Okay perhaps I'm a bit slow to join in on the Twitter revolution... it took me a while to get it. At any rate, I'm on board now, so if you would like to be a follower my twitter ID is murdockknicks. Rather than having the ID specific to this blog, I've opted for my name as I have several other blogs to talk about on Twitter. So come follow my tweets and I will keep you posted on how well Twitter is working to help with B2B Industrial Marketing.
- Murdock
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Building Traffic With Do-Follow
If you’re just getting started with promoting your website or blog online, you may be baffled as to where to start. After all there are so many strategies to embrace and so many salesmen online telling you their approach is the one that will make your site produce gold…just send three checks for $59.95. However, while you do need to be careful about scams, time is money so sometimes paying someone to market your site is a good idea. It’s all about what is right for you, picking your strategies, doing your homework, and paying attention to the results.
Speaking of results I recently read a blog on The Small Biz Pro titled "What is your link number?", which is about determining how many links point back to your website or blog. Just as anything with computers there are several ways to do this, but this is a good jumping off point to try and use for continued research. The point of this is we all want/need to build traffic to our sites and one very important part of doing that is to get other sites to link to ours. I love the articles that tell you all you need to do is find a website that is relevant to yours with a high Google page rank, contact them and ask that they post a link to your site in exchange for you doing the same for them…sure, I’ll get right on that. Where is my sarcasm icon, I need to add it here.
Here’s a bit more direct tactic you can try. Find blogs, preferably that are related to your site, and post comments with a link back to your site. Heard that one before? Probably so… Ahhh but there is a catch. First finding a list of blogs so you aren’t floundering around looking for a place to comment, and second finding "Do-Follow" blogs. A "Do-Follow" blog is one that does not have the code "no-follow" which tells the search engines robots not to follow the link back to your site. If you are specifically trying to build links by posting "relevant" comments, then you want the search engines robots to follow your link. By the way the link to your site is typically attached to your name or user id of a blog. Posting your link in your comment is often considered spam. While a quick Google search will produce more options, here is a website that lists "Do-Follow" blogs and should be a good starting place… www.dofollowblogs.com.
Now, if you have a blog and you want to get viewers to participate, you need comments. The first question to ask yourself is, do I have a "No-Follow" or "Do-Follow" blog. If you have chosen "Do-Follow" then obviously you need to let people know because there are many out there that are trying to build links. That being said, submit your blog to www.dofollowblogs.com and any other site like it. Not only will you get a link for doing that, but you give people another reason to visit and participate in your blog.
For more information about "No-Follow", see "Forums Blogs and nofollow".
In case you were wondering, this is a "Do-Follow" blog.
- Murdock
Speaking of results I recently read a blog on The Small Biz Pro titled "What is your link number?", which is about determining how many links point back to your website or blog. Just as anything with computers there are several ways to do this, but this is a good jumping off point to try and use for continued research. The point of this is we all want/need to build traffic to our sites and one very important part of doing that is to get other sites to link to ours. I love the articles that tell you all you need to do is find a website that is relevant to yours with a high Google page rank, contact them and ask that they post a link to your site in exchange for you doing the same for them…sure, I’ll get right on that. Where is my sarcasm icon, I need to add it here.
Here’s a bit more direct tactic you can try. Find blogs, preferably that are related to your site, and post comments with a link back to your site. Heard that one before? Probably so… Ahhh but there is a catch. First finding a list of blogs so you aren’t floundering around looking for a place to comment, and second finding "Do-Follow" blogs. A "Do-Follow" blog is one that does not have the code "no-follow" which tells the search engines robots not to follow the link back to your site. If you are specifically trying to build links by posting "relevant" comments, then you want the search engines robots to follow your link. By the way the link to your site is typically attached to your name or user id of a blog. Posting your link in your comment is often considered spam. While a quick Google search will produce more options, here is a website that lists "Do-Follow" blogs and should be a good starting place… www.dofollowblogs.com.
Now, if you have a blog and you want to get viewers to participate, you need comments. The first question to ask yourself is, do I have a "No-Follow" or "Do-Follow" blog. If you have chosen "Do-Follow" then obviously you need to let people know because there are many out there that are trying to build links. That being said, submit your blog to www.dofollowblogs.com and any other site like it. Not only will you get a link for doing that, but you give people another reason to visit and participate in your blog.
For more information about "No-Follow", see "Forums Blogs and nofollow".
In case you were wondering, this is a "Do-Follow" blog.
- Murdock
Thursday, November 12, 2009
B2B Marketing with Social Bookmarking
In trying economic times there are those who’s first instinct is to cut back on marketing and then there are those who believe that marketing is just about the last thing that should be cut back. This author believes in the later. While everyone else is thinking we can’t afford to spend that marketing money, that’s what you do when you have extra cash, I’m thinking I can’t afford not to spend money on marketing… especially when the economy is down. Although, how you spend that marketing money is where critical thinking comes into play. I look at this downturn in the economy as a tremendous opportunity. Just as there are tremendous opportunities to buy real estate; this is the time to get a leg up on the competition. I can run around like a chicken with its head cut off smiling and dialing and knocking on doors for business or I can shoot for a much broader audience and put in the work to make the business lines ring. While there are many ways to do this, what I am targeting for this posting is related to online marketing and involves already having a website or blog for your business that you need customers to see. Specifically I’m talking about social bookmarking as a method of driving people and the search engines to your site.
So what is social bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is the use of websites that allow you to create a user account and submit links that you find interesting and then share them with your friends, or the entire web. When others see and like the links you have submitted they tag them and/or vote for them or they save them to their own bookmarks. The more activity a link gets, the more popular it becomes on the bookmark website.
Popularity of a bookmark shows how a website is valued. It also demonstrates to the search engines what people think about the quality of a website. In there lies a powerful tool. Yes a potential client may find your site through a bookmark, but if bookmarking drives up your organic search results in a search engine, your business is more visible to the world. When a customer needs your products or services and does a search online, the goal is for your site to be found over the competition. Assuming you have a quality website, hold onto your socks because that’s when the phone will start to ring.
Social bookmarking is something to get pretty excited about…that is if you like having your phone ring for new orders. The next big question is how do you get it done? There are literally dozens of websites on the web to choose from for bookmarking your site. Below are 133 bookmark websites where you can create an account and start listing your favorite sites. Or you can try to hit as many sites as possible, bookmarking your own link…talk about tedious. This rather feels like knocking on doors again and telemarketing. However there is another option. While taking the time to do some of your own social bookmarking, if for no other reason than understanding what it is all about, is good, you can also hire a company to do it for you. One such company of reputable name is Majon International. As of this writing they have an introductory offering to post two links to 125 bookmarking sites for $79.00. While this is one of many, a little searching online will give you other options that may better suit you needs.
This approach to marketing is widely used in the entertainment and computer industries, but really holds value for any company. So weather you are selling a book such as "The Pandora Plague", moving industrial machines such as "American Industrial Werks" or running a blog for up and coming entrepreneurs such as "The Small Biz Pro" be smart with your marketing dollars and consider social bookmarking as one of many approaches to making the phone ring.
So what is social bookmarking?
Social bookmarking is the use of websites that allow you to create a user account and submit links that you find interesting and then share them with your friends, or the entire web. When others see and like the links you have submitted they tag them and/or vote for them or they save them to their own bookmarks. The more activity a link gets, the more popular it becomes on the bookmark website.
Popularity of a bookmark shows how a website is valued. It also demonstrates to the search engines what people think about the quality of a website. In there lies a powerful tool. Yes a potential client may find your site through a bookmark, but if bookmarking drives up your organic search results in a search engine, your business is more visible to the world. When a customer needs your products or services and does a search online, the goal is for your site to be found over the competition. Assuming you have a quality website, hold onto your socks because that’s when the phone will start to ring.
Social bookmarking is something to get pretty excited about…that is if you like having your phone ring for new orders. The next big question is how do you get it done? There are literally dozens of websites on the web to choose from for bookmarking your site. Below are 133 bookmark websites where you can create an account and start listing your favorite sites. Or you can try to hit as many sites as possible, bookmarking your own link…talk about tedious. This rather feels like knocking on doors again and telemarketing. However there is another option. While taking the time to do some of your own social bookmarking, if for no other reason than understanding what it is all about, is good, you can also hire a company to do it for you. One such company of reputable name is Majon International. As of this writing they have an introductory offering to post two links to 125 bookmarking sites for $79.00. While this is one of many, a little searching online will give you other options that may better suit you needs.
This approach to marketing is widely used in the entertainment and computer industries, but really holds value for any company. So weather you are selling a book such as "The Pandora Plague", moving industrial machines such as "American Industrial Werks" or running a blog for up and coming entrepreneurs such as "The Small Biz Pro" be smart with your marketing dollars and consider social bookmarking as one of many approaches to making the phone ring.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Help Businesses Find Your Website With HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps
Having a website is a huge part of doing business these days. But just putting up a website doesn’t cut it. That business you are trying to sell your products and services to is going to search using Google, Yahoo, MS Search, etc. to find your website. So if you haven’t done the work to get listed with the search engines, your competition is going to get the business.
Now there are a lot of methods to boost your listing with the search engines not one of which will accomplish what you need alone, so consider HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps one of many things on your To Do list.
Create an HTML SiteMap
An HTML sitemap is nothing more than a landing page (web page) on your website, where viewers can find all of the pages you want them to find. You can think about this as a family tree or file manager as in Microsoft Windows®. While large websites may dictate multiple pages for an HTML sitemap it is better to put everything on a single web page if you can. Many may be asking why in the world do I need this extra page when I already have a navigation bar? From a viewer perspective if your navigation bar has depth, meaning a single page goes several pages deep, this can be a pain for viewers to get to the page they really want. An HTML sitemap gives an overview that lets viewers cut to the chase. However there is more benefit to this approach than just pleasing the viewers. Setting up an HTML sitemap helps the search engines find all of your pages. The search engines like HTML sitemaps because all the links can be picked up from one page plus you gain valuable additional links to your pages. It is important to understand that links on your website to other areas of your website help your search engine ranking. So get it out of your head that you only need one link to your “products” or “services” page. Also, don’t forget to update your HTML sitemap when you add new content to your website. This is a great way to direct site visitors to new content and it lets the search engine spiders know there are additional pages to index.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap on the other hand is not for the viewer. It is a file specifically designed for a search engine spiders. This is one of many tools you need for search engine optimization (SEO) of your site. In order to ensure that the search engines can find all of your content, you want to post an XML sitemap that lists all of the pages you have listed on the HTML sitemap. This too is an important file to keep updated so the search engine spiders find your new pages. It is a roadmap to your content and the search engines look to see if and when you’ve made changes. The more new content you have the more important your site appears to the search engine.
Now there are a lot of methods to boost your listing with the search engines not one of which will accomplish what you need alone, so consider HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps one of many things on your To Do list.
Create an HTML SiteMap
An HTML sitemap is nothing more than a landing page (web page) on your website, where viewers can find all of the pages you want them to find. You can think about this as a family tree or file manager as in Microsoft Windows®. While large websites may dictate multiple pages for an HTML sitemap it is better to put everything on a single web page if you can. Many may be asking why in the world do I need this extra page when I already have a navigation bar? From a viewer perspective if your navigation bar has depth, meaning a single page goes several pages deep, this can be a pain for viewers to get to the page they really want. An HTML sitemap gives an overview that lets viewers cut to the chase. However there is more benefit to this approach than just pleasing the viewers. Setting up an HTML sitemap helps the search engines find all of your pages. The search engines like HTML sitemaps because all the links can be picked up from one page plus you gain valuable additional links to your pages. It is important to understand that links on your website to other areas of your website help your search engine ranking. So get it out of your head that you only need one link to your “products” or “services” page. Also, don’t forget to update your HTML sitemap when you add new content to your website. This is a great way to direct site visitors to new content and it lets the search engine spiders know there are additional pages to index.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap on the other hand is not for the viewer. It is a file specifically designed for a search engine spiders. This is one of many tools you need for search engine optimization (SEO) of your site. In order to ensure that the search engines can find all of your content, you want to post an XML sitemap that lists all of the pages you have listed on the HTML sitemap. This too is an important file to keep updated so the search engine spiders find your new pages. It is a roadmap to your content and the search engines look to see if and when you’ve made changes. The more new content you have the more important your site appears to the search engine.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Eye on the competition
If you are just starting a website or have one that you have neglected in the way of building links, you may be wondering where to start.
There are lots of ways to gain backlinks to your site such as paid links, blog comments, directory’s, social bookmarks, forums, but you need to find the sites to start building your backlinks. This is where your competitors become your best friend. By researching your competitors backlinks you can gain hundreds, even thousands of linking possibilities. One nice clean way to do this is to go to Yahoo.com and search by site:http://www.your-competitors-name.com. As of this writing the results of the type of search you will see a tab for "pages" (their pages) and "inlinks" (links to their website). Inlinks will show you a pattern whether its directories, blogs, paid links or press releases. Now you have the information and information is power. Follow these sites back and investigate how you can get a link back to your website.
Make no mistake this takes time. You will find some sites that let you submit your website address for free and others have a fee. Submitting to blogs and forums or writing articles and press release will take even more time. Keep steady pressure on building links to your site and you will start to see results.
There are lots of ways to gain backlinks to your site such as paid links, blog comments, directory’s, social bookmarks, forums, but you need to find the sites to start building your backlinks. This is where your competitors become your best friend. By researching your competitors backlinks you can gain hundreds, even thousands of linking possibilities. One nice clean way to do this is to go to Yahoo.com and search by site:http://www.your-competitors-name.com. As of this writing the results of the type of search you will see a tab for "pages" (their pages) and "inlinks" (links to their website). Inlinks will show you a pattern whether its directories, blogs, paid links or press releases. Now you have the information and information is power. Follow these sites back and investigate how you can get a link back to your website.
Make no mistake this takes time. You will find some sites that let you submit your website address for free and others have a fee. Submitting to blogs and forums or writing articles and press release will take even more time. Keep steady pressure on building links to your site and you will start to see results.
Forums Blogs and nofollow
Everyone says if you want to build back links to your website, you need to go to the forums and blogs and post comments. While this may be true and valuable, you really need to know about a little thing called "nofollow".
"Nofollow" is an HTML attribute value used more and more to instruct some search engines that a link should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results.
The problem is, if you are making legitimate posts, you are still loosing out by not receiving an indexed link back to your website. So before spending your valuable time on the blogs and forums, make sure your efforts are not lost with the nofollow attribute.
"Nofollow" is an HTML attribute value used more and more to instruct some search engines that a link should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results.
The problem is, if you are making legitimate posts, you are still loosing out by not receiving an indexed link back to your website. So before spending your valuable time on the blogs and forums, make sure your efforts are not lost with the nofollow attribute.
Links by sponsorship
Building links for B2B is tough. But if you want to be found on the search engines, it's something that has to be done. One way to accomplish this is find local organizations that are looking for sponsors. Many of these groups are hungry for donations, so for a potentially small fee/donation they will happily post a link to your website. Some do banners others will provide text links. Banners are nice for visual but text links will provide better results with the search engines.
One of my favorite organizations to sponsor is the Civil Air Patrol. However, there are thousands of options. Below are a few...
- local softball, hockey, etc etc teams.
- Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts
- Church groups
- EAA Chapters (Experimental Aircraft Association)
- Organization events (all of the above)
Sponsoring an organization like this does more that just build links to your website. Aside from doing a good thing with you money, these organizations often will promote your business while promoting their corporate sponsor program and word of mouth is great marketing.
One of my favorite organizations to sponsor is the Civil Air Patrol. However, there are thousands of options. Below are a few...
- local softball, hockey, etc etc teams.
- Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts
- Church groups
- EAA Chapters (Experimental Aircraft Association)
- Organization events (all of the above)
Sponsoring an organization like this does more that just build links to your website. Aside from doing a good thing with you money, these organizations often will promote your business while promoting their corporate sponsor program and word of mouth is great marketing.
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