The Internet Business Authority

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Last month Google announced Google Social Search – a new project that will yield search results from your personal web of social media contacts. Rather than finding only the most optimized websites from your searches, this project will enable you to see sites that your own friends and business associates recommend. They will do this by gathering information from various social media outlets you belong to like Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. While it is too early to definitively tell what the effects of this project will be, it is clear that we are seeing a shift from what is used now to determine a site’s value to something in the future that will include social discussion like commenting, reviewing, and choosing favorites.

What does this mean to you? It is more important now then ever to not only have onsite and offsite SEO done for your sites, but also to be active in as many social media sites as possible. Beware – this is not a call for spamming! This simply means you must make contacts with like minded individuals, and provide value to those relationships. To be the top dog you may soon not be able to simply hide behind the computer screen and be anti-social. Of course social media is already important in building a business in general, but if it becomes a determining factor in all search results, you had better start your plan for building social equity now before it is too late.

Click here to read Google’s Blog announcing the release of Google Social Search.

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If you are operating a website that offers a product or service then you know without traffic your internet business will not succeed. So, it goes without saying that pulling in millions of hits will automatically lead to millions in profits correct? Nope. Just because traffic is being drawn to your site does not automatically mean it will be traffic that will be your offerings. This is a fundamental notion many fail to grasp: random traffic drawn in huge volumes simply does not translate into sales or revenue. Instead, what is required is highly targeted traffic that is more likely to actually purchase your products. This, of course, brings up the logical question. How does one bring in all the lucrative targeted traffic?

At first glance, this seems like a daunting question that would bring forth a complicated response. Not so! In fact, the solution is actually quite simple. Basically, targeted traffic is traffic that moves from similar websites. In other words, if one operates a website that sells skiing equipment, it would be beneficial to place links on blogs that cover skiing, skiing message boards, skiing news and information websites, etc. This way, the traffic that is derived from those links will almost exclusively be interested in skiing. Now contrast this to purchasing links on a multitude of link directories that include many different subjects. You may get thousands of hits, but how many of those people have an actual interest in skiing? (Yes, there is value in the search engine optimization benefits of directory listings, but that is another story). Needless to say, the traffic coming in from relevant sites is far more beneficial to your internet business than a mass cavalcade of traffic from who knows where.

Building targeted traffic is not as complex as some may believe, and its benefits are huge. So, it goes without saying that this is the type of traffic you want to draw in order to have a successful internet business.

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The business world is one that is always in a state of flux although some small businesses are a little slow to adjust to the rapid changes in a competitive landscape. In today’s world, in order to maximize a business’ potential – whether it be a brick and mortar business, an internet business or a business that combines both concepts – there will be a need to invest time in internet marketing. This is because internet marketing is the vehicle that can greatly expand a business’ potential revenue stream.

Please note that internet marketing is primarily time investment and not exclusively a monetary investment. Yes, you can throw away thousands of dollars on banner ads and expensive “click thru” advertising ventures but the most successful method of internet marketing is found in search engine placement. This is because when people are looking for a particular product or service they immediately turn to Google, Yahoo, or another search engine and type in their wants. This will then result in the search engine “spitting out” a slew of websites based on their popularity. Now this is where it gets cost effectively good: the popularity of the placement of the websites is largely based upon link building. No company – no matter how much liquid cash they have – can purchase high placement in a search engine. Rankings are based largely on search engine optimization and a small company is never put at a disadvantage against a big company in the SEO realm. As all that is required is a time commitment and minimal monetary expenditure, a small business can literally beat a large business in search engine ranking.

This is a rapid departure from the old model where large and small companies had to compete in the expensive world of traditional offline marketing where the little company was outspent a thousand fold. Now, the playing field is a little more level and any small business would greatly benefit from solid internet marketing search engine strategies.

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There are a number of ways to maximize the profits of your internet business and often they have nothing to do with increasing revenue. Case in point, if you are pulling in $1,000 a week and spending $1,100 you are losing $100, and if you are pulling in $400 a week and spending $300 you are making a $100 profit. Sadly, many people look at the person “earning” $1,000 as successful despite the fact that this person is overspending with little result. Such is the case when it comes to online marketing and the traditional banner ads and email campaigns of the past.

Yes, at one time these methods of advertising were successful ways of drawing in a potential buyer. Placing a low cost banner ad on a website drew a ton of attention to products in the past. Same with email marketing which essentially took the age old concept of direct mail marketing and made it electronic. Times, however, have changed and these methods of marketing – while still somewhat useful – really can no longer be the strategic basis of a marketing campaign.

With banner ads the actual purchases on “click thru’s” have diminished. Also, the number of people clicking on banners has diminished as well. Part of the reason for this is that people have become wary of the spyware intrusions that banner ads often bring. For email marketing, it was overexposure that killed the beast. Essentially, people have become tired of receiving absurd amounts of “spam” emails everyday and this has led to greatly tuning out on advertisers who use such campaigns. This is to say nothing of the increased costs of dealing with bulk email marketing providers.

The landscape of internet marketing has changed greatly from prior years. These days, it would be far more effective to look into search engine optimization, blogging, video marketing and other social marketing methods for ones online marketing needs. Economics simply dictates as such.

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