of local services. Users can look for nearby coffee shops, bars, arts-related venues, shopping and more. Each of these categories break off into more specific subjects. Businesses that are looked up will come with a profile that highlights how many of the users friends have been there, including a brief synopsis of their experience. An overall rating of the location can also be seen. 

If you are a business owner and weren't quite up to the times to create a Facebook page, then you're going to be out of luck with showing up “Nearby”. That doesn't mean that it is too late either though – simply get a page created with clear information that indicates your type of business, as well as any other type of contact information that you can supply. 

Changing the Game in Local Search

Some might think that Facebook is a little too late in the game of joining local search, especially with other social networks like Yelp and Foursquare already taking the lead. However, Tech Crunch reported today that Yelp's stock has already taken a little dive with the news of Facebook's mobile updates. 

This is a pretty significant occurrence being that the update hasn't even been made completely available just yet. There's no saying just how well-protected Facebook's program could be against spam. However, those who use Yelp and others know that it is pretty dependable. Seeing where your own friends go and recommend on Facebook could be a big winning ticket for Facebook, and others have pointed this out as well.

Having this sort of more relatable connection could be a big driver for Facebook Nearby, especially given the natural tendency to float towards Facebook in the first place. 

As stated, the update should be made available this week on both Android and iOS.

Author Bio – Being the principle writer of DX3, Ezra Melino writes extensively on the happening in social media, Google and of the vanguard of technology. Get in touch with Ezra @DX3tech or in the comment section below.

5 Biggest Trends in SEO for 2013

The internet and SEO are always changing as Google and SEO workers quickly adapt and dance back and forth as Google looks to promote real websites and content while SEO analysts look to maximize the advantages of Google’s updates and changes.

Here are five trends that will have a big impact on SEO in 2013. Keep up and stay ahead:

5). Local Reviews

Many customers are relying on yahoo, yelp, and online reviews when they make choices and purchases. For that reason, it’s essential to target your SEO practices towards local audiences. Work to optimize your pages within local searches to make your sites more accessible.

For this purpose it’s valuable to use software that reveals your rankings in different locations. Build pages tailored to different locations and searches to achieve higher visibility within those areas.

4). Personalized search functions

Now that Google generates hits for users based on their search history, brand building and keyword research are all the more valuable in tailoring your sites to the preferred searches of your target audience.

If you are successful in drawing traffic, search personalization will dramatically boost your site’s rankings. Those who effectively use SEO will find this to give them a huge advantage over competitors.

3). Mobile-friendly

The internet is becoming more and more personalized for individuals and adapting to meet unique requirements. Sites that fail to address the growing usage of mobile devices to conduct searches will fall by the wayside.

People use mobiles for searches that occur to them on the fly, to find directions or sites in an hour of specific need, and to kill time. As an example, for a restaurant it’s essential that their site be easily downloaded and accessed on a mobile device in order for them to draw mobile users looking up a place to eat on the road away from their home computers.

“Responsive web design” is a growing strategy to meet the growing demand for mobile-friendly sites that’s geared towards creating one website design that can fit virtually any screen size or type of mobile device. This can prevent users from having to type “M” before the URL to draw the mobile-friendly version of the site and to cater your site towards the shift.

Some people believe that by 2014 most web traffic will be on mobile devices. It’s better to make wholesale adaptations now rather than quick fixes that will fail to meet eventual demand for sites easily accessed by mobile devices.

2). Google+

Google is placing a higher priority on author ranking, drawing traffic to sites with content by writers who are deemed authoritative on their topics. To create “authoritative” authors, it’s necessary to use Google Plus and create author profiles that list the sites that the authors provide content for and links to their content. Focus an author on one particular topic and you can increase the value of their links.

Long articles stacked with keywords are now less valuable than quality content with authority provided by multiple links within the same topics.

It’s no accident that Google wants to make Google products more important to SEO practices in order to build their company, make sure to be ready to integrate Google products like Google+ profiles in order to work with them and not against them.

1). Video Optimization

The number two search engine in the world behind Google is now YouTube. As heavily consumed as articles are, visuals trump all and video optimization is now an important part of SEO. By creating video content and promoting it through Social Networking sites is a growing factor in building page ranks and drawing traffic.

Youtube channels allow 1 backlink to a site which can be extremely valuable, and proper tagging will help your videos rank well on searches. Ours is a visual culture and it’s important to take advantage of the growing video marketing to tap into traffic and audiences that aren’t reached as easily through articles and word content.

Keep up with these growing trends and you’ll find the modern web searcher drawn to your sites in 2013 and beyond.

Author Bio: IanB writes for US Reports weekly, a source for news on all modern topics.

Basic SEO Tips for ASP.NET Websites

When running an online business, majority of our focus is on the design, architecture of the website and how efficiently it displays our product. These are not the only things that are required to target the infinite Internet audience. One need to keep in mind that the main source of audience come from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others. So the application or the website should be able to follow simple rules and handle your business efficiently. ASP.NET application is spreading rapidly and if you are using an ASP.NET website few simple guidelines has to be considered. The below mentioned points need to be implemented:

Page Titles

Page titles between tags is one important thing that many fail to practice in SEO. When a search is made in Google, these titles show up as links in the result. So that explains its importance. The common mistake among website owners is giving the same title for all pages. Page titles drive traffic to your site, hence it is important to have a proper title to attract visitors. Adding titles is not as hard as you imagine. If you have a product catalog use your product name as title. You can also choose to give a different title that is related to your product.

Meaningful URL

URLs that are long with query parameters do not look neat and it is difficult for the visitor to remember. Instead use formatted URLs for your static pages. URL which has a meaning explains the content in your website. Although experts agree with using an URL that has query parameters, it is better to have a meaningful URL. Components like UrlRewritingNet can be used for this purpose. Mapping support in URL is offered by IIS7 which has plenty of features.

Structure of the Content

Content without a structure is not possible.  You will have titles, headings, sub headings, paragraphs and others. How would you emphasize some quotes or important points in your content? If you follow the below mentioned steps, the structure of your content will be semantically correct.

·         Divide long stories or parts using headings. Short paragraphs make more sense to the readers. Use tags to bring beauty to your content.

·         If you want to emphasize an important point or quote, place them between tags.

Visitors can create structured content if you use FCKEditor and the like. Integrating these to your website is not complex.

Clean the Source Code

Don’t panic, it is advisable to clean up the source code and minimize the number of codes. The following simple steps will assist you in cleaning the source code: You can use

·         External stylesheets and not inline CSS

·         -js files instead of inline JavaScript

·         HTML comments is not encouraged

·         Avoid massive line breaking

·         Avoid using viewstate when not required

The relation between the content and the code (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) determines the ranking of your website. Smaller source codes help build a strong relation.

Crawlable Site

Do not use

·         Silver or flash light for menus or to highlight information

·         Menus based on JavaScript

·         Menus based on buttons

·         Intro-pages

Do use

·         Simple tags wherever possible

·         Sitemap

·         “Alt” for images

·         RSS

Test the Site

What happens to the requests that are sent when the site is slow? Sometimes requests are sent by robots and if they are unable to connect to your site continuously, they drop the site from their index. Enable your site to respond fast to requests even during peak hours. Moreover, visitors don’t like to visit slow sites. Use the various tools available and conduct the stress test for your site. Perform this and locate all the weak parts of the site. Fix them so that your site gets indexed. 

Test the AJAX site

Spiders can only run a few parts of your AJAX website because they don’t run JavaScripts. Spiders can only analyze the data and hence they remain invisible to robots. The AJAX sites do not get indexed which does not help in search engine optimization. To make the site spider friendly, try and keep away from initial content loading into the JavaScript. You can also follow this only for pages that you like to index.  Make it easy for robots so that they can navigate. Try this simple trick to see how your AJAX site will appear to the robots. Disable JavaScript from the browser and visit your AJAX site. You can view the pages which robots will index.

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