Web Success Team

What is a Kardashian? Where did the brand come from? The most popular Twitter searches for the Calabasas, California area are believe it or not: “where do the kardashians live” and “dash”. The Kardashian brand, however, has not always been a multi-million dollar enterprise. The family used to be fairly ordinary, other than the father, Robert Kardashian, who was an attorney for OJ Simpson. It wasn’t until several years ago, when Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the family, decided she wanted to get the family on a reality TV show. This happened at about the same time as her daughter, Kim Kardashian, became famous because of the release of a scandalous video.

From this point on, Kris Jenner has successfully cultivated a name for the family brand and transformed it into a multi-million dollar empire worth an estimated $65 million. Being that the Web Success Team headquarters are only 1.5 miles away from the Kardashian residence, it makes you wonder why the Kardashian brand has become such a hot commodity these days.

Turning Water into Wine

Whether it’s bad press, or bad PR, Kris Jenner seems to always have a solution. When her daughter’s video went viral, steps needed to be taken quickly in order to defend the family’s name. From there Kris Jenner turned having any press into having good press, and she did it in a positive way. The publicity surrounding the video gave the Kardashian’s the spotlight they needed to start building a personal brand. Getting their name out there was just the beginning, from there, the “mother” manager found niches for the family to get involved in.

Lessons to Be Learned

Some tips can be learned from the Kardashian marketing strategy. First, they have shown how you need to identify several strengths that you want to be an expert in. You want people to think of you first when they think of this particular niche. The Kardashian family sells the package of the ideal modern American family: blended, but still functional (for the most part). From the outside it seems as though everyone gets along and family members genuinely care about each other. And as for Kim and her sisters, Khloe and Kourtney, they have chosen to become experts in niches such as fashion, and they’ve successfully started everything from their own clothing line called “Dash,” to perfume, jewelry and handbags. Selling the ideal in combination with a defined niche can be the perfect recipe for brand success.

Use Social Media to Promote the Brand

Social Media has become the largest growing sector for marketing. It can generate leads quicker than if you promoted yourself the traditional way. By using your Facebook fan page, you can post interesting links, create an advertisement and generate a solid following through promotional offers by “liking” your page. By taking just a few minutes a day to work on your Facebook page, you will be surprised just how quickly you can build a targeted following. Kim Kardashian has 6.7 million fans on Facebook and 11.1 million followers on Twitter; just imagine what you could do with even just a little influence.

Find Your Voice — then Use It!

Having a voice is one of the most important aspects of personal branding. If you don’t have a voice, how will anyone consider you an authority on a particular topic? The Kardashians have proven that their voice lies in a multitude of topics, mainly having to do with fashion or modeling. You can also cultivate your own voice and brand. You can start by sharing relevant, helpful and interesting content via a blog or a social media platform of your choice.  You can build trust by also getting involved in discussions in your social networks. The more you put your name out there, the more people will recognize your brand.

Want More Tips!

For more personal branding tips, contact the Web Success Team today and find out how you can develop a stronger brand and following to promoting your business!
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Google has been busy updating a host of different applications from Gmail to Google+, and now the update for Google Reader. The new Google Reader offers an interface overhaul that is a lot more intuitive, and also offers the ability to share on Google+. This updated version helps Google further integrate with the social media community and promote the use of Google+. There are also some additional benefits that can help your online marketing efforts to either streamline or expand your social media impact.

A Fresh New Interface

The overall interface of Google Reader has been revised and refined. It’s a lot cleaner and more organized than before. There is less clutter, more white space, and it’s easy to access everything from settings to starred items and trends, to recommended items and sources. The dashboard on the left side of the home page gives you access to all the links you need. Overall, the look is more user-friendly and less intimidating than before, and looks rather similar to the Gmail interface overhaul that took place not too long ago.

New Feature Advantages!

It’s easier to manage your subscriptions to RSS feeds as you can now import additional subscriptions from outside feed readers as well. You first have to go to your other feed readers and export a file with an “OPML” (Outline Processor Markup Language) extension, but once you do so, you can easily upload that file to Google Reader and see all your subscriptions listed in one place. For those of us out there that have been using multiple readers, this new feature can save a lot of time.

Sharing Options

The sharing options have been a somewhat controversial topic in the online community. Some welcome the sharing changes, while others do not. According to the official Google blog, they have added:

Job searches are now mostly done online and rarely do people apply in person anymore. Major job search websites such as monster.com or careerbuilder.com have less impact as social media has transitioned into becoming the front runner for online recruiting. Recruiters are now heavily relying on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to locate qualified candidates based on their skills and connections. Since about half of the US population is active in social media, it makes sense that they would be used not only for personal uses, but also for professional ones as well.

Using LinkedIn for Job Searches

LinkedIn’s focus is on people’s professional lives. It’s a great networking site for individuals who want to connect with or learn about companies that they’re interested in working for. You can gain insight into company culture, or cultivate connections with people at prospective companies. If you’re in sales and are going to have an important meeting with an executive, you can look them up on LinkedIn and see what their work history is, see what their interests are, and come up with some ways to connect with them at your meeting so you can increase your chances of a sale.

Additionally, you can receive recommendations from colleagues or bosses for various positions you’ve held so that recruiters or potential hiring managers can see that you’re reliable and good at what you do. Just by filling out your profile, you can list work experience, volunteer experience, and professional writing samples, which basically becomes an online resume that is searchable by thousands of recruiters. Recruiters also use the website to look for qualified candidates that meet specific skill sets, so it’s best that you try to be as detailed as possible when filling out your profile.

Using Facebook for Job Searches

While Facebook is the largest social network, it’s primarily for personal use rather than professional networking. It’s for catching up with friends and sharing information about topics that relate to your personal life or interests, such as your visit to Napa over the weekend or an article you read about. Though despite the fact that Facebook is currently focused on personal use, recruiters and head hunters have their eyes set on using Facebook for recruiting talented candidates.

Facebook has actually come up with a couple new applications recently that help cultivate job opportunities through the site. Smart lists and the timeline feature are both geared towards professional connections. The smart lists application allows you to auto-group friends based on your work history. It’s sort of like LinkedIn’s “connections” feature that allows you to see how you are connected to certain individuals based on your past. As for the timeline feature, it has yet to be rolled out to the public, but it allows users to see their work history in the form of an “infographic” that is basically a visual graphic display of your resume. Given the average amount of time a person spends on Facebook, as well as the level of engagement, it is only a matter of time before it starts becoming a real player in the job search world as more applications are developed for this purpose.

To Use Facebook or LinkedIn? And the Winner Is…

Facebook and LinkedIn both have their benefits as well as their drawbacks when it comes to looking for jobs. Facebook has more active users than LinkedIn, but its focus isn’t on professional life. Even though that may be changing over the next year, LinkedIn currently still offers a more professional demeanor that doesn’t revolve around personal interests or hobbies. Facebook will only truly become a viable job search site when it becomes socially acceptable to add a recruiter as a friend on Facebook instead of LinkedIn. Until that day comes, LinkedIn will hold the title for being the most job friendly social media website on the market.

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The Web Success Team follows a wide variety of online marketing experts so we thought that we would create an annual summary of those that we like the best or highly recommend. Every category from SEO to content curation and social media all have an expert or platform that can help you stay organized or teach you about cutting-edge, innovative techniques. With so many talented people and platforms to choose from it was a difficult decision, but below is the short list of 16 industry professionals that we follow and why.

1.   General Online Marketing:

• HubSpot: “All-in-one inbound marketing software” – Hubspot is a great resource for online marketing experts. It rolls blogging, tweeting, email, and other online marketing tools into one platform. Hubspot also give away downloads such as eBooks and whitepapers that offer practical and insightful information on topics ranging from SEO to social media strategy.

2.   SEO:

• SEOMoz: SEO Software – Rand Fishkin, CEO and Co-Founder of SEOMoz, is a great source for SEO and link development information. He also has great SEO tools hat manage your SEO campaigns. The software is easy to use and provides you with a wealth of information about topics such as page authority and keyword strength.

3.   Facebook:

• Mari Smith – Mari Smith is a Facebook expert that has helped hundreds of companies with their Facebook marketing strategies. She is an expert on cultivating online relationships via social media. In other words, Mari is the Facebook genius, but she is also responsive, knowledgeable and kind: making her all that more appealing and approachable.

5.   LinkedIn:

• JD Gershbein – JD is the ultimate LinkedIn guru and he can do wonders for your resume. He does a lot of speaking engagements on personal branding, as well as offers tips for crafting your LinkedIn profile for maximum results. He is also an expert in the acquisition of talented employees and brand building on LinkedIn.

6.   Twitter:

• Warren Whitlock – Warren Whitlock is a Twitter guru that is worth following. He is a best-selling author known for the book Twitter Revolution, which is all about the social media world and how it changes the way we do business and market online. Warren is not only a fountain of knowledge, but he is very approachable and will give you great advice.
  

7.   Blogs:           

• Online Marketing Blog – Lee Odden writes informative, clear and direct articles. He has been involved in the online marketing industry for many years, and has proven to be a very helpful resource. He is often quoted for his advice on social media and has been featured in the Economist and Fortune Magazine.

8.   Google+:

• Guy Kawasaki – Online marketing expert Guy Kawasaki is known for his content curation expertise as he always posts the best links. Even though Google+ is still in its infancy, Guy Kawasaki has proven that it is a useful and effective platform for sharing relevant information that has a lot of visibility.

9.   Customer Relations / Lead Generation:

• Marketo – Marketo is a great platform for customer relations management. It’s easy to use and allows you to manage customer service issues while also increasing revenue. This platform also focuses on lead management and sales insight, and has helped a variety of industries ranging from “high technology, financial services, healthcare, communications and professional services.”

10.  Content:

• Mashable – Not only is Mashable is the best resource for Twitter, but it is also the best resource for finding pertinent content. Some have even compared it being the Newsweek of social media news. With 20 million unique monthly visitors, you can be sure that if a topic is worth reading about, it will be featured on mashable.com.

11.  Social Media:

• Brian Solis – Brian Solis is the social media expert of today. Even though he is very informative and technical, he is recognized globally as the authority on new media. In his most recent book, Engage, he talks about “the evolution of new media and how to integrate new technologies and methodologies into everyday activity.”

12.  Social Media Analytics:

• Klout – Klout was developed several years ago for the purpose of measuring a user’s social media influence. It combines several factors, such as “True Reach: How many people you influence, Amplification: How much you influence them, and Network Impact: The influence of your network.” The score is based on a scale from 1 to 100 and can fluctuate based on how interactive you are with your social networks on a given day.

13.  Analytics:

• Google Analytics – Google analytics is the frontrunner for website analytics tracking. It’s fairly easy to embed in your website and allows you to track visitor’s information based on their demographic, behavior, and technology. It also keeps track of traffic sources and you can see what keywords are driving people to your site. You can see everything from the number of page views to the average time someone spent on your website and the analytics can all be summarized on a presentable graph.

14.  Inspiring Speaker:

• Steve Jobs – Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple and Macintosh computers, was not only a pioneer in the technology field, but he was also an amazing inspirational speaker. He gave a number of speeches over the years and even gave a commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 where he told the graduating class, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Though Jobs recently passed away due to cancer, his wisdom and impact will be forever felt by millions around the globe.

15.  Best Social Media Platform for Posting:

• HootSuite – HootSuite is a great platform for monitoring all your social media accounts. It is known as a “social media dashboard” where you can update profiles, schedule tweets, share content, and view all social streams on one page. If you are running several online marketing campaigns and using social media, HootSuite is a necessary component that will ensure that you stay organized and on track.

16. Industry Expert You Would Love to Hate but Can’t:

• Mark Zuckerberg – The creator of Facebook has always been depicted in a controversial limelight. Zuckerberg has received a lot of mixed press over the years and there was even a movie made about him that uncovered the controversy over who actually started the site. But whether you like him or not, Facebook is here to stay and it has revolutionized the way people interact. Not only are people in rural areas are able to easily communicate and connect with the outside world, but the world as a whole has become a lot more connected because of it. Facebook is even responsible for giving demonstrators the resource they needed to assemble organized protests that ultimately resulted in the Egyptian revolution earlier this year. Despite its controversy, Facebook has the potential for doing a lot of good in the world.

All of these resources have amazing appeal and potential, and each have helped shape the online world that we know today. New technologies, platforms, websites, and software are constantly being developed to help online marketing experts reach their goals and increase revenues. Whether you are an expert in online marketing or just a beginner, if you take advantage of some of these resources you will be surprised at just how much information is available and how quickly you could enhance your authority on a specific subject.
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We all want our websites to be ranked higher on Google and be more visible — but we have to balance out how much effort to put into SEO without destroying the user experience.

SEO is imperative for your website to get searched on the major search engines but its overuse can also hurt your website. The search engines will select the most relevant websites offered to users through keyword searches. SEO’s purpose is, in part, determining how to tweak a site so it is not only recognized by the search engine spiders but rewarded with a first page view.

This thrust of this article is to depict some common SEO issues and offer solutions so you can maximize your exposure on search.

1.  Overuse of Keywords:

This is a common problem and search spiders frown on people who pack their content pages with overused keyword phrases that are favored for search but lessen the user experience. For example:

“…is a cutting edge job search organization that offers a directory of available jobs opportunities, volunteer jobs, holiday jobs and work opportunity jobs both in the United States and abroad. Our jobs directory is up-to-date and is ideal for the student who wants to earn extra money and experience living in another city, state or country while on a gap year, having a career break or enjoying a working holiday or a volunteer job experience for resume building. These job search opportunities go fast, so check our jobs directory daily or weekly for these job opportunities filled with a lifetime of memories…”

2.  Avoiding the Use of Imagery for Fear that it Won’t Be Spidered:

There seems to be some confusion about the use of imagery on a website. Images are an excellent way to convey your messages as in “…a picture says a thousand words.” However using imagery without tagging them for SEO is criminal. You want to use every available opportunity to be found on search. Using alt tags to describe your images is not only smart, but imperative.

3.  Sacrificing Looks and User Experience for SEO Value:

Again you don’t want to be a content farm, where you have pages upon pages of marginal content that the viewer is not interested in the information. Yes, there is a lot of keyword value in this volume of content, but you need to weigh the user experience. If the viewer goes on your site with a promise of finding a solution to their inquiry or problem and they are met with confusion and disappointment, then what are you achieving in the end. You need to connect with the visitor and reward him or her with an easy to find answer. That’s how you generate further dialogue, leads and ultimately sales.

4.  Buying Random Links or Linking to Random Sites Just to Get Link Reciprocity:

It is necessary to get quality links to make your site an authority site but if the page does not call for links then don’t put them in. Google values inbound links, the more links the higher the perceived value of your site. However, these inbound links have to be relevant to the content on your page. If they aren’t meaningful, then the link juice is negligible and could hurt your rankings on Google.

5.  Search Engines Don’t Care about Your Branding but You Do and You Want Your Users to Recognize You.

Remember the visitor is a human being, not an alien visitor. They want to have a pleasant visitor experience. They want see a finely branded website with excellent content, easy navigation and be able to make a connection with the site. Therefore branding and structure are critical to the user experience and they will reward you for its quality and credibility.

Take-a-Ways

•  Quality trumps quantity. Both are valuable, but in the end the user experience is paramount so quality should weigh more heavily than quantity.
• Avoid generating what the search engines will consider spam — overuse of links, repetitive keywords, mountains of weak content.
• Well written content with proper placed keywords will engage your readers instead of putting SEO and search engines first.
• Quality content will attract better quality inbound links from other sites and users and position you as an authority website.
• Quality content also will convert potential customers into solid leads and sales.
• Finally, use a professional content writer and an online marketing firm to help you maximize your site’s effectiveness and visibility.

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Have you ever noticed one of those one by one inch squares next to an advertisement that looks like a bar code? If have, then you would know that these bar codes are actually called Quick Response codes and you can scan them with your smart phone. They are now the latest craze in the mobile marketing world. The basic premise of a QR code is to be able to instantly download information onto your smart phone about any given topic such as a link to a company website or a coupon. They are displayed anywhere from print advertisements, television commercials, social media links, and websites. QR codes have become an integral tool for any marketing strategy and they have made mobile marketing and advertising more accessible than ever.

QR Technology

People are constantly using their phones, and as a result, QR codes have become a very convenient mobile marketing tool for just about anything, and they have become increasingly popular in just the last year. Even though the technology originated in Japan, it has grown exponentially in the United States ever since it was introduced to the market. According to Mobio.net, “QR scanning traffic [in Q1 2011] has increased a dramatic 4549% since Q1 2010.” Additionally, socialnomics.net claims “the number of people accessing the mobile Internet is growing fast and is expected to overtake the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web within five years.” Startling statistics such as these make it hard not to want to learn more about QR codes and what they mean for the future of consumerism and the mobile marketing industry.

Using QR Codes for Shopping

Have you ever gone shopping but wanted to compare prices on a given product you were thinking about purchasing? Instead of standing around typing product information into your smart phone’s search engine, QR codes allow you to scan all the information you need directly to your phone with a click of just a couple buttons. You can then read reviews online, compare prices, and see where you can get the best deal. Now days, some people are relying so heavily on QR codes to help them shop that they may start shopping only at places that offer the assistance of QR technology. People want to make sure they are getting the best product for the best price, especially in this economy.

Proper Placement&Mistakes to Avoid

QR codes are great ways to instantaneously advertise yourself or your company, however with every advertisement, the importance of placement cannot be overlooked. There are so many places that QR codes can be strategically placed to ensure that they get the most attention. If you are using QR codes to promote your business, then generating a QR code for your business cards could be very helpful for people who instantly want your contact information in their phone. Also, displaying QR codes on your website that lead to coupons save people not only time, but money and resources as well if customers don’t need to use a printer to print them out. But most importantly, make sure your QR code scans! Even if you’ve placed it in the right areas and circulated it to all the right people, if your bar code doesn’t scan properly, then you’re out of luck. You can check to make sure it works by testing it on various smart phones. Since different operating systems may scan in different ways, make sure all your bases are covered so you can increase the likelihood that your QR code goes viral.

Have you used QR code technology for marketing your business or purchasing products? We’re interested in what you have to say!

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Bob Speyer and Alison Brown, Web Success Team

Generating leads is the most important reason to blog and use social media, but using online marketing to promote your business only works if you take advantage of all the tools available. Writing blog articles, circulating them, and being active on social media platforms are all ways to build brand awareness, but when it comes to blogging, it’s important that you are aware of how to increase your ROI.

If you publish blogs that are irrelevant to your field or don’t include critical keywords, you could be wasting your time. On the other hand, if you do include keywords that will show up on search engines, not only will you increase visibility to your site, but also attract potential new clients. In addition, this article will help you focus in on and target customers through creative content creation and effective blog management.

Keyword Optimization

Online marketing and social media strategies rely heavily on the use of keywords for search engine optimization. For example, if you have a landscape design firm, you want to ensure that you use as many keywords as you can that pertain to your business, otherwise your articles are never going to be found by search engines. You can use keywords directly in your articles, or you can also use meta-tags, which are invisible to the reader and are imbedded into the article so that search engines will recognize them. Also, if you are having trouble coming up with keywords, you can use Google’s Keyword Research tool to locate new phrases or additional keywords that people are using to search your type of business.

Blogging for Business Leads

According to HubSpot, their research shows that “companies with blogs get 55% more website traffic, and that number goes up exponentially whether you post once a week, twice a week, and then up to several times a day.” The more relevant information you circulate, the more you will look like an expert to customers. When you become an expert in your field, people will begin to trust you more and maybe even recommend your company to others. Even though when you blog, you are giving away free advice, you are drawing people to your webpage and building brand awareness, which can generate leads.

5 Ways to Maximize Your Content Creation Effectiveness

Blog posts need to reach your target audience, using a blend of creativity, relevancy, unpredictability, timeliness and humor (tasteful of course!). Here is a list of ideas to increase your blog reach and effectiveness:

1. Use Multi-Media: Create a how to video; use info-graphics to summarize your post; share a cartoon.
2. Helpful Tips and How-To’s: People react to lists – faster to read and digest; write benefits, common mistakes, how-to article with step-by-step instructions; pitfalls to avoid.
3. Take Advantage of Existing Content: share an excerpt from an article, eBook, webinar or white paper with a call to action; share conference take-a-ways; make an opinion about someone’s article and support your opposite opinion with examples.
4. Promote Research Findings: people love statistics and “proof”; it helps position you as well read and on top of your industry; offer your own perspective to initiate conversation; initiate a survey through Survey Monkey
5. Add Expert Voices to Yours: the more you can offer your readers access to experts, the more diverse and credible you become; interview an expert and post the blog; feature guest posts from experts in your industry;

How to Get Something in Return

Maximizing your ROI is important since you are probably spending a lot of time, energy and manpower coming up with interesting and relevant topics to blog about, not to mention writing the articles and circulating them. Even though it is a time intensive process that involves giving away free advice, you should make sure that you include calls-to-action at the end of each article you post. That way, you can make sure that you are engaging your audience and turn those prospects into clients. One idea for a call-to-action would be offering them a related eBook that you wrote about a topic similar to the one they just read about. That way, they are even further engaged with you and one step closer to becoming a customer.

Circulate, Circulate, Circulate!

Once you have created the content, it’s important to share it with your social networks, and share it often. The more often people in your networks see your name, the more likely they will be to think of you before a potential competitor. Also, social media has now become integrated with search engines, so any Tweets or public Facebook updates will show up in searches as long as they contain relevant keywords. Finally, the more often you share these updates on various social media platforms, the more likely they will be to show up in searches.

Have you had luck generating leads by taking advantage of blogging and social media? If so, we welcome your comments to share with our readership!

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Bob Speyer and Alison Brown, Web Success Team

Everyone gets writer’s block from time to time. In the blogging world, it’s easy to get stuck if you run out of ideas about what topics to write about. If writing more blog articles means more business, then you probably don’t want to get stuck very often. One way to avoid this is make a checklist of content creation ideas that can help your online marketing program.

1. Your Knowledge of the Field

Some interesting blog ideas could stem from your knowledge of the field you’re in. Try to think about something you learned when you were relatively new to your industry or if you ever had any epiphanies, people will want to read about them.  Any insight you can offer that may seem like common sense to you may be a great help for newbie’s that are just starting out.

2. Experiences with Your Clients

Thinking about previous experiences that you’ve had with clients can also help inspire new ideas about various topics. If there are reoccurring questions that keep coming up, or overall trends that you’ve noticed, those could be great subjects to write about. The kind of advice you offer to clients on a regular basis can be a good starting point for a topic. If you keep having conversations with clients about new software that’s supposed to help with social media campaigns, your clients would probably be interested in what you have to say.

3. Customer Service – from Both Sides

If you’ve completely run out of ideas or want to take a break from discussing your industry, it can be helpful to talk about other topics that relate to any business such as customer service. There are constantly new and innovative ways for improving customer service and customer relations, so doing a little research or asking clients what they think about your services can get you thinking about ways to improve your strategy.

4. Big News and Interviews

According to BlogSuccess.com, they recommend “finding a big news item and relating it to your niche” or “interviewing an expert from your niche.” People are always interested in the latest news and connecting larger stories to your field in a creative way will almost ensure that you will grab readers’ attention. Also, interviewing experts in your field, especially if they are colleagues, can help spark ideas. You could even write a piece on them, allowing them to give advice to clients who are just starting out. They would probably very much appreciate solid tips from someone you consider a veteran.

5. Your Opinions on Your Subject

What do you believe in? If you think your industry is headed in a certain direction, you could share insights with your audience. Such as, if you think certain platforms are more effective than others, you could write why you think so. Also, the more persuasive and confident you sound about your beliefs, the more likely people will be to trust your brand.

6. Ask Questions

Asking questions is a good way to start an open dialogue with your readers. It’s a surefire way to get a conversation started about common questions that people may have about your industry. People also love to share their opinions. Creating a forum for people to discuss their concerns will ensure that their attention is captured. Additionally, starting an open dialogue with customers can help build trust between them and your brand.

7. Answer Questions

Are there common questions that customers keep asking you? You could write an article about various frequently asked questions that you’d been receiving. If you pick questions that could apply to your entire field, the likelihood of increasing the visibility of your article goes up. It’s also always nice for customers to conveniently read an article that answers questions in a straightforward manner without having to search for it.

8. Social Media Shares on Google+ or LinkedIn

Go Social. Visit your circles on Google+ or LinkedIn and ask people about topics they’re interested in. If you can get a good conversation flowing on these platforms, ideas should start flowing. Sometimes your greatest resources are in your immediate circle, so why not take advantage of them?

9. Get Controversial

We are conditioned to pay attention to controversy, whether it is from our celebrities, politicians or the economy (need I say more). We love to be shocked or at the very least offer our opinion. Take a hot button issue in your industry and write about it. The more controversial, the more traffic or attention your post will attract. Obviously you don’t want to get too personal and tarnish your reputation, but a little pot stirring can set things in motion. Like the old adage, “It’s better to be talked about, than ignored.”

10. Humor Engages Readers

Everybody wants to be entertained. Humor breaks down barriers and makes people more receptive to your message. People will breeze through your post if you sprinkle a little personality into it. A recent post included a cartoon with Steve Jobs standing at the pearly gates in front of God and Moses, with God saying, “Moses, meet Steve; he’s going to update your tablets!”

Your Comments Are Appreciated!

We welcome readers to comment on how you avoid topic block and share some of your successful techniques to boost your readership and traffic.
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No one wants to lose sales or lead opportunities once a prospective customer lands on your website. If you have broken links or error pages, visitors may downgrade your website and leave. Your site may also need a search engine optimization (SEO) overhaul. When viewers see a 404 error page, this is your opportunity to turn a negative into a positive.

One marketing tip that is often overlooked is the promotional use of the 404 error page that appears when trying to access a webpage that can’t be found. While annoying to some, this can actually be an opportunity for online marketers to further promote their brand. By creating a “customized” 404 error page for your website, instead of allowing for the standard message to appear, errors will be less intimidating and browsers can get back to your site easily before they wander away.

What is a 404 Error Page?

The 404 or Page Not Found message appears on a webpage when the page you were trying to access won’t let you. This means that the page may be temporarily inaccessible and that there was a miscommunication between the client and the server.  Sometimes this means that the host address was correct when you clicked on a link, but the extension was not. For instance, if you wanted to visit someone’s Facebook profile, and you misspelled their name at the end of the URL, Facebook will tell you that you “may have clicked an expired link or mistyped the address. Some web addresses are case sensitive.” It doesn’t necessarily mean something bad has happened, but when viewers have a difficult time navigating themselves away from the error page, you know that changes need to be made in order to retain visitors.

The Value of a Customized 404 Message

The importance of using a customized 404 message to improve search engine optimization is particularly undervalued or overlooked. People become absorbed in a website’s layout, content, or usability and they often forget about how to keep customers on their site when something goes wrong. You can make these error messages work for you by acting as a creative advertisement. If you make someone laugh, or catch their attention, they’ll have more incentive to stay on your site and continue searching for what they were trying to locate in the first place. It depends on how invested a user is in searching your website, but if you think about it, if you see an error message come up when you try to access a website, you usually close the window if there are no other links or re-direct options provided. According to marketing experts at Bruce Clay Inc. a customized 404 page should include: “an apology for the error, a prominent search box, a link to your site map, a link to your home page, and links to the other main areas of your site.” That way, users have many options for redirection and the error doesn’t seem as noticeable.

Examples of Customized Error Messages

If you access the Web Success Team’s 404 error page, you have the option to resume your search, return home, go to the blog page, or download two free reports which can tempt visitors to continue to browse your site. A call to action is also added, in case the user to call for more information. Navigation and sidebar are the same as the rest of the site for easy access.

Some websites have even gotten pretty creative and comedic with their 404 error pages:

Heinz.com tomato ketchup, uses a combination of both wit and functionality to entice users to keep browsing

Website DDZ.net uses pokes fun at the current price gauging of gasoline at $4.04 per gallon

To Error Is Human

In closing, make sure your website is properly SEO’d and do check periodically for broken links and other website anomalies. 404 errors occur, so get creative and people will be more forgiving if you can amuse them and help them find their way back to the appropriate page.

If your business heavily relies on social media, then it’s important to make sure that the time you’re spending promoting your business is paying off. As social media continues to play an integral role for any online marketing campaign, it’s becoming increasingly important to track the performance of your online marketing efforts. Using the application called “Klout,” you can measure all your social networking activities by how much engagement they generate. It will help you to measure how successful your brand is and, the higher your score, the more “klout” you will have.

What is Klout?

If you spend a lot of time posting online and promoting your brand, it would be helpful to see how much influence the content you’re posting is having on your online community. Klout allows you to manage the analytics of all your social networking sites, which includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and others. On a scale from 1 to 100, it rates how influential your content is, and it gives you a list of people whom you influence the most, and a list of people who influences you the most. The more you interact with your network, and the more likes, comments, or re-tweets you receive, the higher your score will be.

A Virtual Pat on the Back

Klout gives you the option to view analytics based on what topics you are sharing, such as online marketing or social networking. If Klout recognizes your niche and it gives you a high score on that topic, it means you’re on the right path.

Another useful feature on Klout is the option to give someone a K+. It’s similar to a “like” on Facebook, but it’s more along the lines of giving someone a virtual pat on the back, or saying “I’ve learned something from your post.” More K+’s lead to a higher Klout score, but they also show others that people in your network consider you a credible source in your field. This can be a great tool for branding since it is industry specific, and most people that avidly use Klout are heavily involved in social media, so proving you’re an expert in this field would mean more people will trust your brand.

Influential Klouters

Since Klout rates you based on the impact on your sphere of influence, it’s interesting to analyze the impact some people have on not only the online world, but on the world in general. According to Klout, Lady Gaga has a score of 90 and claims that she is influential about Music and Fashion, but more importantly, that she influences roughly five million people. With the most followers on Twitter, you might expect the score to be higher, but Klout doesn’t just look at numbers when determining the score, it looks at the quality of content.

Another influential Klout user, Guy Kawasaki, has a score of 85 even though he only influences 158,000 people. Because of the consistent and high quality information he chooses to share, he gets a lot of positive feedback, which equals a high Klout score. What this means for small businesses and branding is that even if you don’t influence thousands of people, you can still have an impact on your direct network and that impact is now tangible.

Return on Investment

There have been a lot of mixed reviews about Klout, but overall you get a good return compared to the time you need to spend in using it. The analytics are broken down fairly simply, and since it combines the Klout score for all your social networking sites on one page, you don’t have to spend much time navigating through endless pages of information. It can be debated whether Klout is promising enough to give you an accurate picture of your online influence, but overall, if you only spend a few minutes a day reviewing your scores, you will have a better understanding of how your online presence is influencing your clients. The more you understand your influence, the better you will be in creating the reputation you want for your brand.

If you liked this article you may also like:

• How to Generate Charisma for Your Brand through Social Media
• Adopting a Social Media Mindset for Web Success