TwentySix2 Marketing Blog

Below is an article I wrote to be inserted into a newsletter of one of our business affiliates. I thought it would be a good way to explore, on a very basic level, what we do as internet marketers for those of you reading our blog but perhaps not receiving the newsletter. It’s very basic information but sometimes metaphors help:

Internet marketing is a practice of reviewing and repairing websites. It’s an offering of recommendations to solve problems associated with low rankings and improve a site’s appeal to targeted audiences. During the review period, internet marketers are sometimes bearers of bad news, taking on the disheartening task of informing website owners they have an “ugly baby.”
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I was reading an article on Sphinn and thought it would be helpful to our readers. The article offers advice to any people or companies seeking to hire an SEO firm. The information contained is very valuable to anyone who’s not so familiar with internet marketing and it offers great advice for the selection process.

(I thought number one was a particularly handy tip, as some SEO firms will try to lure clients with an unguaranteeable guarantee. Beware of that!!)

So if you have time and are searching for an SEO firm or just want to know things to ask for future reference, here is the article.

During my daily reading of Search Engine Land I was reading Google Free Fridays and Danny Sullivan mentioned his new product, Sphinn.

I took an initial look at Sphinn and all I have to say is wow, it’s great. Digg is for the techies, Reddit is for random weird stuff but Sphinn is a collection of articles from all over the place about SEO! What a great and NOVEL idea. So if you need an extra resource to get a glimpse of who’s who in SEO or just learn a little more information, this is a fantastic starting point. Kudos to you Danny and the rest of Search Engine Land. A product the web can be proud of!

Today I had a very yummy luncheon at the Four Seasons with a hospitality and tourism networking group here in Atlanta. I met some new people, stuffed my face with as much free salad and pasta as I could, then listened to a speaker from a Trade Show marketing company.

His topic? Simple, “The Basics of Successful Marketing.”

I think there are times when we try, not only in marketing but many industries, to dig almost too deep to be the best and the first. Sometimes we forget the basic ideals originally motivating us to pursue our current careers.

I love SEO because it’s such a dynamic industry, things are always changing and moving forward. But with that fast paced progress, I think it’s important to occasionally step away and go back to the basics.
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Our dependence on certain things we expect to remain static is a little scary. Just as we tend to rely on a cellphone to constantly connect us to friends, family and colleagues, we also expect the cellphone will work. And just as we create brilliant marketing campaigns to target Google traffic, Google may not always be around.
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With all the buzz about blogs, you’d think that people with really popular blogs would make tons of money. There are people in the blogosphere claiming to get $100,000 checks each month from Google for their AdWords campaigns. And maybe they do, but how many of those bloggers are out there and should we all aspire to this lofty goal?
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Having a website entitles you to no privacy, leaving every company on the Internet equally vulnerable to their enemies. Now, this sounds like a bad thing, but there is an advantage to this openness and I have already said it. EVERY company is equally open to scrutiny, meaning you have the same chance as everyone else to spy on the competition.
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Search for any term in a search engine and you will get a list of results. From that list of results you can click on any link directing you to a website.

Type a URL in the address bar and a website will pop up.

Follow a link from one site to another and land on a website.

How to get to a website is the easy part. What to do when you get there is the hard part, this is where landing pages come in handy.
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“Your website will be banned and you will not be able to be found on Google not even with your company name […] if you want to be saved PAY ME !!!!”

The above is an actual quote pulled from an email threatening a company that if they did not pay up for unwanted SEO (search engine optimization) services, they would be banned from Google. The man who sent the email, “Dennis,” originally called the company and spoke with a woman about his SEO consulting firm. He then formulated lies about sneaky tactics her SEO firm was using to promote her website.
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“Try a little tenderness”

These words from the great voice of Otis Redding describe perfectly what a relationship should be between a website and its owner. Websites should be coddled, loved and spoiled. Remember that websites work for you 24/7, they represent you and everything your company stands for 100% of the time, so they need to be maintained.

But without any site traffic, the love you give your site won’t be apparent to anyone but yourself. Maybe you get some traffic on occasion, but it trickles off. So what can you do to your site to keep visitors interested and give others a reason to view it as well?

Get out the fly paper because we’re going to make your site sticky.
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