Key factors to combine within the SEO Project Plan are as follows

September 29th, 2009

Key factors to combine within the SEO Project Plan are as follows;

Domain Name – Short names are easier to remember ! Include short Primary Keywords ! without hyphens were possible.

Domain Extension – .com or .net For the Global Market. Use .co.uk for UK Country specific traffic

Host Location – If your attracting UK business host in the UK.

URL Names – include relevant keywords – unique to each page.

Robots.txt – A file which permits or denies access to robots or crawlers to areas of your site.

Navigation Structure – Keep it simple.

Meta Tags – Title and Description. – Unique detail for each page, related to page content.

H1 Tags – Use for the short on page content description.

H2 and H3 Tags- Use for Headings for sub category’s within the Content

Page Content – Critical Component.

Keyword Visibility – Within page Content.

Image Alt Tags – Helps with Accessibility.

Privacy Policy – Assures trust and confidentiality.

The site should confirm to the W3C standards.

Create and submit sitemap’s – formatted in either .xml -.htm – .txt.

Create and submit RSS feeds to relevant feed directory’s

Create and submit Articles

Find relevant websites within the same market sector or niche and form a link partnership.

Submit your website to relevant or industry related directory’s.

A link exchange should be formed by utilizing relevant keyword Anchor Text.

Utilize relevant Social Networks and Forums related to your Market Sector.

Utilize Blog sites relevant to your Market Sector.

Posted in SEO and WebMaster | No Comments »

Web Content and Writing Tips :These tips are a great starting point for anyone wanting to optimize their website content

September 12th, 2009

If the visitor is starting the conversation and the average time spent on the homepage is 30 seconds, you have to capture their attention… fast.
Overall Tips for Web Content:

* Mesh your business goals with the visitors’ goals
* Visitor is not looking for a document, he is looking for information
* Don’t focus on YOU, how wonderful you are, your mission statement, etc
* Don’t put a lot of words on the page, put the right words on the page
* Respect visitors’ time: use short paragraphs, lists, visuals

Content Writing Tips:

* Use language appropriate to the visitor based on the target audience
* Heat maps show an F pattern is used when scanning content, so using bold headings and sub-headings to make it easier to scan and break up copy
* Change paragraphs to bulleted lists
* Put the main point first (inverted pyramid)
* Use personal pronouns
* Put yourself in the place of the visitor and consider questions the visitor may have, then get to the point with the answer
* Add links, if appropriate, to keep the visitor engaged on your site and to keep them from searching elsewhere
* Name links (and anchor text) in a way that the visitor will know what to expect when they click
* Find out what keywords visitors are searching for to reach your site and write with these keywords in mind

These tips are a great starting point for anyone wanting to optimize their website content.

Posted in SEO and WebMaster | No Comments »

keep fresh, interesting content on your site

September 11th, 2009

In order to drive consistent traffic to your site you must give people a reason to visit, to stay, and to return. The best way to do this is to keep fresh, interesting content on your site.

Here are three tips that will help you keep your web content from going stale.
Well, here’s a bit of tough love on this:  keeping your website in tip-top shape is your job …not an interruption of it.  If it’s hard for you to find time to generate fresh, relevant content for your site,

Second point:  it’s not your job alone, but the whole company’s.  HR should “own” the Careers and perhaps Management Bios sections …and therefore the responsibility for keeping them updated;  Finance, the Investors section;  Product Management or Marketing, the Products area …and so on.

* Post material done for other reasons.  These include press releases and an archive of your email newsletter …which every B2B should be doing to nurture its leads, anyway.  White papers and technical articles fall into this category also;  you should be doing them anyway in order to establish your firm’s thought leadership.
* Make sure product areas are up to date.  Sure it’s obvious, but it’s amazing how many companies fall down here.  You don’t “forget” to update your product;  how then can you forget to update your prospect’s likely first view of it??  The secret is to make it a last step in the formal release checklist, just like the product documentation.  85 % of the content will be generated somewhere in the process anyway;  it’s mostly a simple matter of polishing after that.
* Start a blog.  Not only will this force new content creation, it’s also a great way to interact with customers/prospects who write comments to your postings.  And again, you don’t have to do it all:  enlist multiple contributors and publish a schedule.
* Go beyond the text.  Content isn’t only copy;  it can be photos, illustrations, podcasts and video, too.  Add some of these to your most “dry & dusty” sections, and you’ll have a more engaging – as well as fresher – site.
* Post copies of e-newsletters. That e-mail newsletter that you send out monthly or quarterly? Be sure to post a copy of it as a Web page on your site. Create an archive page with links to past e-newsletters. Don’t forget to include an offer on those pages inviting people to subscribe to future e-newsletters.
* Import a blog (that you update regularly) on the first page people visit when entering your site. Your blog can be about your business or industry news in general; it could even announce an upcoming event or recent news.
* Embed your Twitter feed in a prominent place on your site. The information you post on your business’ Twitter account is helpful to both your current followers and to prospective clients. Plus, its placement on your website shows visitors the importance you place on engaging with others.
* rotating elements,One great way to give visitors something new to see each time they visit your site, especially if you don’t post as often as you’d like, is to put in some rotating elements. There are tons of great plugins available for WordPress and other bits of simple code that make it easy to jazz things up a bit on your site.
* Adding RSS Feeds,RSS is a method that has been used by many webmasters and publishers to publish information and news online.The readers then be able to read the information and the news with their RSS readers. But many webmasters also use RSS feeds from other webmasters to provide dynamic contents on their own websites.

# Don’t discourage web visitors from coming back to your website by never having new content to share.
# Remember to delete old news and stale information on a regular basis.

Posted in SEO and WebMaster | No Comments »

Internet Reputation Management

August 7th, 2009

Internet Reputation Management
In today’s world, most people who are looking for a particular company or type of company use search engines such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN to conduct their research. They are influenced by the information found on the first page of the results, and typically don’t look much further. If your business is associated with negative information and it’s found on that first page, that customer is guaranteed to move on to someone else.

Brand Reputation Management
Brand Reputation Management is the art of making a good impression on potential customers. It is the process of developing the right image or identity for your company in search engines.
Brand refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme that convey the essence of a company, product or service.
Where two products resemble each other, people often select the more expensive brand based on the quality of the the brands reputation.

Brighten your Online Image.
Brand reputation management is the buzz and can be successfully done with the help of search engine optimization. By providing better ranking of pro-brand sites and lowering the ranks of negative sites you achieve better brand management.
A brand reputation management company typically provides search engine optimization focused on your brand name, executives names, and other key phrases. Basically, services include monitoring the Internet for negative postings along with proactive and reactive brand reputation management strategies.
Competitor Complaints
Some complaint sites may be run by a competing company or its employees.
In addition to disgruntled employees and consumers, companies may face Internet sites backed by environmental or other activist groups seeking to promote their political causes.

Power of the Web
Much to the annoyance of company administrators, Internet complaint web sites have become the tool of choice for irritated customers, disgruntled employees, political activists and anyone else to air their bellyaches economically and effectively. Concealed by anonymity and powered by a worldwide audience, Internet complainers can impose chaos on your Brand.

Brand Reputation Management is Critical
Brand Reputation Management is critical when considering fiscal implications. Brand Reputation Management through analyzing and influencing search engine results, can prevent the loss of business or career and ensure ongoing success for you and your Company.

Posted in Brand Management | No Comments »

Tips, Tools, and Resources for Reputation Management

August 7th, 2009

With the advent of online tools that make it easy to share information, meet new people and keep in touch faster than ever, reputation has taken on a twofold dimension. Individuals and businesses no longer have to worry about their reputation in real life but in the virtual world as well, making it twice as hard to keep up with what’s being said. There are some ways that you can work to manage your online reputation, however, whether you’re doing it for yourself or for your business. These resources provide tips and tools to make it easier to track, control and manage your online reputation so you stay on top and in control of your personal and professional image.

Tips

Here are some general tips to consider when managing your online reputation.

  1. Create official online profiles. Don’t let just anyone talk about you online. Create your own profiles and websites complete with the kind of information you actually want to be available about you.
  2. Check what people are saying about you online. Whether good or bad you can do yourself a favor by finding out just what is being said about you online. Use some of the tools mentioned later in this article to keep yourself in the loop.
  3. Stay on the ball. Don’t get lazy about monitoring your reputation. If necessary, perform monthly checks to see if there’s any information about you that could be potentially harmful.
  4. Google yourself. The simplest way to find out where your or your company’s online reputation stands is to Google yourself. See what kind of results pop up first. If they aren’t what they’d like them to be, you’ve got some work to do.
  5. Assume everything can get on the web. Both in your personal and professional life, what you say online and off can come back to bite you. Be safe and assume any emails, conversations or photos out there can eventually end up on the Web.
  6. Choose your words carefully. If you are blogging, running a website or just have a social media profile, be careful what you post. Unless you’re looking for controversy what you say may cause you problems in the future.
  7. Know your weaknesses. If you know your business has a particular weakness or are just familiar with your propensity for getting wild on the weekend, keep this in mind and have it as your top priority for checking on your online reputation.
  8. Protect yourself from hackers. This may seem like it goes without saying, but many people fail to adequately secure their online information. Make sure yours is as safe as it possibly can be.
  9. Keep social networks private. One way to deter prying eyes is to keep your social networking profiles private to all except those you approve. This will keep casual viewers from seeing your information, good or bad.
  10. Consider pseudonyms.If you do want to keep a blog or engage in hijinks on internet message boards, create a name for yourself to hide behind so you can’t be easily tracked.
  11. Be proactive. Instead of waiting until you have an issue with your online reputation, stay ahead of the game. Search for what’s being said about you regularly so you’ll stay up-to-date.
  12. Act fast. If you do find something said or posted about you online that you feel could be particularly damaging to you, take action immediately. Whether its your friend posting photos from your Vegas trip or someone you don’t know slandering your business, taking care of it sooner rather than later is best.
  13. Keep your cool. You may be incensed at what someone has said about you online, but don’t let it show. Keep your anger to yourself and off the internet where it can do more harm than good.

Reputation Management Articles

These articles provide some useful and informative reading material for anyone wanting to know more about online reputation both for businesses and individuals.

  1. Protect Your Online Reputation: This article from SEO Chat lays out some basics for monitoring and protecting your online reputation.
  2. Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation: The CEO of Trakur gives some great advice in this Mashable article on how your company can avoid reputation meltdown.
  3. How to Manage Your Online Reputation: This article goes through a number of tools and how to use them to keep your reputation intact.
  4. Social Networks Become Powerful Tool in Online Reputation Management: Find out how social networks are playing a bigger role than ever in online reputation from this short article.
  5. How to Create Online Reputation Tools for Your Brand: Worried about the online component of your company’s brand? This article gives some advice on creating custom tools to monitor and control your online rep.
  6. Online Reputation Handbook: You’ll find just about everything you ever wanted to know about online reputation in this helpful handbook.
  7. Manage Your Online Reputation: Lifehacker gives some great tips and pointers, as well as links to tools that can help you get control of your reputation.
  8. How To Protect, Fix Your Online Reputation: From keeping problems from arising to fixing them when they do, this article is full of helpful advice.
  9. Using Social Media to Manage Online Reputation: Find out how social media can be a help, not just a hindrance, to online reputation.
  10. Basics of Online Reputation Management: Here you’ll learn the basics of getting your online reputation in order.
  11. Managing Your Reputation Online: Technology Review provides this informative article that can help you understand and take action when it comes to your virtual reputation.
  12. Online Reputation Management for Individuals: Online reputation isn’t just a concern for businesses, and this article explains how individuals can keep their name in good standing as well.

Personal Identity Reputation Management

These tools can help you manage your numerous online profiles, monitor your personal reputation and more.

  1. ClaimID: Check out this program that uses OpenID to manage your personal identity over several sites, meaning you only have to remember the password for one, not numerous ones.
  2. FindMeOn: Want to connect your identity over several sites? FindMeOn lets you do that while keeping your information private and secure.
  3. FreeYourID: Make maintaining your online identity easy, with this tool that bases it directly on your name.
  4. Garlik: If you’re worried that your identity may be more than marred and straight out stolen, give this tool a try. You’ll be able to search for mentions of you on the web that might involve identity theft.
  5. myOpenID: Don’t worry about having multiple logins with this OpenID site.
  6. SpyShakers: Try this tool to get access to any of your profile passwords remotely. It specializes in protecting your information from spyware.
  7. TypeKey: TypeKey allows you to integrate your blog into your OpenID, allowing you to manage pretty much everything with one main profile.
  8. Realmee: Here you can create a personal profile that will allow you to more easily control what others can see of you online.
  9. LookUpPage: Want to control what people find when they search for you? This site helps out, by giving you a central page that comes up at the top when your name is searched for.
  10. MonitorThis: Try out this site to monitor and track keywords over multiple search engines, giving you clues about who’s talking about you.

Professional Identity Reputation Management

Keep your business’ name out of the mud by protecting it with these helpful tools.

  1. Trust-Index: Find out how well your business is trusted with this tool.
  2. Google Alerts: With Google Alerts you can get email updates of the latest google results based on your name or other topic of your choosing.
  3. BoardTracker: Whether you post on boards yourself or want to see if anyone else is talking about you, this tool makes it easy to filter to threads.
  4. Vanno: Get an online reputation the democratic way, with this site that allows others to vote on the stories, videos and blogs about your company.
  5. Serph: Use this search tool to look up your company and find out just what kind of buzz is going around the web about your company.
  6. Searchles: This social search engine can help you keep up with the news out about your business.
  7. Omgili: Search through the numerous forums out there to find out what people are saying about you using this helpful tool.
  8. BoardReader: This tool is especially useful, allowing users to search through forums, videos, Twitter conversations, IMDB and more.
  9. Joongel: Zoom in on the type of media you’d like to search with this online tool. Choose from videos, photos, shopping sites, and more.
  10. Techrigy: This company makes it easier and simpler to monitor your business’ reputation online.
  11. Keotag: Match blogs with tags that reflect talk about your business or related topics using this tool.
  12. UpdatePatrol: This tool makes it easy to watch websites for updates and changes, which can sometimes be useful when you want to know what a particular site is saying about you.

Blog Tools for Reputation Management

With the great proliferation of blogs out there, it’s worth your time to keep track of what’s being said about you on them. These tools make it easy and convenient to do just that.

  1. Zuula: If you want to get posts just from blogs, try out this search engine. Users can also limit results to photos or videos.
  2. SezWho: Follow who’s important in the blogging world and what they may be saying about you with this tool. Also useful to find out where your personal blog may stand.
  3. Technorati: Whether you’re blogging personally or professionally, listing your blog with Technorati can be a big help in managing your online reputation. You’ll get updates whenever someone links to your blog so you can keep tabs on what people are saying about you or your business.
  4. BackType: BackType is a service that lets you find, follow, and share comments from across the Web, allowing you to keep track of where you’ve been and what you’ve said on blogs.
  5. TweetBeep: TweetBeep will let you keep track of conversations on Twitter than mention you or your business or anything else you’d like to track.
  6. co.mments: When you sign up for an account with this site you’ll be able to track comments and conversations that can influence your online reputation.
  7. Blogpulse: Keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogging world, especially in relation to your business using the tools offered on this site.
  8. Trendpedia: For businesses, this can be a valuable tool to track when and what your business is getting attention for and how you’re doing compared to your competitors.
  9. Twist: Twist allows users to compare mentions of several different topics and view recent tweets about each one, making it easy to track info about businesses.
  10. monitter: This tool lets you do much the same as Twist, but you can monitor topics in real-time or by geographic region.
  11. Buzzlogic: Track buzz in the blogging world with this site, and find out just who’s word matters when it comes to blogs.

Reputation Management Profile Management

These tools make it easier to keep track of your social networking profiles and your online reputation in turn.

  1. Comwat: Use Comwat to organize your social networking profiles into one so that its easier for others to find and easier to control what they see.
  2. onXiam: Here you can establish a central online identity, use this identity to link up all your other sites, and even promote this new online location as well.
  3. OtherEgo: Show off everything that you’re involved in on the net through this centralized site.
  4. Zoolit: Check out this landing page service that makes it super easy to manage all the social networks you’ve been using.
  5. Venyo: From lengthy blogs to simple comments, this site allows you to access everything you’ve done online, building up a trustworthy reputation at the same time.
  6. ProfileMat: Pull all your existing online profiles together into a “mat” and allow users to comment on this new singular profile instead.
  7. SimplifID: This site allows users to organize the online world by creating one central place you can access your blogs, social networking sites and more, allowing you to categorize it by type of viewer.
  8. SocialURL: Here you can connect all your online identities by linking your social networking profiles to one URL.
  9. ProfileBuilder: Want to create a professional looking profile using material from your existing social networks? This site lets you do just that, keeping or blocking the elements you choose and giving you a super useful home page to visit.

Reputation Management

These tools allow you to hunt down what’s being said about you and find out just what others think of you or your business.

  1. Naymz: Give this site a try to get feedback from people you’ve worked with, customers and friends.
  2. Rapleaf: Here you can look up your personal or professional reputation, rate other people and businesses and get your own ratings.
  3. RepVine: Using a search engine is the easiest way for people who want to know about you to find out more. This site helps you to control what they find when they do this.
  4. Keotag: Manage the blogsphere with this site that allows users to find tagged blog posts over several blog search engines.
  5. TrustPl.us: Are you trustworthy? This site works by analyzing your or more like your business’ trust scores and giving you a ranking.
  6. FriendFeed: Whether you want to keep up with what your friends are looking at or keep up with what’s being said about you personally, this site is a useful tool.
  7. Social Media Fire Hose: This helpful tool tracks your name, brand or product across sites like Digg, FriendFeed and others that specialize in social media.
  8. Radian6: This tool makes it easier to monitor social media, often to the benefit of businesses who can use the information to their advantage to build better reputations and products.
  9. Cision: For a fee, this tool can help you monitor “100 million blogs, tens of thousands of online forums, and over 450 leading rich media sites.”
  10. Web of Trust: Ensure your website is considered trusted by joining up with this site. After all, no one wants to be associated with a dangerous site– it’s just bad for business.

General Reputation Management Tools

If you haven’t already, bookmark these sites which can be a big help in maintaining your reputation positively online.

  1. Digg: Check out Digg regularly to see if anyone has submitted stories about your or your business.
  2. Reddit: Similar to Digg, this site will allow you to see how much interest there is you on the Web.
  3. delicious: This social bookmarking site is a good place to see if your webpage or information about you or your business is being passed around by others.
  4. Flickr: Think there may be some less-than-impressive photos of you out there? Trying searching this photo site to see if you come up.
  5. Facebook: Facebook can be a great place to network, just make sure you keep your profile free from things you wouldn’t want spread about you.
  6. MySpace: With millions of visitors, this popular social networking site can be a great place to get your and your business’ name out there.
  7. LinkedIn: Here you can create a professional profile that will allow you to interact with others in your profession in a safe and positive manner.
  8. Google: There’s no easier way to find out what your online reputation is than to do a simple Google search.
  9. Rollyo: If you want a more customized option for searching, try out this great search engine that you can tailor to your online reputation finding needs.
  10. Furl: Another social bookmarking site, here you can track who’s interested in your sites.
  11. Twitter: Whether you want to communicate with others or track the buzz about you on the net, Twitter is an essential tool.
  12. Wordpress: If you’re going to start a blog to be the face of you or your company, this site makes it easy to do so.

Posted in Brand Management | No Comments »

Reputation Management Techniques

August 7th, 2009

Need negative information removed for your Company search results? Want a WebSite that can be found on search engines? Tired of other companies stealing your leads because of their search engine placement? We create management free sales and lead generation systems employing Reputation Management techniques. These strategies offer long-term increases in qualified visitors and traffic to your website. We perform White Hat Internet Reputation Recovery, Search Engine Reputation Management, Online Identity Management, Brand Reputation Management and Online Reputation Management.

Reputation Management Services: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Social Media Viral Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Online Reputation Management (ORM), Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) , Online Identity Management (OIM), Brand Reputation Management, Internet Reputation Management, Web Reputation Management, Link, Backlink, RSS Feed Building, Reputation Monitoring, Online Slander Removal, Libel Removal, Defamation Removal, Reputation Recovery.

Search Engine Reputation Management
Online Identity Management
Online Reputation Management
Social Media Reputation Management
Reputation Monitoring Services
Search Engine Reputation Marketing
Brand Reputation Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM):
Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) involves both search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Unhappy consumers, political groups, competitors and disgruntled employees may have an interest in posting negative information about you and your company. We take control of search engine results employing optimization as well as marketing to manage and control damaged corporate identities and reputations on the internet.

Online Identity Management (OIM):
Our Online Identity Management (OIM) service offers all necessary aspects needed to fulfill a successful, ongoing identity management campaign. Starting with strategy creation to implementation through reporting and measurement, our solutions encompass the needs of any online identity management campaign. Online identity management (OIM) is a set of methods for generating a distinguished presence of a person or brand on the Internet. That presence could be reflected in any kind of content that refers to the person or brand.

Online Reputation Management (ORM):
Online Reputation Management, or ORM in short, is about managing your reputation on the Internet. Protecting your online reputation or brand is getting more important everyday as more and more people base their buying decision on what they read on the Internet.

Online Reputation Management (ORM) involves both marketing and public relations along with search engine marketing. Visibility and high search engine indexing with good publicity which displaces negative publicity is the goal. This results in a increase in positive web presence, helping you own top spots in search engine rankings. Online Reputation Management enables you to protect and manage your reputation and brand becoming actively involved in the outcome of search engine results. Reputation Monitoring research and analysis may also be considered Online Reputation Management.

Social Media Reputation Recovery (SMO):
Viral Marketing, Viral advertising and Social Media Optimization (SMO) use social networks to place your brand, product or service in front of the the networking community to improve your online reputation. If you desire Brand Reputation Management through social media websites please contact us.

Reputation Monitoring Services:
We offer Comprehensive, Automated Reputation Monitoring Products. Learn who is talking about you, your brand, company or products on websites, videos, news, blogs and social networks.

Search Engine Reputation Marketing (SEM):
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is important for businesses which sell goods and services online or who use their websites to generate sales leads. Goals for Internet Reputation Marketing include building a brand, brand management, building up reputation, causing media coverage, and driving traffic to physical business locations. Organizations such as non-profits and political parties also use Web Reputation Marketing to promote ideas.

Brand Reputation Optimization (SEO):
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of methods used to improve (or reduce) the position of a website in internet search engines, and is a subpart of Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM). The quality of a lead you receive through organic search engine placement is very high. When someone searches for your keyword(s) and finds your site, there is an excellent possibility they are a rock-solid lead. When searchers find your site they have intention to acquire the product you offer. Organic placement through Brand Reputation Optimization is beneficial both for your Company and your bottom line.

Posted in Brand Management | No Comments »

What Is A Brand?

August 7th, 2009

Creating a brand is one of the most important things that you’ll do in the establishment of your small business. But defining what “brand” means can be a tricky task. There are so many different approaches to branding a business and so many elements of a brand. The most accurate definition I know is:

A brand is the collection of perceptions that your customer has about your business.

Here’s another definition from Wikipedia that goes a little more in-depth into all of the facets of a brand:

In marketing, a brand is the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images or symbols. It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people. Such people include employees of the brand owner, people involved with distribution, sale or supply of the product or service, and ultimate consumers.

This definition usually makes a small business owner feel rather powerless over their brands. Since, in its’ simplest definition, a brand is created in your customers’ mind — from their perspective and experiences, it may seem that there isn’t a lot that you can do to shape or control the outcome. For example, if a customer has a bad experience, or happens to be in a bad mood when they work with you, there’s a good chance that their impression of your company will be less than favorable. However, there are a lot of actions that you can take to influence and to help shape your customers’ thoughts about your business, and to work towards making those more positive.

Let’s start by looking at how large enterprises approach “branding.” Enterprises typically devote a rather substantial budget to “brand-building.” Generally, the process of brand-building begins with hiring big thinking branding consultants to define a business’s brand. Then, focus groups are conducted with current and potential customers to make sure that the branding is on the right track. After the branding has been refined, corporate messaging will be developed to reinforce the brand, and a brand identity will be designed to visually communicate about the brand. Many enterprises will also put together an advertising and/or public relations campaign to spread the word about their brand and to gain some brand recognition. There are many more activities that large businesses can do to build brand awareness and to create equity in their brands.

But this approach makes branding a particularly difficult task for a small business. Small businesses typically do not have the budget for research, high-priced consultants, and nationwide ad campaigns. And rarely do they have the time or internal resources to devote to the creation and management of a brand. On top of all of this, many of those tasks just aren’t appropriate to help small businesses create the results that they need with their brands.

I typically condense small business branding to a much more compact—and economical—package:

  • Brand Definition: This is the process of defining your business: Who you are, what you do, who you can best help, and what makes you different from your competition. You must have all of these factors well-defined to create an effective brand. If your thoughts in all of these areas aren’t clear, concise, and well-put, then you can’t hope to effectively direct your customers’ thoughts about your business. Worse yet, you might wind up looking like you have “multiple personality syndrome,” which can thoroughly confuse your customers.
  • Brand Identity: also known as the graphic “face” of your business. Small businesses certainly benefit from creating a logo and a consistent set of marketing materials. Forty percent of people better remember what they see as opposed to what they hear or read. So having an iconic logo and a strong visual vocabulary used throughout your materials greatly increases your business’s memorability — and makes it more likely that your customers will think about you. The colors, fonts, and symbols that you use throughout your Brand Identity can also communicate your Brand Definition to your customers in a visual way that’s more powerful than using words alone.
  • Brand Messaging: This is the way that you talk about your business. What is the main message that you want to tell people about your business? What do you want them to remember about you, and how would you like them to pass the word along to others they meet? You can influence many of the thoughts that your customers have about you, and how they talk about you, by having consistent messaging in your marketing materials.
  • Brand Service: This is how you perform your tasks, relate to your customers, and deliver your products or services. Customer service is a part of a company’s brand that’s often overlooked, because it’s not seen as a part of an advertising or marketing campaign. But with the definition of a brand being so customer-focused, keep in mind that the way that you serve your customers is one of your biggest points of contact with them and the experience can really shape their opinions. Make sure that your service and business practices are in-line with your brand, whether you’re relating to existing clients or new prospects.

If you address all four of these branding points in your small business, and keep your customers in mind throughout your brand-building efforts, your brand will be an effective way for you to form a connection with your clients and prospects, and will make your business stronger.

“If you can build a powerful brand, you will have a powerful marketing program. If you CAN’T then all the advertising, fancy packaging, sales promotion and public relations in the world won’t help you achieve your objective.”

- Al Ries and Laura Ries

Why Branding?

External: Branding seeks to distinguish your company, product or service from the competition and create a lasting impression in your prospect’s mind.

“People want to express themselves through brands – brands express a person’s personality and the people they like to be with.”

– Jack Trout

Brand Management Services are:

Brand Management

Brand Strategy

Market Research

Brand Implementation

Corporate Identity

Product Development

Multilingual Branding

Brand Architecture

Posted in Brand Management | No Comments »

Improve Your Marketing During The Summer

August 7th, 2009

Ah, the lazy days of summer. Time to play in the sun, hang out with your friends, and have the kids home from school. Or maybe it’s time for a barbeque or a trip to the beach. And then there’s always summer vacation to take up a bit more time…

All those summertime activities can mean a slow-down for small businesses. Even if you, as a small business owner, are not the one doing the lazing about!

Your clients may be too preoccupied with their kids home for the summer to really get down to business (especially if your target audience is stay-at-home moms!). They may be distracted by social events, and unable to focus on spending time on reviewing the project or creating any client-side deliverables (or to even get around to reviewing vendors and making a hiring decision). They may just be out of town, on a much-needed vacation and not answering your emails and voicemails.

What’s a small business to do? Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that you don’t still need clients (unless you’re distracted by kids out of school or lucky enough to be going on vacation as well!) Here are some ideas to help get some momentum going in your business when things slow down:

1. Create and promote a quick and easy way that clients can work with you. Package up a small, in-demand portion of your services and make it easy for people to buy. Consider making this a project that has limited client deliverables, so that the client does not have to give you much information to get the project started. That way, frazzled clients who don’t have a ton of time to go through the custom-quoting process, or to figure out how they can use your services, will have an easy answer — and will be more likely to buy.

Once you’ve created this package of services or products, create marketing materials so that you can tell people about the package. After all, no one can buy your package if they don’t know that it exists! Make a flyer to take to networking events and to distribute to any marketing partners you may have. Post the package on your website, in your blog and on your newsletter. If you have a postal mailing list, then create a postcard and send that out to your prospects.

2. Take the time to update your website. It’s always helpful (not just in slow times) to make sure that your website is current and that it’s talking about the things that you’re promoting in your business now — so that when you give out your cards at a networking event, and people decide to research your business online, they are getting accurate information.

This can be as easy as creating a “what’s new” page or section on the home page and updating that occasionally. However, if you haven’t updated your site in a while, you may want to review all of the content and make sure that it’s still applicable to your current business offerings, methodology, and target audience. If this is the case, you may want to make the task less daunting by tackling the site a page or two at a time instead of trying to edit all of the text in one session.

3. Improve your search engine ranking. Refreshing your website content — and doing that with search engine optimization in mind — can help with your search engine rankings. If you improve your search engine ranking, then you can get more clients — or potential clients who sign up for your newsletter – through your website.

Do this by improving your headlines and title tags to have keyword-rich phrases in them. And then think about what you want the visitor to do once they’re on your site, and make that clear and easy to do.

4. Make your marketing more strategic. This may mean being more strategic and planning out your marketing calendar for the rest of the year. If you have a strategy, it can help make your marketing more effective by making it more organized for your customers.

For example, if you publish an online newsletter, take the time to figure out what services you’d like to promote at which times of the year, and then plan out article topics to support those promotions.

5. Get ahead in your marketing. As a follow-on to the point above, if you have the time, you may take planning one step further into execution — which means writing your newsletter and getting them all formatted for release (Code them into HTML, or upload them into your template in your email program, for example. Or, pre-write some posts for your blog and schedule them to go out in the future.) That way, while you’re busy, after your marketing has worked and brought in clients, you’ll have your marketing program all set up and ready to go with a small amount of effort.

This may also mean getting some pieces designed so that you can better promote yourself and your company. If you have some time, you will be more able to focus on writing the text for any marketing materials you may create (like a brochure or website). And, you’ll be able to focus on working with a designer to get the pieces designed. Then, you can get them printed and start promoting!

6. Make your marketing more “Do-It-Yourself”. Take the marketing piece that you use or refer your clients to most often, and make it something that can grow with your company — and that you don’t have to take back to your designer every time you want to make an edit. Make it so that you can easily update it, work with it, and make changes to it.

For example, you may ask your website designer to hook up your website so that you have access to change the text on it easily. Or, you may start up a blog so that you can regularly write about your business. You may choose to take this time to learn more about your newsletter sending service and its’ capabilities — or to train yourself how to set up your own items in your shopping cart. Or, set up a customizable flyer as a Word document, with an eye-catching header with your logo in it, and editable text. That way, you can customize your own flyer as you create different promotions, or go to different networking events — and not have to pay for every change.

So, if you don’t have the luxury of being (or the inclination to be) lazy in your business this summer, those ideas should keep you busy improving your marketing, and getting readier for busier times. They should also help you land a few customers who are still in “business mode” to keep the momentum going in your business.

Posted in Technical & Business | No Comments »

How To Sell Your Products and Services Online

August 7th, 2009

Just imagine waking up, checking your email and discovering that you’ve made money while you were asleep. Someone went to your website, bought a product or service package, and paid with their credit card. And now, the money is in your account. This not only means that you made money, but you probably managed to make the sale with very little sales effort.

This may sound a bit incredible or far-fetched, or even like a cliché — but, I sell things while I’m sleeping a couple of times a week. Or, I’ll head out to lunch, and discover that I made a sale online that paid for my lunch when I return. And, there’s nothing like coming home from vacation and discovering that your website was still on the job while you were on the beach.

A small business’s website can have many jobs — and selling your products and services for you is probably the job that will affect your business the most. This job shows the most immediate results, and can take you out of the sales process (at least for some sales!) and allow you to focus on delivering your services and creating your products.

No matter how appealing selling in your sleep seems, selling online can seem like an exhausting task. Especially if you haven’t done it before. But, it doesn’t have to wear you out!

There are only 5 steps to getting your online sales set up.

1. First, decide what items you’re going to sell online. If you have products that you offer, or compact service packages that don’t cost a lot, those will be the best items to start with. Lower cost can mean an easier sale, and can help your site to sell for you and to start making money quickly.

Big questions here:

  • If you’re selling products, are they physical products (something you would have to ship to the customer), or are they downloadable products (like PDFs or MP3 audios)? Do you need your cart to handle secure delivery, or will thank-you pages with download links work for you?
  • If you’re selling services, how can you package the services up so that you can fully describe what the client is buying in a clear way? This is also important so that you can offer a flat price that can easily be programmed into a website instead of an hourly rate that would need to be customized for each sale?

2. Create your item descriptions. Helpful things to consider in this section include:

  • Product images, like photos of products, cover art for ebooks or audio recordings, or stock photos or work result images for services
  • Pricing: be sure to research whether you should add on sales tax. Also, if you need to charge shipping for a physical product, research the amounts you should charge to make sure you are being properly reimbursed for that expense.
  • Product descriptions: What are the features, and the benefits of those features? Be clear and detailed about what is included with each item. If there is anything that’s not included that the client may expect or presume, or that the customer needs to provide, note this as well (this is especially important in a service package).

3. Decide which software you will need to sell items online. There are several ways to do this (and this is the very short explanation of each option):

  • Paypal. This is the easiest credit-card processing solution to sign up for, with a short application process. Setting items up on your site is also not too difficult. Because of this, it’s a great option for businesses just starting out with online sales. However, Paypal doesn’t have many other features aside from allowing customers to pay for products.If you want to use Paypal, you’ll have to get a business account so that you’ll be able to accept credit card transactions. The transaction fees are a bit higher than using your own credit card processor, but Paypal doesn’t have any associated monthly fees, and that can balance out in your favor in the long run.
  • An online shopping cart like 1shoppingcart.com. This option takes a bit more time to set up, partly because it’s a more powerful tool, and so it has more details and options involved in the setup. There is a monthly fee for the shopping cart account (a sliding scale based on the features you need), and you have to have your own merchant account for credit card processing as well.However, 1shoppingcart has many powerful features — like email newsletter capability, client database management, autoresponders, and even secure downloading of digital products. If you’re serious about selling online, these added tools can be well worth the monthly cost.
  • A customized cart. If you need to create a cart that has more features than 1shoppingcart, customizing a solution like Xcart may be the right choice for you. The initial design and implementation work involved with a cart like this is often costly, because you do get to customize the cart so much.

4. Decide on any special policies that you’ll need to disclose to your customers. How long will you take to ship items? Or to deliver a service once it has been ordered? What’s your return policy? Are there any other details that your customers should know before making an online purchase from you? Write these up and add them to a Policies page on your website.

5. Find a designer who can set up your cart software and design the cart into your website. A designer with past experience with your software of choice will save you time and headaches. A qualified designer can also help you to create a better user experience with your shopping web page — so that people will be less likely to become frustrated while shopping and leave without making a purchase.

With just these 5 steps, you will be able to get a shopping cart up and running on your website — and start making those sales while you sleep!

Posted in Technical & Business | No Comments »

Google Algorithm

August 7th, 2009

Before going into the depth of Google architecture first get a dip into some other parlances of Google Architechture . Google, is a prototype of a large-scale search engine which makes heavy use of the structure present in hypertext. Google is designed to crawl and index the Web efficiently and produce much more satisfying search results than existing systems. The prototype with a full text and hyperlink database of at least 24 million pages is available at http://google.stanford.edu.

Google is a large-scale search engine which addresses many of the problems of existing systems. It makes especially heavy use of the additional structure present in hypertext to provide much higher quality search results. It is called, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10 to the power100 and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines.

After that I have enrolled myself in Post Graduation program of Computer Applications from one of the most renowned Technical University of India. In the partial fulfillment of my post graduation degree I have developed couple of ERP packages.

The Google search engine has two important features that help it produce high precision results. First, it makes use of the link structure of the Web to calculate a quality ranking for each web page. This ranking is called PageRank and Second, Google utilizes link to improve search.

Posted in SEO and WebMaster | No Comments »

« Older Entries