SeoMktSearch Engine Optimization Marketing

The other day I was browsing my favourite webmaster forums and in a specific discussion from another members comment I suddenly realized my internet activities and hobbies have somehow become a part time job. The reason I say part time is because I already have a full time career. I have many active websites with members that visit often. When I first started developing and promoting on the web my job was easy and consisted of one forum. Today I have over 15 active websites to manage and maintain. I have 3 forums, 5 blogs, and 7 other websites.

Out of them all Blog Engage has taken the most dedication and effort to maintain at a reasonable consistency.

The web literally has taken over my life to a certain point. I work half a day and when I come home for lunch I manage and moderate my many websites and return to work for the remainder of the day. When I get home in the evening the first thing I do is manage and maintain my websites. This is a personal choice I make and I do it in order to maintain my respect and name on the web. I don’t want any visitors to see spam or inappropriate content on my sites so I ensure they’re clean.

Now for the first year of doing this it was more or less a hobby and I was enjoying it very much. Today I find it’s interfering with my career and personal life. At this point I knew I had to do something in order to make this part time job go away and get back my hobby I once enjoyed. I set boundaries for myself if you will! I only allow a maximum amount of time online now and I never go past this allotted time period. Overall this turned out to be a lesson in time management. When I’m online I get things done. I could easily say I’m 200% more productive when online as oppose to 3 or 4 months ago.

How do you become more productive online?

Set goals for yourself and know what you want to achieve online before sitting at your computer. Setting time limits that you can spend on each activity will increase your overall productivity online dramatically. I would also suggest organizing your favourite’s folder in Internet Explorer of Firefox. This will allow you to access all the sites you need within minutes an again you’re saving time.

Seems I’m starting to enjoy my social web activates a lot more now that I can spend more time elsewhere! I really enjoy visiting the blogs submitted here at blog engage and have become friends with so many people! I like engaging with bloggers and joining the discussions at their blog. I’m also a big fan of web forums and like to promote and interact with people inside them.

I’m by far not the best I can be when it comes to optimizing and my time increasing my productivity but as I work towards improving this I notice my hobby is slowly coming back. Remember the more you can get out of what you put into something in less time will allow you to do twice as much! Let’s try a few questions here and see if we can get a response.

Do you waste a lot of time online due to the lack of organizational skills?

Have you set time limits that you can spend on specific projects or tasks?

What other tips would you recommend to our readers to save time online and be more productive?

Cheers,

bbrian017

There’s many ways to market and promote our selves in this ever growing social networking society. The methods for marketing and promoting our blogs has grown vastly and continues to grow daily at an even bigger rate. I think the main concern is telling the difference between good and the bad. As an example how good is 10,000 hits if you get zero comments on your blog? I would much rather prefer that one hit which turned out to be an awesome comment. Also that one hit wont waste my bandwidth and decrease my cost per click on ads.

I don’t really use digg, stumble upon or any of the major networking websites personally but I will digg or stumble upon a friend’s article when asked to. I try to focus on other marketing and promotion activities such as Search Engine Optimization and Link Exchanges. I’m also a very big fan of forum marketing as you probably know from reading al my posts. It wasn’t too long ago when I wrote an awesome article regarding the Top Webmaster forums on the net and if you have a sec and are a blogger please have a read.

Even if I wanted to keep up with all the available marketing and promotional websites these days I couldn’t and if I did I wouldn’t have time to even blog. Without blogging we have nothing to promote correct? So at the end of the day you must sit back and observe the result from your marketing efforts and determine what communities you’re going to continue using. Sure I use blogengage but I’m bias seeing I’m the owner of the site but blogengage might not be the right median for your marketing and promotional needs.

Maybe your blog is about money and you need tons of hits for a little bit id clicks. If this was the case I would suggest larger websites like the ones mentioned earlier. Sites like dig and stumble upon will most likely get your ads clicked and maybe even make you a few bucks.

Overall I use many methods of promotion and so should you! Don’t stop looking for that new idea or new way to get the word out about your blog! Continue marketing and promoting and create the brand name you deserve.

Recommend Social Networking Websites

http://www.blogengage.com
http://www.entrecard.com
http://www.digg.com
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.mybloglog.com

Enjoy and don’t forget to join our groups!

As most of you know I’m a major Sales and Marketing buff! I know selling your products or services isn’t always easy but I have a few tips for you to be more successful. If you have your own sales team you might want to use or share these techniques with them as well. The Gatekeeper is also known as the Administrative Secretary. She or he gets this nickname because they will decide if you get to the person your calling or simply hit the invisible wall they have up.

I do approximately 35 – 50 sales calls a day to large North American Apparel companies and let me tell you I have had my fair share of mean and bitchy gatekeepers. Sometimes the most annoying part is the absolute ignorance they show to me. They will say the company isn’t interested even if they don’t know what I’m talking or calling about. In this case when you get upset or frustrated you should be taking a step back and asking yourself a few questions.

Should I be calling and asking to speak with a different contact?

Sometimes you’re simply asking for the wrong contact. In my personal experience I always ask to speak with the President or CEO but sometimes it’s really not the right person. Depending on what your selling you can probably ask for a specific department. Human Resources, IT, Accounting, Marketing, etc,, use your common sense!

Is your approach to aggressive and obtrusive?

Maybe you’re asking the secretary and a very aggressive way and this could put her/him into a foul mood. This is the last thing you want when making sales calls. You should be as nice as possible to the admin secretary seeing she/he is the key to you speaking or selling anything to this company.

Is the admin secretary slow and slightly uneducated?

The last thing you want to do is make the gatekeeper unhappy because she/he seems or appears to be dumb. Try and keep things very basic with the secretary in order to increase your chances of properly communicating your sales pitch. Don’t be a slow talker you don’t want to insult her/him by assuming they are infact dumb. People know when you down talk them so be very careful.

I failed and the secretary hates me, what do I do now?

Move on to your next call and leave that specific account alone for a week or two. By not calling back you will allow the admin secretary time to forget all about you and your company. The next time you call back try and make the secretary fell like she/he’s making the management decision. Ask the secretary who they think you should speak with. Allow them to feel like their in control of what you’re doing or who you will be taking with.

I know working in the sales industry and simply doing cold call sales and marketing can be a pain in the ass. But if you dedicate yourself to improving your style and end result you have the potential of becoming very successful.

I hope these tips help you keep or improve your job and if you have any other suggestions don’t hesitate to add them!

Simply leave a comment and I’ll approve it!

If you live pretty much anywhere in North America you will notice like the majority of companies your sales are down. The automotive industry, the retail industry and more, it doesn’t matter where you turn it’s literally a global affect sales are down.

It wasn’t even a year ago the housing industry was in a boom and money was good! People had food on their tables and gas in their cars. Today the market has taken a dive for the worse. The large caps in North America all a sudden don’t seem so large and many families are applying for bankruptcy as we speak.

Diversification is very important to remember if you’re a business owner. Some would say the meaning of diversification is not putting all your eggs in one basket and as simple as this definition is its 100% correct.

How do I ensure I have diversification in my company’s products and services?

To ensure your company will manage and survive during the storm you have to set aside your target market and see if you have additional resources you can use to generate extra income. So if you’re in the apparel industry maybe you can also look at selling more items in that specific market. So let’s say currently you only carry a line of t-shirts and pants. This leaves potential opportunity from selling other items such as socks, hats, briefs, underwear and more. You could even go as far as to start selling shoes and accessories.

If your manufacturing options are limited you can simply become a wholesaler and start reselling other companies products. You can do this b2c or b2b either way it opens up more potential market share in these desperate times.

Expanding your available product lines can help increase your overall profits and in the long run it might be just enough to keep the company a float!

Best of luck marketers!

I know I don’t blog too much here at SEO Marketing but I really am a pretty busy guy. I work full time in Sales and marketing which doesn’t leave me too much personal time. I’m currently in a long term relationship which I also have to dedicate time to. In my free time when I have the opportunity to blog I also have other online obligation to tend to such as Blog Engage

This is a big time consumer for me because I have to moderate not only the main Social Networking Website but I have to moderate the blog forums as well. I’m not too sure if anyone has put 2 and 2 together but yes I’m the owner of blog engage and I love it!

Social Networking is a brilliant marketing tool and if done right you can use these tools to promote not only your blog site but specific topics you post. The ideal is pretty basic behind Social networking websites. You take an article you wrote and submit it to a specific category and from there members of that specific site vote for you. This in return creates a new back link and has the potential to generate extra traffic and intellectual conversation to your blog. If you use Social Networking websites often you will know as well as I do it’s a great promotional and marketing tool. I would also suggest using the large Social Networking Websites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, and Reddit.

Seeing traffic generation is always the hardest thing to do when building your blog you should 100 percent use these services. The overall goal here is to increase your exposure, promotion and brand awareness, yes even your have a brand.

Taking the time to increase your exposure with Social Networking Websites means more then simply submitting your blog article. You must add friends, Engage or Digg their articles. Trust me they will notice this and the majority of the time they will also Engage or Digg your articles. In its own little way this is an example of how you build relationship, create brand awareness and generate more traffic.

The drawback of using Social Networking Websites is you may find yourself at the Networking website more than your very own blog. Unless you own the Social Networking website this should happen. Be sure to maximize your time spent on these websites and don’t waste your4 time sitting around waiting for something to happen!

Social Networking Websites are great if you intend to Engage with other bloggers. You simply select the category your blog is in and start commenting on other blogger’s article that you find interesting. This will help you build relationships with other bloggers and in return generate more potential traffic. You can read more regarding commenting as a form of traffic in this article here, Simple way to generate simple traffic.

Best of luck to you all and don’t forget to leave a comment if you found this topic or article interesting.

I’m always thinking of the small things when it comes to Optimizing your website. Meta tags are an often overlooked area when you’re developing your first website. Let’s face it the first thing you want to do is ensure your website looks nice. Design and presentation etc.. When in all reality it should be the last thing on your mind. When you first register you domain name you should already have your Meta Tags prepared and ready to implement. You want Google, Yahoo, and MSN to see these tags when they first visit your website. This way what’s cached was your choice and not a mistake that can possibly take months to fix!

Here at seomkt you can see the Meta tags by simply testing the site at a Meta Tag Analyzer website. Many can be found using Google but I use this one here. It’s fast and right to the point. Remember this is a very basic step to take when trying to develop and create an organic flow of free traffic.

Here are the following Meta Tags I used personally at seomkt.

As you can clearly see I have grasped a pretty good understanding on Meta Tags and how to implement them well. This is a simple tip that can help get your website or blog noticed! Take the time and fix these issues! If you ever have any questions regarding changing your existing Meta Tags visit my blogging forums over at blog engage and I’ll help you out!

If you’re reading this, then it’s pretty safe to assume that you are interested in marketing and very interested in making as much money as possible without working too hard. Well, that’s what top rated affiliate programs are for because the only way a program can get to the top of the affiliate world is to provide the affiliates with everything they want and then some. Being proactive in meeting the needs of affiliates pay handsomely, which is why top rated affiliate programs can be counted on to offer the terms that make a marketer’s heart race with excitement.

What are the features of a top rated affiliate program? For starters, such a program offers high commissions. The people behind it know that their products will sell very well and don’t mind giving up a bigger share of the money in order to motivate affiliates and reward their efforts. If you’re spending a couple of hours everyday pondering traffic statistics, thinking up ways to improve your website to get top search engine placement and generating a lot of sales then you deserve those high commissions. And if your conversion rate is high enough, you will be making a lot of money in a short time.

Aside from the high commissions you will need quality affiliate support from the associate program in the shape of free website templates to choose from, free content for your website (or websites) written by professional copywriters, tutorials and guides if you’re only just beginning and lots of information and advice on the niche market you are going to be operating in. Plus, you get access to advanced affiliate tools for keyword research and traffic tracking. Another very important thing to look out for is the way products are sold. If the managers ask you to buy the products and resell it to customers, then you’re walking into a scam.

But you probably know by now that there are no magic buttons to push that can make you a super affiliate in a couple of days. You’ll have to work your way to a position of financial security and you have a lot to learn about how to be a good marketer. But joining a top rated affiliate program goes a long way to making your dreams come true as fast as humanly possible because the sad alternative is to do the same amount of work for less money. And that runs contrary to the fact that you deserve to get as much as possible for your efforts.

Low commissions and small percentages of low prices are highly NOT recommended and working for a greedy bunch of managers is an experience that should be avoided. Why waste time and effort when you can start on the right foot by joining a top rated affiliate program? If some people out there are willing to work for low commissions and others can’t find anything wrong with investing their own money in a business that doesn’t ever pay off, then let them do it. You have other priorities.

The life of affiliate marketing business depends on traffic. No traffic, no site to exist. It will help you increase your click ratio and sales commissions. Here are the 5 ways to drive visitors to your website:

Blogging - like a web diary where you can write interesting articles for readers. The articles you made can be use to link your readers to your site also known as back links. Back links can help you to improve search engine ranking. Register one of your blogs on www.blogspot.com and Google will promote your blog in 2 days with RSS feeds to gain more traffic.

Forums – a fun way to promote your business where you can post questions and answers to learn a lot and help others. Advertisements are not allowed here but you can display your email signature every time you post.

Viral Marketing - one of the oldest and best forms of marketing. You can give away an e-book on your site and have a couple of links and a full-page ad in the back for your product or service. Grant permission to your readers to give away the book and see this promotion snowball.

Social Marketing – one good example is MySpace. Myspace is now being used as a popular way of marketing products and services.

Article Distribution - a powerful way to promote your business where you can write interesting and informative articles for your readers. It will bring many visitors to your site. If you want to save time, visit www.moreniche.com to get many resources including free weekly content that you can also use for your article distribution.

Avoiding Affiliate Scams

Affiliate marketing helps you in making your business profitable and fun at the same time. The key is choosing the right programs. You can benefit with the good programs either be involved with scams that will not pay you for your hardships and owe you the commission you deserve in the end.

How to avoid scams: The best way to avoid these scams, do your research well. Consider these points before joining:

1. Does the company have good support? Do they answer emails and have valid contact information?

2. Do they have a valid offline address?

3. What % of commission do they pay; 30%-50% is the best.

4. Tracking system - this should be in real time and accurate.

5. Products should be well targeted for your market and of good quality.

Where to research:

1. Forums related to your industry. There are many savvy people who use the forums for reference. You can ask advice from others base on the programs they use.

2. Discussion lists.

3. Look into the program carefully.

4. Put the company name, plus the word scam, into the search engines and see what comes up. Use your own judgment, as sometimes these reviews may not be 100% true.

GOLDEN RULE: Look before you join to prevent being victimized with these scams. It is advisable if you ask other people’s opinions. Do not rush, choose good reliable programs wisely that will give you the profits you want for many years to come.

MoreNiche Affiliate Program is considered one of the highest paying affiliate programs with a complete transparent operation. See a credible detailed statistics and a dynamic top 10 performer’s page at www.moreniche.com

Today I will share with you some of the Top Webmaster Forums on the net! I’m not adding any crap in this post so if it’s not here, it’s nowhere! Also I could have simply never discovered it yet as well! I’m at many forums on the net and most of them I’m sitting anywhere from 500 - 1000 posts! This is massive activity promoting all my blogs and websites! This list isn’t made in any specific order so don’t think the first added is the best because it all depends on what you’re marketing and promoting!

Top Webmaster Forums List

#1. Digital Point Forums - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/

#2. iguides - http://iguides.org/forums/

#3. Web Talk Forums - http://www.webtalkforums.com/

#4. Name Pros - http://www.namepros.com/

#5. The Admin Zone Forums - http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/

#6 UK Webmaster Forums - http://forums.ukwebmasterworld.com/

Thanks and enjoy

It’s been a while since I blogged here at Search Engine Optimization Marketing and today we will discuss the little things you can do in order to generate more search engine traffic! I’m not a professional in any way but I do have trick and techniques I use to develop traffic which I like to share with all my readers. One of the biggest question asked is how do I get myself listed in other search engine besides Google? Well it’s pretty simple and in this blog I’ll explain the steps you need to take. First let discuss msn search. I know for a fact if you don’t do this you’re highly likely to go your whole life and never see a hit from MSN so I suggest you go and do this when you’re done reading the blog.

First visit the following link, http://webmaster.live.com/

From here if you don’t have an account sign up for one and if you do have an account simply log in.
After logging in you should have been sent to the “add a website url” screen. Simply add your url, and e-mail address for contact purposes. I don’t subscribe to the webmasters newsletter but if you’re interested just check the box! After adding your site you should be given an html tag you can add to the header page allowing verification that you in deed do own the website being submitted.

Mind you this technique or service isn’t a guaranteed way to improve msn search engine traffic but none the less it’s an effort on your part in order to start getting listed! I’ve personally always have issues getting traffic from msn and since I did this for http://www.blogengage.com I have already noticed “some” traffic coming from their search engine whereas before I literally got none!