28
11
2008
The most common mistake about spending online advertising dollars is spending too much on tools like AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing (SM) . Companies typically spend 80% of their Online Advertising budget on the tools but only 20% on resources to monitor the ongoing advertising.
This is a waste of money.
Online Advertising requires strategy and time, not just piles of money. Industry reports have shown that you can get better, more qualified results spending only 20% of the budget with the Search Engine and 80% on continuing improvements and strategy building.
That is why our company (CandyBox Marketing) does not focus on being an Advertising broker, but rather a SEM specialist, that can distribute your finances properly in between spending, monitoring and continual improvements to your campaigns. CandyBox Marketing balances all the different aspects of getting better results (including online advertising) and can obtain long-term traffic instead of the flood / famine routine that most companies take.
Before you lose a heap of money getting a small portion of traffic that may not end up in real business, talk to us about how we can build long-term, qualified results.
Or, maybe you can just burn your money 
25
11
2008
Landing Pages are a way to focus on a specific target market with your website. If you have a product offering of 200 products, don't send them to your homepage if they came to your site for one!
Example of a company NOT using Landing Pages… Your customer searches for 'Velcro Vinyl Stick Tack' on Google.com, and comes up with Velcro.com. They click the link and are brought to Velcro.com's corporate site, displaying consumer, automotive and industrial products. You have officially turned a prospect into a frustrated user.
Example of a company USING Landing Pages… Customer searches for 'Velcro Vinyl Stick Tack' on Google.com, clicks on the Velcro link and comes to a page with the products features, offering, pricing and delivery options. Wow,, that was easy.
Landing Pages also allow your company to track conversions on campaigns. All pages should have a specific call to action (purchase, tell a friend, subscribe, request more info etc.) that is trackable.
Or you could just put them onto your Corporate Homepage and wish them happy clicking 
22
11
2008
If Information Technology is supposed to be leaping forwards into the future, then why are our IT departments lagging behind on simple requests? If it takes days to hear back about new email accounts, DNS changes, or simple domains registrations, you are not alone.
Businesses are finding out that internal IT services, unless backed by major investments, cannot keep up with today's Marketing Manager or Project Manager. IT issues sometimes seem like an un-ending abyss, and making ANY sort of quick changes doesn't seem to compute to IT professionals.
That's why more and more, companies are contracting out third party services (includeing SEO) to businesses that get the job done quickly. Campaign planning cannot wait days, or even hours; it requires immediate action taken so that online campaigns can be reviewed and improved before the marketing budget has run out.
Don't allow IT to slow down your online strategy; we can help.
19
11
2008
Although the concept of Blogging started with personal diaries, they have been proven to be the most effective tool for SEO strategists. Having an optimized Blog allows SMB's to keep their site up to date with new articles, ideas, documents and announcements without the pain of having to build webpages.
The majority of mainstream Blog applicaitons also come fully stacked with SEO tools including Sitemap Generators, Analytic Tracking Codes, Industry standand HTML layouts and web friendly URL's. All of these components are critical when it comes to optimizing your Blog for search engines to crawl it properly.
By updating a Blog every few days, this new content is sought after by Search Engines that Love up to date information from high-traffic sites. Your latest company news can be all over the internet the same day you wrote your blog entry, and site traffic can flow through to your Corporate website.
Here are the top Blogging applications that I would consider as leaders in SEO-Blogs:
1. WordPress (www.wordpress.org)
2. MovableType (www.movabletype.org)
3. Blogger (www.blogger.com)
Happy Blogging.
17
11
2008
Getting a site up is a mission, but making it known is not.
You can easily register your sites to major search engines within a few clicks, and no hasstle. Add your URL for searching to Google, Yahoo and MSN by filling out the forms below:
1. (Google) http://www.google.com/addurl/
2. (Yahoo) https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
3. (MSN) http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx
This will alert these search engines to search out and investigate (index) your site for their search results. This does not produce immediate results, but is ususally completed within one week. Finally, just because it is registered, this doesn't mean that you will be showing up on the first page of search results! You will need an SEO ready site and strategy to begin start up your Organic Search results. (CandyBox Services)
17
11
2008
SEO is like building a house, it needs to be done right the first time, or you will be constantly making adjustments to a complicated design. There are four simple steps to basic SEO:
1. Understanding your Keywords – You cannot be all things to all people on the internet. Find what your keywords / area of expertise is and write it down. Without this focus, there is nothing to 'Optimize' because you will generally lead to a broad spectrum of keywords. If you are selling vacation properties in Florida, don't advertise words that are in high competition which do not directly impact the users results (low price, buy a home, real-estate).
2. Optimizing your website – This includes (but is not limited to) creating a sitemap, reorganizing content, cleaning up your HTML and making sure that proper naming structures are used. This is a timely and skillful process that should be left to professionals.
3. External Link Posting – Connect with your current vendors / customers / associates with high-traffic sites and have them host links to your site. You are not trying to drive single-clicks through their sites, but this will help your overall page ranking for Organic Search Results.
4. Track / Review / Implement – See what works what doesn't work on your site. Review trends, successes and failures and be sure to change your site to accommodate good results. This is the most critical step ensuring long-term results that suit your business objectives.
There may be many different parties involved in these steps, but make sure that all four wheels are spinning to make your website 'road-worthy'. If one wheel is not turning, you will be experiencing some serious drag with your results.
17
11
2008
Meta tag manipulation, text dumps and hijacked links are now a thing of the past (thankfully). Crafty web designers no longer have the power to take a simple search phrase (Ex: Horseback riding, texas) and bring you to a website selling their poorly made T-Shirts.
Over the years, search engines have been getting better at understanding searching from the users point of view, then making sure that businesses have their act together to give people relevant results.
With the power of updating content, landing pages, web 2.0 websites and friendly navigation, the internet has finally killed the Traditional SEO era. Now users are rarely going beyond the first page on search engines and actually finding what they wanted, as opposed to what web designers wanted.
The companies that are reaping the benefits from such advancements are ones that take SEO seriously and understand that a new breed of Marketing Management is needed for online advertising / searching. Search Engines have led the way into a much nicer world for the average user looking to ride a horse.
Happy searching.
14
11
2008
Landing Pages are entry pages that are extremely targeted offerings with a call to action. For example, there is a company in Idaho called Digital Lizard, they have a product called FundRaisingPrintStore, and have landing pages for Private-School Fundraising Programs. Each level has different pages, and functions differently.
1. http://www.DigitalLizard.com (Corporate)
2. http://www.FundRaisingPrintStore.com (Product Offering)
3. http://www.FundRaisingPrintStore.com/private-school (Landing Page for Private Schools)
If you click on the Landing Page link, this is a good example of an Optimized landing page. There are three keys that these pages need to follow:
1. Immediate call to response – If you land a perfect lead, you don't want to lose them as they click through your site. Capture the response on the landing page from the first page, and have the option to give them supporting information (if they need it).
2. Offering – A landing page without an offering is as good as a car dealership without discounts. Users need to be intrigued by your offering to commit themselves to filling out a form. They know their information is worth something and are looking to see what you can give them.
3. Simple – Landing Pages should not give them more information than absolutely necessary. This means not listing your terms and conditions, purchasing models, charts of pricing and information about the company. By all means, make this available to them on other pages, but lots of information is the greatest deterrent on the internet.
- Landing Page Examples
