The traffic statistics page for Robert’s new small business web site starts to load. He scrolls down the page, dismayed. Just one or two visitors daily. Robert sits back and sighs. Most were probably curious friends and family.
When his internet-savvy nephew suggested promoting his small business on the Internet, Robert designed a simple but attractive five-page small business web site. He added meta-tags and keywords, and waited for the search engines.
Robert wonders, “What now?”
Robert’s experience is common among small businesses getting started on the Internet. He has just faced the first big lesson for a small business web site: the web site is not enough. Unlike the weekly advertisement Robert places in the local paper, he needs to promote the web site itself. In a sense, he needs to advertise the advertisement.
What Robert doesn’t realize is that he already has the most valuable asset a small business can leverage online — knowledge and experience. Anyone who runs a small business off-line is an expert on something that other people would like to know about. Writing articles can turn that knowledge into targeted traffic. Article writing is the ideal free method for a small business to promote itself on the Internet.
Every small business has expertise it can share in 500-1,000 word bites. A landscaper could write about the uses for different kinds of turf grass. A window installer can describe new types of energy-efficient windows. A home cleaning service can provide cleaning tips.
Customers ask Robert five questions repeatedly. He can easily write five simple articles to answer them. Then, he just needs to add a “resource box” which advertises and links to his web site.
Robert can also include a few of his web site’s keywords in each article, and, if possible, in his resource box. Robert’s business depends on local customers. Including his city’s name in anecdotes within the articles, or in the resource box, can help his articles to appear in local searches for that city.
Robert would start by uploading his article to a new web page. This gives visitors more to read — and starts to establish Robert as an expert. More importantly, the article becomes “spider bait” for the content-loving search engines to find and index.
He could stop there, but his new article gives him a more valuable opportunity to promote his site.
Next, Robert can offer his article to other web sites. Most article directories accept submissions of articles. They offer those articles for others to use in newsletters or on web sites. A quick search for “article directory” will yield a sizable list of sites that accept article submissions.
Prepared, with a simple text file ready to copy and paste, it takes just minutes to submit an article to an article directory site. Once posted, the article provides a link to Robert’s site. Other webmasters may reprint his article, also linking to his site.
Article marketing is viral, multiplying the links — and visitors — to the author’s site each time an article is republished. Just one popular article can attract a growing number of information-hungry visitors as the article spreads across the Internet.
Many article directories also include new articles in RSS feeds and e-mail announcements to their lists. Robert doesn’t even need his own e-mail list or feed to advertise his web site to readers of his article.
Finally, if Robert has more time, he can search for “ezine directories” to find newsletters that accept articles and offer his article directly to them. If he is willing to spend some money, he could use article submission services.
Over time, the growing number of links to a web site can improve its “link popularity” and Page Rank. As the site rises in the search engine rankings, it attracts even more visitors.
Articles spread those all-important links across the Internet without the tedious process of sending out link exchange requests (often declined or ignored). Better still, webmasters who reprint articles rarely ask for reciprocal links back to their own sites.
The benefit of writing an article builds over time, yet articles require no ongoing maintenance once they are written and submitted. Other options like newsletters, blogs, and forums can demand more upkeep than a small business can afford.
Best of all, articles can remain up on web sites indefinitely, driving free traffic immediately — and long-term. Most other kinds of advertising stay posted only as long as they are paid for. An article’s “views,” “reprints,” and “click-throughs” can increase — without increasing advertising costs.
Writing articles is a powerful way to leverage a small business’ expertise, transforming it into traffic. The currency of the Internet, information, makes advertising a small business web site affordable. Promoting with articles can jump-start the online presence of a small business and continue to market it for a long time to come.
(c) 2006 Wendy MakiMay be reprinted in email newsletters and on web sites. Must be unedited and include the resource box. All other rights reserved.
Archive for March, 2010
Jump Starting a Small Business Presence Online
Category Small Business
Is the Age of Entertainment Upon Us?
Category Entertainment
Are we no longer in the Information Age?Are we destined to be “gamers”?Whether you’re in marketing — particularly the digital side — or just looking for a job in marketing and related fields, you may have noticed the growing emphasis on entertainment. Entertainment activities becoming more the focus of our digital and offline lives.
And, as you’d expect, entertainment marketing seems to be following that growth. I don’t mean entertainment marketing as in promoting movies, actors and actresses. I’m talking about entertainment marketing for the sake of having fun with a brand wrapped around that fun.
The traditional, age-old tactics of marketing to customers and prospects via one-way communications is falling by the wayside. Ads of all type. Direct mail. Mass-distributed news releases. Yes, they will always have a place – some place – but those tactics of marketing communications are becoming a smaller part of the total marketing effort. Today’s successful marketing is individually-focused and better targeted to people’s own interests. Mass marketing is slowing going the way of the dinosaur.
The strong potential of wrapping marketing around entertainment first hit me a couple years ago after reading an article in BusinessWeek. Here is an excerpt:
We’ve all read a lot about viral videos and how to create them. Of course, the main aspect of viral videos is their entertainment value. No one will share a commercial with friends and family – unless they see it as entertaining first and foremost. Any marketing push in the video must be secondary and indirect.
But, a successful viral video is not easy to develop and is not right for marketing every company, product or service.
The trick in the entertainment and marketing combination is to develop some level of connection with your audience. Create tools, services and experiences that complement your company, products or services while being part of your customers and prospects’ entertainment habits and interests.
One good example of this approach is Southwest Airlines. According to a June 26, 2008, MediaPost Marketing Daily story, Southwest Airlines “has signed on to sponsor the Midnight Gaming Championship (MGC) 2008 video gaming season to capture mindshare from tomorrow’s professionals, now ages 16 through 25….The marketing message tied to the sponsorship focuses on educating consumers about several Southwest services such as the downloadable computer desktop widget ‘Ding’ that offers exclusive fares on flights; along with the company’s weekly email, Click ‘n’ Save, that reaches 6.9 million subscribers; and Rapid Rewards.”
Southwest Airlines is marketing its services that are tied to the interests and habits of its targeted 16-25 years of age demographics. There’s a connection between what Southwest is pushing and its audiences’ habits.
There are other ways to connect marketing messages with customers and prospects’ lifestyle. One is video – and not on TV. The use of online video is becoming more and more popular. And, video is being used for entertainment purposes more and more, according to a June 25, 2008, eMarketer article. Based on a study it conducted, Solutions Research Group “predicted that total hours with video-based entertainment would grow by nearly one-third to an average of about eight hours per day by early 2013.”
Another key stat from the eMarketer article is the trend to online rather than offline video:
Marketing is evolving to have companies become connected with their audience much more so than just communicating to them. And, as more of the audience members are focusing on entertainment, it’s up to the marketers and communicators for companies to develop ways to connect brands with their audience around their entertainment preferences.
Crack Your Case With the Help of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (clnc)
Category Legal
There are times when a case deals with issues that are pertaining to medicine. No matter the extent of your legal knowledge, you will never be able to win your case if you know very little about medical cases. There are only a handful of lawyers that are capable of reading the medical records of a client or comprehending medical terminologies. This is where Certified Legal Nurse Consultants enter the scene. They are the ones that help lawyers understand the complexity of cases that require the comprehension of medical records. Since most of the knowledge of an attorney is about legal issues, the help of a legal nurse is greatly needed for such cases. If you are a lawyer who is seeking legal nurse consulting, the best place to look for certain services is online. One website that offers CLNC services is Nurse Legals Consulting.
Aside from looking into the medical records and reviewing their contents, Certified Legal Nurse Consultants also determine care standards that might be applicable for the case. Another common service that legal nurses offer is the development of case timelines and chronologies. They prepare reports about the level of sickness or injury, as with reports regarding the extent of damage or causation. They are also tasked to research on the different medical issues of the case. Sometimes, a legal nurse may be asked to stand as an expert witness. But most of the times, the legal nurse is responsible for locating witnesses that may be of help to the case.
If you want to broaden your nursing career and get into CLNC profession, there are numerous courses that you have to enroll in first. When you graduate from these courses, you will be given certification for the training and education that you have taken up. Being a certified legal nurse means that you will be able to assist a lawyer attend to a case, specifically cases that need in-depth medical comprehension. Your knowledge and training is greatly required to help the case get the fair judgment that it needs. Certified Legal Nurse Consultants earn $125 to $150 for each hour of their service. They are depended on for cases that deal with medical issues like medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury, workers’ salary or compensation, criminal, or toxic tort.
Through Nurse Legals Consulting, which is a website that offers CLNC services, attorneys will get the medical research assistance that they need. The legal nurses of the site are capable of providing you with sound decisions that will help you build a stronger case. Nurse Legals Consulting provides a broad selection of services, which are fitted for and your client’s needs. Plus, its Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are experts with legal medical cases. Other than the preparation of facts and evidences for the case, the legal nurses of the website provides careful analysis over all the aspects of the case.
As a lawyer, you may not be that informed regarding medical research and terms. If your case deals with such, you require professional CLNC help. Legal nurses have clear and logical explanations or arguments that are in favor or against the case you are working on. Nurse Legals Consulting have been offering its services for plenty of years already. This means that it is capable of providing you with the most suitable services that will help you win your case.