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Karen Scharf Articles

Written by: Karen Scharf

Better Email Newsletters for Busy Mobile Users - Click To Read Article
More and more people are using mobile devices to check their email. Unfortunately, many email marketers are still assuming that their readers are viewing email from a PC, so they are sending marketing pieces that read as gibberish on a mobile.

Tips for Better Email Subject Lines - Click To Read Article
Email subject lines are the first impression that potential customers get when it comes to email marketing strategies. Since email subject lines are generally less than 50 characters and most people make a split second decision about whether or not to open the email itself, creating them is a daunting task.

Website Response Time and Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
When you create a website as part of your small business marketing campaign, one of the first things that you need to take into consideration is the response time necessary to load and navigate your site.

Using Website Bounce Rate to Improve Your Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
The bounce rate your website receives indicates how many visitors came to your site and left without doing anything more. Bounced visitors are those who didn't visit any other pages, didn't submit a subscription form, didn't watch any videos, etc. They came and they left in a flash.

Using PR Effectively in Your Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
Don't have a small business marketing plan? Neither do most of the entrepreneurs we encounter on a regular basis. Many people naively enter the business world convinced that their product or service will sell itself. They expect prospects to find out about their new business as if by magic and to flock to their website or storefront without any prodding. Unfortunately, this isn't the way it works.

Using Google Beat for your Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
Have you ever heard of the Google Beat? Well if you are a small business who uses the internet for your marketing, now is a great time to learn. The Google Beat is a new YouTube channel that combines information that is of great value to internet marketers all over the world with viral video to produce a short newscast detailing all that is new on Google.

SEO Techniques – Easy On Page Elements You Can Optimize Today - Click To Read Article
You might think that SEO techniques involve some kind of trickery, or maybe some top secret steps that only the search engine optimization professionals are aware of. In fact, search engine optimization isn't extremely difficult, it simply involves following a few simple rules.

Using Facebook for Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
Facebook is an excellent tool to add to your small business marketing plan. A big mistake that many entrepreneurs make when it comes to social media sites like Facebook is the belief that these sites are only useful for large companies that have big brands.

Small Business Marketing with Twitter – How to Integrate Twitter with Your Website - Click To Read Article
When it comes to small business marketing, Twitter is an excellent tool. It is a great social media site to create relationships and help spread the word about your products and services. Twitter feeds are widely read, even by non-Twitter members.

SEO Link Building – Share the Wealth - Click To Read Article
Are you concentrating all of your SEO link building activities on your home page? If so, read on. If you're one of the lucky ones, you might have noticed that more of your website's interior pages have been getting listed in the search engine results pages. If you're one of the unlucky ones, you might have noticed that you've lost a lot of ground as far as ranking for particular keywords.

Lead Generation with Social Media Marketing – How to Measure the Results - Click To Read Article
By now you've probably heard all the buzz about social media and how it can drive leads for your business. But when it comes to small business marketing, I'm going to assume that your budget is not unlimited. You need to know that every dollar you spend will bring at least $1.01 to your bottom line. So you might have been a little hesitant to dive into social media for lead generation because you weren't sure how to track or measure the results.

How to Improve Your Local SEO - Click To Read Article
Though SEO as a whole can become a rather complicated technique, there are several steps that just about any small business owner can take to optimize his website and increase the chances of it appearing in organic search results. Most small businesses are locally-focused – that is, they cater to or offer their services to their local community.

Improve Your Small Business Marketing with Pay Per Click - Click To Read Article
Have you added pay per click to your small business marketing plan? If you thought PPC was only for huge websites with gigantic advertising budgets, think again. Pay per click advertising can be a fantastic way to test the sales copy on a web page before publishing that page to the general public.

Blogging and Small Business Marketing - Click To Read Article
Blogging is an excellent way to supplement your small business marketing. However, there is a great deal of confusion about exactly what role the blog plays in small business marketing and how it helps you to make money.

Small Business Marketing and Getting Referrals – Mistakes to Avoid - Click To Read Article
When it comes to small business marketing getting referrals is a huge part of the profit game. Referrals are inexpensive to obtain and easier to sell to. You don’t have to place a huge ad in a high-dollar newspaper to find referrals, so referred clients are inexpensive to come by. And since you don’t have to spend as much time building up trust and explaining how your process works, referred clients are easier to sell to.

Google Instant and Search Engine Marketing - Click To Read Article
Recently I presented some brief information on the new Google Instant and what it means to your small business marketing. If you’ve been wondering how Google Instant will impact your search engine marketing program, I suggest you refer to Google Webmaster Central for more details.

4 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog - Click To Read Article
Looking for ways to improve your blog? If you’ve been blogging for any amount of time, you might eventually start feeling as if your blog is getting stale. Or if you’re just getting started with your blog, especially if you plan to use it for small business marketing, you might be looking for ways to position your blog as professionally as possible.

Affordable SEO Beyond Keyword Research - Click To Read Article
A huge part of SEO revolves around keyword research. Keyword research is inexpensive or free for those willing to do the work themselves and it doesn’t involve a whole lot of effort, other than integrating the keywords into web content. However, keyword research doesn’t just mean going to Google and finding the hottest search phrases that are related to your product and then littering your website with those terms.

Affordable SEO with Longtail Keywords - Click To Read Article
If you are starting an online business then you’ll soon realize the important of search engine optimization for your website. If you are willing to try your hand at ranking your own website then affordable SEO is not out of the question. To make search engine optimization less expensive for you then there are certain things you will have to focus on when you are building your website and creating your online presence.

What Does Google Instant Mean to Your Business? - Click To Read Article
Will Google Instant Effect Your Small Business Marketing? Typical web surfers take over 9 seconds to type their search terms into the Google search bar. Apparently, Google thought this staggering amount of time was unacceptable, and so on Wednesday, they quietly launched Google Instant, an new search feature designed to save searchers anywhere from 2 to 5 second per search.

Small Business Marketing with a Press Release - Click To Read Article
Writing a press release for marketing your business or website is an excellent way to attract more prospects and customers. Businesses write press releases to announce a new product or service, make major announcements about their firm, or highlight innovative practices of their business. If the story is written well enough, or the event is newsworthy, the release has a chance to be picked up by dozens of other publications and websites. For small business owners a press release can be an avenue for inexpensive, yet effective marketing tactic.

Small Business Marketing with Video - Click To Read Article
The use of online videos in small business marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy. Research has suggested that immediately after viewing a company’s video consumers are far more likely to visit the company website or contact the company via phone. In fact they can be up to 40% more likely to make some sort of contact. This is a pretty dramatic statistic.

Getting Started with Video Marketing - Click To Read Article
Video marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for a small business owner to advertise his or her products or services online. YouTube is one of the most visited sites on the web and in July of 2010 it was the 3rd most visited website on the planet with over 100 million unique visitors for the month. With more people going online every day looking for information on how to do things, clearly video marketing on the internet is here to stay.

10 Quick and Affordable SEO Tips - Click To Read Article
The task of search engine optimization for your website can seem overwhelming at times. You have enough work to do just running your small business, so it’s easy to put SEO at the bottom of your priority list. However, without proper search engine optimization, your website is very unlikely to be much of a success. This can mean the money and time that you spent getting your website designed and developed becomes wasted.

Small Business Marketing with Facebook Search - Click To Read Article
If you want to improve your small business marketing, there’s just no way you can ignore social media any longer. And if you’re not sure how to get started integrating social media into your small business marketing plan, I suggest heading over to Facebook.

Small Business Marketing with Twitter - Click To Read Article
Twitter is one of the many social networking services that have taken the web by storm. With this particular social site you only get 140 characters to type your message and let the world know what you are thinking. This is actually a fantastic tool to add to your small business marketing plan; the key is in knowing how to make your tweets the best tweets they can be.

Choosing the Right Keywords - Click To Read Article
SEO or search engine optimization is a method of your improving web content in order to theoretically make your web pages rank higher on search engines like Google. This in turn will make your site more successful, resulting in more money from advertising, more website traffic from clients and prospects, and more sales for your business.

Affordable SEO Quick Fix in Minutes - Click To Read Article
Have you got a sound business concept but just don’t know how to generate good traffic to your website? If you are in search of an affordable SEO quick fix, simply follow these 7 tips.

Using Social Media Marketing to Build Small Business Relationships - Click To Read Article
For years now, small business marketing on the web was all about getting a high ranking on Google. But as always with the net, times are changing. The new measure of web marketing success is counted in how many back links you can get on Facebook. Many polls show that more websites are being discovered via Facebook than any other means. This is remarkable news, as this is the first time that anyone has ever come close to competing with Google in this way. And it’s even more amazing since we aren’t even talking about a search engine.

What is Google Analytics? - Click To Read Article
Google Analytics is one of the many tools that Google provides to webmasters and marketers. Like most of Google’s many services, it is a free one. Google Analytics lets you discover various statistics about your website, such as the amount of traffic your site is getting, where your site visitors are coming from, and the keywords web surfers are using to find your site, among other things.

Marketing with YouTube - Click To Read Article
When you think of YouTube you probably envision mindless videos of dancing cats, babies that bite their brothers, or epic schoolyard battles. What you probably don’t know is that YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world right now. Yep that’s right; they are behind Google and considered a search engine of sorts. More and more entrepreneurs are realizing that marketing with YouTube is an excellent way to promote their business.

How Does pURL Marketing Work? - Click To Read Article
Personalized URL (pURL) Marketing seems to have taken internet marketing to a higher level and made direct mail marketing much more effective. But how does pURL marketing work and what makes it more useful than traditional marketing?

Blog Post Not Popular? Try This Simple Test - Click To Read Article
If you've been blogging for any length of time, I'm sure you've had at least one blog post that was just not at all popular. Even your loyal readers aren't spending enough time on the page to get through the entire article. And you're not really sure what went wrong.

Using Press Releases in Your Small Business Marketing Plan - Click To Read Article
The press release has been around for most of modern history in one form or another. When you have some small business news you want to share, using a press release is often the best route to take. However, there are some things you need to know about promoting your business with a press release.

Creating a Small Business Marketing Plan - Click To Read Article
It is imperative that, as a small business owner, you create a marketing plan. It's also imperative that you realize your marketing plan is going to be a work in progress. Your plan (and you!) must be flexible enough to change and adapt to the current market conditions, changes in the economy, advances in technology and so on.

Blogging For Beginners - a Great Small Business Marketing Tool - Click To Read Article
A blog is a contraction word of "web log". It is a website that contains personal postings, usually the author's thoughts and feelings about things and events. It may also contain educational articles, videos, images, comments, opinions, descriptions of things or announcements of events.

5 Small Business Marketing Strategies to Use Right Away - Click To Read Article
Marketing is the life-blood of your business; it is what sustains all businesses today, small and corporate alike. Marketing is the combination of strategies you apply in your small business to get new customers, to maintain customer loyalty and to increase your business profitability.

Website Copywriting Tips - Click To Read Article
With the advent of the internet, things have changed in the world of copywriting. Though some techniques, like short sentence structures, have always been important to journalism and copywriting, other things are relatively new. The web has brought about a change to the way people read, and therefore we have to change the way we write if we want our small business marketing programs to be successful.

What is Search Engine Optimization - Click To Read Article
Can you believe there are over a trillion pages on the web today? It’s no wonder that we’re totally dependent on search engines to find what we need. With that many pages, it would be impossible to surf the web without using a search engine.

Using Anchor Text to Increase Website Traffic - Click To Read Article
Anchor text is the text that is used to link back to a certain website. Many times this text is underlined or a different color from the text around it. It is most commonly used to anchor the information in an article to a relevant website. Using proper anchor text to increase website traffic is an effective and affordable SEO technique that can boost your search engine ranking and increase your website page authority.

The Advantages of Blogging for B2B Businesses - Click To Read Article
If your business sells or services other businesses, in other words, if you’re in B2B, you might have discounted blogging, thinking it’s mostly for consumer or retail business. But there are actually several great advantages of business to business blogging. Using a blog to promote your business is an excellent way to drum up attention for you services, move yourself up in the search engines, and keep customer interest high. These are just some of the many advantages of blogging.

How to Choose a Small Business Marketing Consultant - Click To Read Article
As an entrepreneur, there will likely come a time that you feel the need to hire a small business marketing consultant to help with marketing an growing your business. There are many reputable agencies that offer consultant services; the key is finding the right agency for you.

Email Marketing Best Practices to Improve Delivery - Click To Read Article
With the rise of social media, there have been various rumors circulating that email marketing is dead. Several entrepreneurs I've consulted with recently have been reluctant to get started with email marketing, thinking it was too much work for too little reward. But nothing could be further from the truth, especially if you utilize a few email marketing best practices.

8 Ideas For Adding Quality Content to Your Website - Click To Read Article
Google's new algorithm puts even more emphasis on site authority and content. So it's even more important than ever to have high quality blog posts, articles, and information on your website in order to earn a decent search engine position.

8 More Ideas For Adding Quality Content To Your Website - Click To Read Article
Google's "May Day" algorithm places a great deal of weight on the quality of the content at your website. In order to earn a satisfactory position in the search engine results pages, your website must contain authoritative, top-notch content.

Email Copywriting - 5 Tips to Improve Your ROI - Click To Read Article
As a certified copywriter, one of the jobs I love the most is crafting email sales letters for clients. I love it because it combines graphic art, technology, and immediate analysis in with copywriting.

Small Business Marketing: 8 Cross-Selling Tips to Increase Your Sales - Click To Read Article
When it comes to small business marketing, cross-selling is a great technique to increase sales and improve the bottom line. I often work with my coaching clients to create cross-selling programs for their small businesses.

Defining Your Small Business Marketing Niche - Click To Read Article
Have you ever heard the saying "If everyone is your customer, no one is your customer"? Many small business owners are afraid to create a niche for their business thinking that they will end up turning away prospects or that they will cut themselves off from potential customers.

6 Psychological Principles to Improve Your Copywriting - Click To Read Article
I have a minor in Psychology, and I always assumed that would make me an excellent copywriter. But the truth is, people are complex creatures, and trying to motivate an entire group of individuals by manipulating a headline and tweaking a word here or there is a lot more difficult than it might seem.

Small Business Marketing Principles for Success - Click To Read Article
It seems as if most of the entrepreneurs I've encountered lately are looking for the "get rich quick" version of small business marketing. Unfortunately, such a thing doesn't really exist, but if you're looking for some tried-and-true marketing principles that can accelerate your success, I've got a few to share with

The Single Most Affordable SEO Tip Around - Click To Read Article
Our small business clients are always interested in affordable SEO ideas to increase the traffic to their websites on a very limited budget. And we typically offer the same search engine optimization tip to all of our clients.

Small Business Marketing - Finding Your First Customers through Referral Partners - Click To Read Article
If you're like many entrepreneurs I've encountered, you probably started your business because you are really good at what you do. At some point in time, you might have decided you were sick and tired of bringing home the bacon for your boss and you figured you'd be better off starting your own business and keeping the bacon on your own kitchen table.

Google Announces New Algorithm Change - Click To Read Article
If you’ve been paying attention to your website traffic, you might have noticed a significant dip in the number of visitors coming to your website by searching longtail keywords.

Finding Clients for Your Small Business - Preparing for the Economic Uptick - Click To Read Article
It seems to me that the economy is slowly making a comeback, and now would be a great time to ramp up your marketing, take advantage of the renewed spending environment, and move full-speed ahead on growing your business. But many of the small business owners I speak with are still having a hard time finding new clients.

Affordable SEO - Optimizing Your Website for Google - Click To Read Article
With Google capturing over 65% of all website searches, it's important that your small business website rank well in Google. There are many search engine optimization consultants who can help you optimize your website, but if you're looking for an affordable SEO alternative, you might want to handle these tasks on your own.

What Do You Do When Your Blog Post Flops? - Click To Read Article
If you've been blogging for any length of time, I'm sure you've had at least one blog post that was just not at all popular. Even your loyal readers aren't spending enough time on the page to get through the entire article. You're not really sure what went wrong.

Small Business Marketing - Making Use of a Mission Statement - Click To Read Article
Many entrepreneurs think they do not need a mission statement since their business is small. They mistakenly believe that a mission statement is something created by Fortune 500 companies to hang on the wall in the CEO's office.

Need Affordable SEO For Your Small Business Website? - Click To Read Article
Whether you're starting a new website or trying to improve an existing website, search engine optimization is extremely important. And on a small business budget, affordable SEO is usually a main priority.

Generally when we're building new websites, our clients have several design and development ideas that they would like implemented into the new site. Most of the time, we try to take the clients' ideas into account, but we have several suggestions that pop up often that we have to politely decline - Click To Read Article
Generally when we're building new websites, our clients have several design and development ideas that they would like implemented into the new site. Most of the time, we try to take the clients' ideas into account, but we have several suggestions that pop up often that we have to politely decline.

Driving Blog Traffic From Other Blogs - Click To Read Article
You’ve spent lots of time creating the perfect blog post, but you’re stumped over ways to bring in readers. You’ve already invited your newsletter subscribers to read your new post, you’ve linked your new post to other relevant posts, and you’ve even mapped out a few follow up posts.

Web Site Traffic – Driving Visitors to your Blog - Click To Read Article
But once your post is published, you’re only half-way done. Now it’s time to drive traffic and entice readers to your blog. For many small business owners, this task is even harder than actually constructing the blog.

Five Useful Tips For Kicking Off Your PR Campaign - Click To Read Article
Public relations, or getting publicity through mainstream media, has been around for hundreds of years and has been proven effective in bringing in consumer traffic to small businesses. But, is such an ancient marketing method still effective for today's high-tech small businesses?

Email Marketing - 7 Steps to Getting Started - Click To Read Article
You probably know that I'm a huge advocate of including email newsletters into your small business marketing plan. Email marketing is relatively inexpensive, and it provides a great opportunity to stay in front of your clients and prospects in an unobtrusive manner.

Website Copy Checklist - Click To Read Article
I love using checklists for all of my projects. I have a checklist for new clients, a checklist for installing Wordpress, several checklists for SEO, a checklist for Can-Spam, a checklist for video marketing, and on and on. And, while the overall system I use for my copywriting projects is rather complex, I have a simple checklist that I use to review the completed copy before I publish it to the web or send it to the printer.

9 SEO Tips For eCommerce Sites - Click To Read Article
If you’re maintaining an e-commerce web site or online store front, you’ll need to maximize your keywords in order to obtain the best return on your investment. Here are 9 easy to implement SEO tips specifically for e-commerce sites that you can apply within a weekend.

17 Tips For Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention - Click To Read Article
Just like a headline for an advertisement, your subject line's only job is to get the email message opened. But how can you possibly stand out from the crowd in that jam-packed inbox?

Boost Email Deliverability With a Static IP Address - Click To Read Article
Until a few years ago, the IP address of the sending email server wasn't all that important. But, with the onslaught of spam, all that has changed.

Opt-in or Double Opt-in – Setting Up Your Email List - Click To Read Article
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the tight economy and how small businesses are currently under a financial strain. We’re all feeling the pressure to generate new revenue and improve our overall ROI. The financial news can certainly seem bleak and depressing right about now.

Choosing a Web Analytics Program For Your Business - Click To Read Article
Web analytics play a major role in the optimization of your online presence; however, if you’re like most small business owners, you probably have only a vague understanding of analytics. You might have heard of web site analytics, maybe even attended a class or a seminar about analytics. But the options probably seemed overwhelming and technical and a bit too complicated.

Your Email Marketing Strategy in Review - Click To Read Article
Can you believe it’s November already? I’m not really sure how that happened, but it happened nonetheless. And while I’m always sad to see the Summer go, I love this time of year because it’s a great time to start preparing your 2010 marketing plan. But before you do that, you’ll need to evaluate which of your 2009 marketing strategies worked and which were not effective. Since email marketing is one of the best marketing strategies for increasing your online presence, you should be constantly evaluating it and making any and all improvements.

Improve Your Email ROI with These Four Easy Techniques - Click To Read Article
According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) small businesses enjoy a $43.52 return on every dollar spent in email marketing. That's the strongest ROI-yielding direct marketing tactic, and it's a result that even small businesses on a small business budget certainly can't ignore.

Increase Blog Subscribers in 7 Easy Steps - Click To Read Article
Now that you have gone live with your blog, what’s next? How will you know if it is successful; how will you know if you are delivering the content your readers, your prospects and your clients are after? You will definitely want to monitor your pageviews, traffic, clickthroughs, search engine rankings and other overall indicators of website success. Your number of blog subscribers, however, may be the most accurate and reliable measurement you have for determining the success of your blog.

Four Easy Twitter Tools to Supplement Your Marketing - Click To Read Article
The great thing about Twitter is that it helps create a conversation with your clients and prospects and joint venture partners and other interested parties in a quick and fast-paced manner. Thanks to the 140-character limit, you've got to get to the point and move on very quickly.

Measuring Your Social Media ROI - Click To Read Article
If you’ve added social media to your marketing mix, you’re probably asking yourself, “Is it worth all the time and effort involved?” That might seem like a difficult question to answer at first, but there are definite steps you can take to measure the return on your social media investments.

Improve Your Email Marketing with these Non-Technical Changes - Click To Read Article
It's true that email marketing can get pretty technical. We've got HTML coding, and multi-part MIME messages, and cross browser compatibility, and designing for preview panes, and blacklists and blocklists and SPF records… It's enough to make non-techie marketers throw up their hands and give up on the thought of ever improving their email performance.

Create a Site Map For Better Traffic - Click To Read Article
I think every website should have a site map since it does help in traffic generation. As the term suggests a site map is a map of the web site and can be a simple list of links or a more complex representation. The type of site map you’ll need depends on the type of website you have.

Your 5 Day Marketing Plan - Click To Read Article
Unfortunately, since many small business owners don't consider marketing as a core business activity (what a shame), it's often the task that gets set aside when time is crunched. But by taking just a few minutes to plan ahead, your future marketing activities can go much smoother.

Write Effective PPC Ads - Keep These 6 Tips in Mind - Click To Read Article
Google's recent changes to AdWords make it easier for novices to get started with pay per click advertising. But if you've never created a PPC ad before, the task can seem a little intimidating.

Why Won't My Site Show Up in Google? - Click To Read Article
We often get inquiries from prospective clients who would like us to build them a new website. They believe that their current website must be “bad” because it's not listed in the search engines. They're convinced that a new website will automatically ensure a top ten Google rank.

Why Do-Not-Reply@DomainName.com Is a Terrible Idea - Click To Read Article
The problem with sending email from a non-existent address is that, eventually, it will trigger spam filters. You see, when your readers have a question or a comment, they are going to reply to your email message, no matter what your sending address says. And those messages are going to bounce.

Who's Drinking All Your Link Juice? - Click To Read Article
You might have heard the term "link juice" before in the discussion of search engine optimization and traffic generation. Link juice is actually a loosely defined term, but it generally refers to the combination of link relevance, page importance and anchor text.

What To Do When You Just Can't Concentrate - Click To Read Article
My email in-box is jam packed, I have several calls from sales people that I haven't returned yet, my desk is a mess, and I'm finding it very hard to concentrate. What in the world is going on here!

Was Your Marketing Raised On Family Farms? - Click To Read Article
I really enjoy cooking and baking - so if you have any good and unique recipes, do send them my way. But I don't want to talk to you about cooking today; rather, I want to talk to you about a marketing lesson I was reminded of when I went to prepare dinner the other evening.

Use a Grid System For Better Converting Pages - Click To Read Article
I recently began working with my new interior designer (my house is stuck in the '90s!) and in trying to decide what type of furniture to buy, we've been laying out the room design on a grid. It dawned on me that this is the same process I use when designing a new web page.

Use Customer Testimonials to Increase Web Sales - Click To Read Article
I've got to warn you – you're about to read about the pot calling the kettle black. That's because with each and every coaching client I have, I always discuss the creation of a testimonial capturing system. And yet I am woefully inept at using testimonials myself. Because I have non-disclosure agreements with most of my clients, I'm often hesitant to ask for testimonials. But I'm leaving a huge opportunity on the table.

Transactional Email Messages - Get Yours in Shape This Year - Click To Read Article
How are you doing on your New Year's resolution? Let me guess, it includes shedding a few pounds, getting more exercise, making healthy eating choices, etc. Here's another thing that needs to get into better shape: your transactional email messages program.

Top 5 Reasons Your Search Engine Rankings Dropped - Click To Read Article
Don't get too comfortable with that cushy search engine position you've been experiencing. Chances are, your rankings will go through quite a few fluctuations over time. A minor move up or down is nothing to get alarmed over.

They'll No Longer Pay For Botched Surgeries - Click To Read Article
So what does this have to do with your business? Unfortunately, everything. You see, workmanship and service is so poor today, it's almost become the norm. It's become expected.

These 7 Tweaks Doubled The Conversion Rate - Click To Read Article
If your landing page is clunky or confusing or just plain ugly, you might be losing out on many valuable prospects. I've recently implemented a few simple changes to a client's landing page that resulted in double the conversions.

There Is No Such Thing as a Duplicate Content Penalty - Click To Read Article
First, I want you to understand that I am NOT giving you license to steal other people’s content. There ARE repercussions to using duplicate content, but it is not a penalty per se.

Tell Them Why They Should Buy - Click To Read Article
A billboard caught my attention. It was a cut-away shot of a new minivan - the one with the pop-up table in the back. The billboard showed the interior of the van with four captain's chairs encircling the pop-up table with a headline that said "Your Table Is Served".

Take Advantage of Eye Tracking Tests - Click To Read Article
Sure, eye tracking studies designed specifically for your web site could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. So, until you’re ready to spend that kind of money, you might want to take advantage of data garnered from studies of other websites.

The 3 Easiest Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Rankings - Click To Read Article
One of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your search engine rankings is to create unique, keyword rich title tags for each of your pages. Be sure your keyword is as close to the beginning of the tag as possible.

Stop Working So Hard! - Click To Read Article
You're working too hard and you're not making enough money. I know that seems like a brash statement, but I've worked with enough small business owners to presume that it's probably true for you. The problem is, you're not taking advantage of one of your most important assets.

Some Article Marketing Tips to Get You Started - Click To Read Article
I am a huge proponent of article marketing. And while it's true that article marketing is great for driving traffic, you can still utilize it even if you don't have your website up and running yet. By distributing your articles off-line, you'll begin to make a name for yourself in your local community or your specific niche.

So I Got Mad and Threw It Away! - Click To Read Article
Your clients and prospects have very short attention spans. They want what they want and they want it now. If you make them a promise (like offering a particular article on the cover of your magazine) you need to deliver on that promise quickly, or you risk losing their attention.

Setting Realistic Optimization Expectations - Click To Read Article
Often times we're approached by entrepreneurs at the end of their financial ropes, and they ask us to perform a search engine optimization miracle in the hopes of saving their drowning business. So, let's set the record straight on what SEO can and can not do for you.

Save Money With Geo-Targeting - Click To Read Article
If you're a local business on a tight budget, you can save money on your advertising budget by targeting only specific locations with your AdWords campaigns.

Ready to Start Your Own Search Engine Optimization? - Click To Read Article
Many small businesses also have small budgets, and often don't want to spend the time or money on search engine optimization techniques. Unfortunately, the "if you build it, they will come" philosophy doesn't work too well on the web.

Quick Traffic Tips You Can Implement Today - Click To Read Article
I know that search engine marketing might see like some kind of magic or voodoo; and the truth is, there definitely is some science behind it. You can spend hours and hours doing the research and designing an effective search strategy and crafting the various tactics to put the whole thing into place. But the truth is, there are some very quick and easy steps that even a non-techie entrepreneur can implement within only a few minutes.

Never Used AdWords? Here's Some Good News - Click To Read Article
If you haven't used pay per click advertising to drive traffic to your web site, now might be a good time to get started. Google has recently announced several changes that (I believe) will make it easier for a novice to learn the AdWords ropes.

Maximize Your Site Traffic by Honestly Answering These 4 Questions - Click To Read Article
Sure, you might be getting tons of traffic, but what are your visitors doing once they land on your website? Lots of traffic doesn't necessarily mean lots of subscribers, lots of leads or lots of sales. If you don't take a very objective look at each of the pages on your site, you might be flushing your valuable traffic-building efforts down the drain.

Mid-Year Email Marketing Review - Click To Read Article
Here we are, it's June already and the year is half way over. The time couldn't be better to take an objective look at your email marketing campaign and assess any changes or fixes that need to be made. What kinds of things should you look for? Here are a few pointers to get you started:

Marketing Mindset When Times are Tough - Click To Read Article
When the economy gets tough, an ironic thing happens... people stop marketing their business and services. I call it ironic because now is the best time to ramp up your marketing, not cut back on it.

Landing Page Tips for Better Results - Click To Read Article
Whether you're driving traffic through organic search, pay per click, affiliate marketing, direct mail, email campaigns, social media, whatever, your landing page will make or break your conversions. Follow these few simple tips to create a landing page that produces results.

Landing Page Tests to Produce Better Qualified Leads - Click To Read Article
I have a client who is a realtor (we'll call him Don), and as you can imagine, with the state of the U.S. economy, his business has been less than stellar. Before the downturn in the real estate market, we had created an on-line lead generation program that had been working quite well. But lately, he had been feeling as if his business was in serious trouble, his agents hadn't been getting enough good leads, and it was time for an intervention.

Landing Page Optimization Tips - Click To Read Article
When we hear the words Landing Page we generally think of PPC campaigns or some other form of internet advertising. But I like to use landing pages for all of my off-line advertising also. However, you’re using it, a landing page is a web page, typically hidden from the site’s menu bar and other navigation – meaning the only way you can get to the page is to type the URL directly into the browser.

Increase Landing Page Conversion By Testing These 5 Elements - Click To Read Article
Are you satisfied with the conversion rate on your landing page? I hope the answer to that question - no matter what your conversion rate - is an emphatic "No!" Because no matter what your conversion rate is, there's always the chance that it can be better.

Improve Your Own Conversions With These Simple Steps - Click To Read Article
I was recently hired to critique a web site and suggest changes that could improve conversion rates. There were several backbone upgrades that I recommended, but what I want to focus on now are the front-end problems that might also be plaguing your own site.

How to Start Split-Testing Your Web Pages - Click To Read Article
In working with a friend recently, it soon became apparent that we each had different ideas on what would work best for his integrated marketing campaign.

How To Yield a 7 Percent Sales Increase With An Incredibly Easy Redesign - Click To Read Article
I have some very interesting split test results that I think will really surprise you. Here's the story of a major retailer who increased sales over 7% by going against conventional wisdom.

How to Market in a Bad Economy - Click To Read Article
You're worried about the financial health of your small business. You think about slashing your prices to stimulate your sales. You assume you need to cut back on your marketing activities to save on expenses.

How To Optimize Your Web Site For Ask - Click To Read Article
While Ask's share of the search market is comparatively small, it offers some great features that are sure to catch on. Consider grabbing a good ranking now before the word gets out and a tidal wave of webmasters start clamoring for top spots.

How To Plan Your E-Mail Resend - Click To Read Article
You crafted a great email campaign, with a compelling subject line, the perfect mix of html and text, dynamic supporting graphics. Your headline is persuasive, your offer is unbeatable, your product is top-notch...

How To Introduce Yourself in a Way That Will Grow Your Business - Click To Read Article
I don't know about you but I just love summertime! It's a time for outdoor barbecues and pool parties and meeting lots of fun new people. And meeting all these new people provides a terrific opportunity for growing your small business. If you think of the six degrees of separation (have you ever played the Kevin Bacon game?) almost every one you'll ever need to grow your small business is represented right there at that summertime barbecue. And you thought you were only going for the burgers!

How to Get Listed in Yahoo and Google - Click To Read Article
Most site owners will optimize their web site for one search engine, either Google or Yahoo, and assume they have to forgo the possibility of being listed in the other search engine.

How To Design Your Email Messages For Mobile Devices - Click To Read Article
According to a 2007 study, 64% of key decision makers are reading your email messages on their Blackberries or PDAs. It is important to grab their attention.

How To Fast Track Your Article Marketing Program: Deadly Sins For An HTML Resource Box - Click To Read Article
Despite the general ease of article marketing, there are several "fatal" mistakes you can make that will make all your efforts nothing but wasted time. One of the biggest mistakes is "messing up" your author's resource box. Brad McGovern, Marketing Manager of Article Marketer, offers advice regarding crafting your perfect author resource box.

How to Create an Abundant Flow of Perfect Customers - Click To Read Article
What is the greatest weapon a small business can have in its marketing arsenal? Most marketing experts and small business owners alike agree that the single most cost effective and efficient way to grow any business is with referrals.

Getting Ready To Hire Your First Assistant - Click To Read Article
There comes a time in every entrepreneur's life when they realize they just can't do it alone. They realize they're maxed out - either on time or ability - and there's no way their business will grow until they start delegating some tasks.

Finding Clients in a Down Economy - Click To Read Article
I don't want to get into a discussion of whether or not the economic sky is falling, whether the "recession" is real or imagined, whether it's your "thinking" that is keeping your business from growing. The fact is, many of the small business owners that I've spoken to recently are having a hard time finding new clients at the present.

Engage Readers To Increase Open Rates - Click To Read Article
Email remains one of the most cost-effective marketing media we have at our disposal. But getting your messages into your readers' in-boxes and getting your subscribers to actually read those messages continues to be a struggle.

Email Marketing - Optimize Your Sending Schedule - Click To Read Article
As an email marketer, you probably spend considerable time testing and optimizing your email content, your email layout and design, the calls to action within your email message. But do you ever stop to consider *when* you're hitting the send button? I'm not referring to the best time of day or the best day of the week to send your message - although that is an important component to consider. When I'm referring to is your email campaign schedule.

Email Marketing and the High Price of Irrelevance - Click To Read Article
A huge buzzward in email marketing lately is relevance. When you're not sending relevant messages that your readers care about, you see your unsubscribe rate increase, your spam complaint rate increase, your open rate decrease, and your ROI plummet.

Email Marketing Tests to Get You Started - Click To Read Article
If you’re utilizing email marketing, you should be utilizing email testing. But it can seem complex and costly, and many small business owners aren’t quite sure where to start. If you’d like to use email testing, but aren’t sure where to start, here are 4 of the easiest tests to get you going:

Do-It-Yourself SEO: Be Careful With Your Keywords - Click To Read Article
If you're trying to optimize your own website - and I strongly believe that all entrepreneurs and website owners should at least be familiar with optimization techniques - then there's a great possibility you've been researching and studying and reviewing all the information you can get.

Developing an Effective Email Marketing Strategy - Click To Read Article
Email marketing is an excellent tool for growing your customer base, growing your brand and growing your sales. But just like any tool, it's most effective when it's used within a plan. If you started off in email marketing without a clear-cut strategy, here are 4 ways to get back on track by the end of the week.

Business Planning - It's The Second Quarter, Do You Know Where Your Business Is? - Click To Read Article
Can you believe the first quarter of the year is almost over?! When you look at your business, the amount of money you've earned, the number of new clients you've added, are you 25% to where you want to be for the year? If not, why not? And what do you plan to do about it?

Can Your Web Site Pass The Ecommerce Test? - Click To Read Article
Want to improve the conversion rate of your e-commerce website? Make sure you can answer "Yes" to the eight questions below.

Choosing a Split-Testing Platform That is Right For You - Click To Read Article
I often talk about the importance of split testing your web pages to ensure that you're earning as much as you possibly can from your website. Split testing can be as simple as running a page for a few weeks, then replacing it with a new page and seeing which one converts better.

Best Practices For Your Email Newsletter - Click To Read Article
Email newsletters are relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, but that doesn't mean they're fool-proof. You'll need to deal with CAN-Spam laws, delivery problems, rendering issues, etc.

8 Steps to Getting Your Web Site Crawled - Click To Read Article
In order to analyze the content on your web site and figure out which pages to display (and in which order) for certain search terms, the search engines (SEs) use a program called a web crawler.

6 Steps For Managing Your Search Marketing Campaign - Click To Read Article
Your search marketing campaign is not a set it and forget it effort. To be effective, pay per click search marketing requires continual attention. Here are a few things you should be doing on a regular basis.

8 Copywriting Tips the Pros Use - Click To Read Article
I would highly suggest you add at least one proven sales letter to your marketing arsenal. To get started today, just follow these simple, proven steps that the pros use.

A Shared IP Address Isn't Always So Bad - Click To Read Article
If you have any interest in email marketing, you've probably heard me extol the virtues of using a dedicated IP address for sending your mass communications. The rationale is that if you're using a shared IP address, you're basically at the mercy of every other marketer who is also using that IP address.

5 Ways to Get Unstuck in Your Marketing - Part 1 - Click To Read Article
Most of our small business activities involve right-brained thinking. We run numbers, we analyze, we crunch data, and we do all the "stuff" that we do as the technicians of our business.

5 Adwords Mistakes That Literally Flush Money Down The Toilet - Click To Read Article
Google AdWords offers an excellent, cost effective option. Cost effective, that is, if you do it right. Steer clear of these 5 common first timer mistakes.

12 Tips To Get The Most ROI From Your PPC - Click To Read Article
Pay Per Click campaigns are not set it and forget projects. Without advanced planning and continued monitoring, they can become extremely unprofitable.

5 Incredibly Easy Ways to Add Fresh Content to Your Web Site - Click To Read Article
You probably know by now that your web site needs to be updated on a regular basis. Updating your site is vital because search engines love fresh content. Here are five incredibly easy ways to add fresh content to your web site. Some of these ideas take a bit longer than others but neither are difficult.





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