Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, September 30, 2007 Comments (2)
Every webmaster wants free SEO tools. As far as SEO tools go, there are three tools that I recommend should be in every webmaster’s arsenal and all three are free:
Secret Page Spy’s Keyword Density Tool – There are plenty of keyword density tools online and it really doesn’t matter which one you use. Some of the best ones are free, but not all of them. You might as well use a free one. Secret Page Spy’s free SEO tool for keyword density is one of the best.
Marketleap – I really don’t know how you can make it online without knowing your link popularity and search engine saturation. Marketleap’s free SEO tool for link popularity and search engine saturation make this possible. All you do is type in your URL and you get instant results.
SEO Chat’s Site Link Analyzer – Another free SEO tool I recommend is SEO Chat’s Site Link Analyzer. This free tool will analyze all the links on your website – external as well as internal – and check for broken links. If you have any broken links, SEO Chat will find them. It will also notify you of any NoFollow links. This is a good tool to analyze potential link partners as well. I highly recommend it.
There are plenty more SEO tools you can use, but these are three essential SEO tools every webmaster should have and they’re all free.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, September 30, 2007 Comments (1)
Do you own a local small business? Then you need to read the Local Advertising Journal, the latest blog in the Brick Marketing family. Every day, the Local Advertising Journal will bring you the latest news and insights from the local advertising part of the Web. We will share our insights on how to rank better for your local search terms, how to make the most of local advertising opportunities such as the online Yellow Pages, CitySearch, Superpages, Google and Yahoo! Local, and how to maximize you pay-per-click campaigns with local optimization techniques.
The Local Advertising Journal received its first daily post on September 21, 2007. So far, titles of posts at the LAJ include:
Stop by Local Advertising Journal today and see what we have to say about advertising your local small business online.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, September 29, 2007 Leave a comment
Should you write your own content? That’s a difficult question to answer. For some, it’s a no-brainer. Obviously, the best person to write your content is you, but some people are not writers. Some people have a fear of writing while others just feel that they are not adequate enough for the job. Other people are lousy spellers. Still, who knows your business better than you do?
There are some important considerations in deciding whether you should be the one to write your content. Content development is not so much about getting the write words on your page as it is about touching your market with the right words. What I mean is, you can write dynamic content, but the best content is content that sells. If your content is great content but it fails to spark a reaction then it isn’t doing its job. Your content must get readers to make the click, buy the product. You’ve got to close the sale.
If you can do that then you should write the content. If you struggle with calls to action, trigger words, and with other copywriting techniques then you might want to hire a content production team or copywriter. At any rate, focus your content on the call to action.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Saturday, September 29, 2007 Comments (2)
(Source) The frustration came when I found out that what I thought was an incredible idea for a post, and an amazing article written by some blogger, did not get much traffic or attention, while weeks later some ‘well known blogger writes a post about the same topic but much less interesting, and gets a huge amount of traffic, comments, and credit for it.
OK, I kind of like this idea. Zuggu.com is a social bookmarking site for Internet marketers. A lot like Digg, only without the prejudice. Let’s face it, Diggers are elitists and if it rains ….
Well, you understand.
I like this idea because you can actually vote up, or down, those interesting stories on Internet marketing that you find all over the place – from guys that aren’t Aaron Wall or Darren Rowse. The only thing I think that would make this idea even better is to be able to search for all the blog entries on a particular topic. For instance, this mornging, Michael Martine submitted his blog post titled, “10 Things To Do After You Create A Blog.” If I had an interest in seeing who else blogged about that same topic then I’d be relegated to looking for similar blog entries by clicking on one of the category listings on Zuggu’s sidebar. So I’d click on “Blogging.” But then I’d only get results that were actually submitted to Zuggu.
Here’s what I’d like to see: A search box that allows me to type in a key phrase. Let’s say, “after you create a blog.” If I can find any blog entry on the Internet that uses that phrase and be able to vote it up or down using Zuggu’s concept then that would be quite cool. This way, if I’m working on a similar concept then I can see how many other bloggers have done it before me and find blogs that I can trackback to and comment on about my blog post on a related subject.
Still, I like Zuggu concept even without the fantasy feature.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, September 28, 2007 Comments (8)
(Source) Compete has just compiled a study that shows Yahoo’s superiority over Google when it comes to search results.
I hate to the bearer of bad news (actually, I quite like it), but Compete’s study may not be so objective. The company admits on its website that it uses Yahoo’s technology to provide search services for its users:
Revolutionizing search results by combining Compete Site Analytics with Yahoo’s award-winning search technology, alerting searchers to site profiles, promotional codes and trust scores for each search result displayed. Compete Search helps users find the best result faster.
That indicates a little bit of a bias to me. Even if we accept Compete.com’s conclusion that Yahoo is more useful 75% of the time compared to Google’s 65%, and I have no reason to dispute it as a fact, then Google would still be right more times on the whole than Yahoo. Take note, 65% of 67% of the whole is a larger number than 75% of the 20% of the whole. So these statistics are very misleading.
Another consideration is that the higher the quantity then the more room there is for error or negative results. That may be why Google has a lower percentage of fulfillment than Yahoo. It gets three times the search queries. We should be celebrating that there is only a 10% difference between the results returned for the two search engines rather than lamenting that Google’s results show a lesser return on fulfillment.
IMO, this study doesn’t really offer anything useful.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Friday, September 28, 2007 Leave a comment
Small Business Branding posted an excellent blog post two days ago on marketing plans. While I agree that marketing plans are essential for traditional businesses, they are less so for Internet businesses – at least, as they exist for traditional businesses. Internet marketing plans are a good way to keep you focused on goals so I wouldn’t say they aren’t necessary at all. But you have different considerations for your Internet marketing campaign.
A traditional business plan usually follows this outline:
- Business Summary and Overview
- Market Analysis
- Competitive Analysis
- Product or Service Outline
- Marketing Strategy
- Production Processes
- SWOT Analysis
- Business Structure
- Management Team
- Financial Information
Your Internet Marketing Plan
First, there is a distinction between a business plan and a marketing plan. Your business plan, in its completion, could include an Internet marketing plan, which would fall into the Marketing portion of the overall business plan. When you put together your Internet marketing plan, here are some things you need to think about:
- Summary and Overview – Is your Internet business an extension of your brick and mortar business or is it a stand alone entity?
- Market Analysis – Yes, you need to study the market online for your particular industry.
- Competitive Analysis – Your off line competitors may or may not be competition online. It is likely that you’ll have a whole new set of competitors online.
- Product or Service - Will you provide the same services online as you do off line?
- Marketing Strategy – You need to think about what Internet marketing strategies you will use in your online business. Will you use pay-per-click, affiliate marketing, blogging, article marketing, banner advertising, all of the above?
- Management Team – Are you a sole proprietor or will you have partners?
Financial Information – This is just as essential for your online plan at is for your off line plan.
This may not be all you need to think about for your Internet marketing plan, but these are the bare essentials. No Internet marketing plan should be without these elements.
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, September 27, 2007 Leave a comment
If you do business online then you need Internet marketing. Whether you run a small business or a large mega-corporation, you need an effective Internet marketing expert who know how to get results. When you hire Nick Stamoulis (that’s me!) to run your Internet marketing campaign, that’s exactly what you get.
I highly recommend the blogging service no matter what kind of business you run. There are several ways you can use a blog.
- You can use a blog to drive targeted traffic to your website
- You can use your blog as an SEO tool
- You can use your blog primarily as a marketing tool and to start the sales process
- Some people use their business blog as a sales tool
- A blog can also be used to gain permission to contact prospects with future offers
Whatever you use your blog for, you can rest assured that I will manage your blog just like it was my own. I’ll make sure it is crawlable and you get the SEO benefit you deserve – even if you use your blog for other purposes! I will also make sure the content on your blog is written well and closes the deal. Whatever the purpose of your blog may be, I will meet or exceed your expectations. There is no need to delay your decision to start your blog today. So what are you waiting for? Come see me.
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