Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
How to Find Competitors’ Keywords For Your SEO & PPC
Technique 2: Buy The Data From A Keyword Monitoring Service, such as Spyfu
Spyfu has 2 tools that answer the limits of the analysis we ran of our competitors’ website.
1 – Spyfu Domain History tells you what keywords a competitor bought over the past year, and for how long. By seeing the keywords they’ve bought for the longest time, you can see what keywords are most valuable.
2 -Ad History shows you all the competitors who have been bidding on a keyword in PPC auctions for the past year, and for how long they’ve been bidding.
Ad History shows you their ad text, too. By seeing the patterns in competitors ads, especially over time, you can see how to pitch the people searching.
I also like Spyfu for other reasons. Spyfu helps find keyword patterns or categories I hadn’t discovered during my own keyword research. It seems years are often used with car model names, when people want to get car insurance.
Spyfu also tells you the competitors’ ad ranking in the search results. The higher the ad’s position, the more that traffic is important to them. A good indicator of value…
Spyfu value-maximization tip Look at trends in position over time. If you see a competitor gradually raising their ad’s position, chances are that the keyword is proving better than expected. And if they’re dropping, it’s probably a poor keyword!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Your Value Is in Deciding What's Important, Not Answering Email
People get out of balance when they see their value as being able to respond quickly. If I see myself as a machine for answering email, then my work life would never stop because my email never stops. If instead I see my value as separating the important from the unimportant and making good decisions on the important, then I can go home at a reasonable hour, spend time with my family, ignore my email and phone messages all weekend long, and make sure that when I return to work, I am in the right mood to make the good decisions.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Connect with people in your niche
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Real Pros: creativity is messy
Interestingly most creative disciplines have a similar process. There’s a time and place at the beginning of creation, to be messy and to create really horrific stuff. Painters sketch. Musicians write lousy first drafts on napkins, their angst and heartbreak leaving puddles of tears on the bar. And we photographers, no less artists – potentially – than the others, seem to feel we need to hit the shutter, create something great, and move on. Bollocks.
Creation is almost always messy. Because we are messy. If your plan is to from Point A (no photograph) to Point B (iconic photograph which will define my career and on which I will retire fabulously wealthy) then you’re in for a shock. If there is such a transition at all, it’s from Point A to Point Z. And in between are the sh*tty first drafts, the sketch images.
Small Business Advertising Idea 5 Proven Strategies
Small Business Advertising Idea 5 Proven Strategies
September 10th, 2010 Filed under: advertising idea — Marketing Ideas AuthorIf you are looking for a small business advertising idea, using the internet makes a lot of sense. The majority of potential customers use the web to find products and services in your city or county.
Word of mouth and paper advertisements are becoming less relevant by the day. Here are some tactics to get your product or service out to the internet community. These are merely starting points. Utilize search engines and your imagination to brainstorm more strategies.
1. Start a blog.
There are some excellent free sites like Blogger.com to market your small business. Use the same relevant keywords in the URL, title, and scattered through the text so that the search engines can determine what your blog is about.
2. Communicate with your local Chamber of Commerce.
You can visit their website, call them, and email pertinent information about the products or services you sell. Give very specific information about what it is that you offer.
3. Use search engines to find organizations that are relevant to your business in your city or area.
Get in contact with these people and offer something free or a discount for a first time customer. Remember to test out the things that are working. Ask new customers where they heard about your small business. You could also offer different promotions to different organizations and observe what is returned to you.
4. Search out other community organizations.
Nearly every group has a website these days. Use your imagination to expand your advertising. As a start, you could look for: Little League sponsorship, veteran organizations, churches, and lodges. Use the above tactic of give and get. Offer something extra to them in exchange for marketing your small business.
5. Set up an email campaign.
Collect emails from willing customers. You could suggest that they email 10 of their friends who may benefit from your small business. Send out a newsletter containing useful tips, strategies, or advice pertaining to your company. This will show that you are a subject matter expert in your field and customers may send this information to more people.
The key to all of these strategies is networking. The most successful small business advertising idea is to offer useful information and not make a sales pitch. Consumers are looking for helpful information and products. They must get the feeling that anything you claim is truthful. If you offer this, your reputation will begin to grow rapidly.
For a small business advertising idea to show you how to gain importance in the eyes of your customers, click here.
Found an interesting article I thought you would enjoy. I use #1 and #5 myself.