Is Page Rank All That Really Matters?

Link building can be a long and tedious task to complete. Due to this, it is essential to set aside the appropriate amount of time and resources for the process, in order to complete the task as adequately as you can. Knowing what misconceptions there are in regards to link building, compiled with your own creativity, can take you very far in your link building accomplishments.

In the decision of which links to pick portion of the link building process, taking into consideration Google PageRank and relevance is natural. They are both important, but not decision make or breakers in the process.

Google PR, or PageRank, is the ranking that Google gives a specific page that it crawls. PR is useful in a general sense for showing a site’s range and scope. If you try to decipher the differences that make a PR3 and a PR4 you will go batty, and that is not conducive to link building. Additionally, PR is not a good representation of Google’s system, since a PR0 link can prove equally as useful as one from a PR3 site.

The general way of thinking is that the more valued links are from those with relevant, similar themed pages. This can be true, but taking it at face value can lead to missed chances. The better links are always on similar themed websites, or those in the same industry, but links that are not can also be of use. Common sense should be used, but don’t pass up an opportunity simply due to lack of shared themes.

Provided you can procure your instinctive ways to value inbound links, sans relying on PR, increasing links to your site will come naturally. It will also prove to be more natural in your link profile.

March 31st, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

The Proper Way To Build Links

When it comes to obtaining paid or bartered links, the focus is often on the anchor text. Immediately a webmaster will request their top keyword linked to the homepage. Or wisely a secondary keyword linked to its corresponding internal optimized landing page. This is industry standard, right? You want to rank higher for that keyword, so you get links with that keyword!

But to link-buying savvy webmasters, that should only be done most or half of the time. What else should you use? Mainly your URL, because this is a completely natural term to link. Natural links nearly always link from anchor text that starts with “www”.

If Suzy Blogger were writing about this fantastic site she found that has every type of bicycle seat cover ever made in every fabric and color and size, she is likely not going to link “bicycle seat covers”; she going to say “I found this great site www.bicycleseatcovers.com and I love their selection of seat covers” This is natural. Also you can link your business name sometimes. I know (I hope) you already rank #1 for your actual business name, but you are really just trying to add credibility to your link profile with this tactic.

You will not want to show a spike of artificial links, if you are stepping over Googl’s boundaries. The best application of this would be when you are obtaining large amounts of lower quality links, such as blog articles. Make sure you mix up the anchor text. Your site will be helped overall by the quantity of incoming links, more than worrying about exact anchor text. Keep it real, by throwing out a few logical site mentions or specific product mentions.

Imagine the handful of truly natural (unpaid) great high PR links you have gotten, just by being a great site, or your business connections. Perhaps you spoke at a high profile convention and that site gave you a link. Or maybe you are a supplier of a national brand that listed you on their site. Which words are linked? “Cheap socks” would surely not be typed in on the seminar’s agenda. Your company name would be the link. You are sure to know that you are accumulating authority from that PR7 link, no matter the anchor text. All are incoming links, all are of worth in the large picture. Natural links will keep you safe, while offering long term rewards.

March 31st, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

Should I Hire An Outside SEO Company?

Now your company’s website is compete. And it is on the internet for all the world to see. But the big question is, what do you do now? How do you get people to view it? How do you assure it is listed at the top of common search engine results when people query terms similar to your content?

Of course, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the solution. And you have two choices. You can either hire a professional company specializing in SEO to do the work, or you can buck it up and attempt to do it yourself. Many who are just getting started will opt for the latter as a first step, however this decision should be considered carefully because it can determine the success of your company.

One of the first questions you may want to ask yourself is whether you have the ability to embark on a successful SEO plan without a professional’s assistance. You will need some knowledge of HTML coding. And you’ll need to know how to draw up a site map. If you created your website all on your own and are familiar with web design, you may have skills necessary to do some SEO work yourself. On the other hand, if your site was designed by another, then you probably will want to hire a professional organization.

The next thing to consider is whether you have the time necessary to do the SEO work. Could your time be better spent on other tasks that are essential to your company? Do you have the manpower to dedicate to the task? If you have lots of time and the skills needed then you can save money doing it yourself or working on SEO in-house. Only you can determine if the benefits outweigh the costs when directing company time to execute the necessary link building programs and content writing to move your website to the top of the list. Is your competition using a SEO company? If not, you might be well-served to do it yourself because doing something is better than doing nothing. However, if the other companies are being professionally optimized you may have to go the route of hiring a professional SEO firm just to be competitive.

You will also need to think about a budget, if you have one. Professional SEO organizations are not cheap, so if you want your site to sit at the top of the rankings, then be prepared to pay for it. But the return is that the visitors will buy your product in much higher numbers. Professional SEO companies have many tricks they use, including continually running test to find better ways to achieve higher rank for you. In this industry, you truly do get what you pay for.

March 31st, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

Lead Distribution Software: Help Your Sales Force Perform Better

You need to instill a sense of urgency in the members of your sales force. This is the winning formula in order to help achieve the sales that you want. Why? This is because having this will allow your team to close more deals. They should also be able to attend to all your prospect clients’ need in a timely and efficient manner in order for them to buy your products and/or services.

You might be having real problems in achieving the revenues that you wish to get if you are reading this. What, then, should you do?

First off, you need to examine your sales force. Check out the different capacities of its members. You need to make sure you zero in on the people who do not exactly have the sense of urgency that you need and make sure you do something about them, otherwise, their complacency will, eventually, take over the whole team.

If you have already gauged your sales force’s strengths and weaknesses, you should then determine who among them are your top salesmen. Doing so will be able to allow you to route your leads properly in such a way that not one will ever go stale. To help you make sure of this, you need to have a lead distribution system in place.

You can create the sense of urgency that you need your sales team to have if you have a lead distribution system in place. This will keep them on their toes at all times. How? By helping you achieve the following automatically:

1. Routing hot prospects to the right people on your sales force.

2. Allowing you to properly categorize your prospects.

3. Re-routing your leads if there is a need.

4. Ensuring that you keep track of the progress on each lead properly so that all the members of your sales team will know what transpired in each and every attempted contact with one.

5. Helping you in prioritizing leads.

6. Tagging leads so that you can easily do a follow-up.

7. Tracking the needs of your customers.

8. Maintaining a high level of customer service.

When you invest in a lead distribution system, you will be given the assurance that all your hot prospects are processed properly. Without one, a large percentage of your leads will go to waste. You should not allow this to happen.

You can achieve wonders in your conversion rate once you have lead distribution systems in place. They are very powerful tools, but then, you should make sure that you do not take the people in your sales team for granted since they are the ones who have the power to make it or break it. Make sure you take good care of them and always make it a point to instill in them the sense of urgency that you need them to have to make sure you achieve the revenues of your dreams.

March 31st, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

Postcard Printing Offers Business Development

Postcard printing will be fruitful if it is properly managed. You have to make a systematic planning of the article from the stage of production to the final distribution phase of postcards to your targeted customers to achieve the advantage of your effort. Small business owners find it exceedingly suitable for their business when they send postcards to customers in a limited area and receive substantial response from them.

The old age practice of approaching printing companies physically is not viable in the recent period. This is the age of online printing services, which are freely available at cheaper cost. In this way, you save your precious time, but get the correct information about the progress of production of the material.

You should browse the internet to get a reliable online printing company and discuss your necessity of postcards. You get several facilities and numerous handy templates for your postcards to select for your purpose. Moreover, you get the minimum price quote from printers so that you can save on cost and choose accordingly.

Talented online printing companies put forward designing tools to create your own design, where you are able to upload your texts or files. A professional graphic designer of the printing house provides you the best idea to accommodate your proposals to create attractive postcards printing for the marketing drive. You have the options to select varieties of images harmonizing with your business to impress your customers.

The essential part of your postcard printing venture revolves around the selection of your targeted customer base to which you need to send the communication through your postcards. Direct mailing service is a wonderful idea which is practiced by reliable printing companies, who take the task to perform the work on the list of addresses that you serve to them.

If you can prepare a list of customers in advance, which you can assemble from various places such as community forums or libraries and so on, you have a very good chance of making it feasible to get your message presented to clients. The success of the creation of postcard printing relies on the procedure of conveying the message to your customers. If you can mange it perfectly, you will get fantastic returns.

March 30th, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

Introduce Bookmark Printing For Your Business

You should promote your business whether big or small and for that you have a handy tool. Bookmark printing is an effective marketing tool which presents the advantage to promote your business to reach the targeted customer section. The effectiveness of the unique marketing accessory is realized, when you create beautiful bookmarks to convey the communication in a subtle manner.

The most important advantage of this article is its negligible investment requirement. You can organize a profitable marketing strategy with this low cost tool to create effective response in the desired customer base. If you intend to be further economic in the production of the bookmark, you should contact a competent online printing company who provides the designing tool to create your own design.

You can also make use of the templates that are offered by printing companies and include your communication to create the bookmark. The idea should be simple and helpful for customers. General customers do not prefer jugglery of words in a bookmark which is useless. Hence, you should provide simple, transparent and specific information in the bookmark so that customer is truly benefited.

You have to be extra cautious about three main aspects in bookmark printing, which are the heading, the communication and tidiness of design. The heading is vital because it speaks half of the entire story and the residual half is described in the follow-up communication. You should always try not to over stress your claims, they do not sound pretty and customers are rarely influenced. Your design should be tidy and clutter-free so that customer recognizes the seriousness of your approach.

Ask the printing company to allocate discounts on printing which they normally provide on bulk printings. Choose the normal quality paper and use lamination for better look and durability.

The text of the bookmark should contain an appealing header followed by a couple of salient features about the product or services that describe the summary of the item. Mention contact details for making it easier for customers to respond. If you combine all these points professionally and produce an attractive bookmark printing, you will certainly do better business to earn profits.

March 30th, 2010 - Posted in Online Marketing | | 0 Comments

Over The Counter Bulletin Board: How To Find Private Investors!

If you own or run a company that is trying to raise capital in the current economic conditions you’ve undoubtedly been challenged by the limited funds available. Investors are more difficult to find and the individuals that are actually willing to part with their cash are even tougher to find. You’ve talked to friends, family members, your cpa and your attorney but trying to get them to invest is like drawing blood from a stone, it’s just not happening.

There is an easier way. Most broker dealers and market makers have an emergency number in their Rolodex that reads “Investor Finder”, these specialist consultants are brought in when there is nowhere else to turn for cash. A true Investor Finder has 1,000’s of investor contacts that they can call on to get funding for their clients and are constantly using online viral strategies to attract more investors to their database.

An investor finder usually is not a licensed securities broker/agent or attorney; instead they are traditionally consultants that are active in the investment banking facilitation aspect of the industry. Being that they are not licensed they do not accept equity payments or percentages; instead they work on a flat fee basis.

A good consultant in this genre can bring in 30 to 70 real investors per day and it’s up to the client to sell the opportunity from there. A typical lead from an investor finder will be an investor or investment firm that is responding to the consultant’s opportunity introduction email or snail mail mailing, they have read about the opportunity and they respond one of two ways, either they are calling into a phone room to be screened and qualified or they are contacting the client directly.

Many times the investor doesn’t know that they are part of the “finder’s” database but do recall signing up to receive investment opportunity updates, so either way the investor is solid and active. If you are trying to raise capital and need real results quickly and can’t afford to waste time begging for cash, you need to seek out a qualified Investor Finder consultant and make your fundraising efforts fast and easy.

March 29th, 2010 - Posted in Blogging | | 0 Comments

Over The Counter Bulletin Board Consultants: Beware of the Hard Sell Consulting Firm

Private Placement Memorandum authoring and the process of taking one’s company public are services that require extensive experience and the ability to look at a deal objectively and peripherally to evaluate all the angles to enhance the ability of the client to achieve funding in a timely manner.

Many times, when I’m hired to structure a company before funding, they will be under the impression that my evaluation is a mere formality and they are ready to go. Often I’m the bearer of bad news when I have to break it to the client that their company has more holes than Swiss cheese and 30 to 60 days away from starting the fund raising process.

They will often get a second and then third opinion and usually run into the same thing before they eventually find their way back to our firm. As they call around to consulting firms they perpetually experience the ‘hard sell’ by firms who ‘need’ the business because they lack the rewards and referrals that come with cultivating each client relationship because they take on and spit out deals so fast they hardly remember their client’s name during the transaction.

This mentality dominates the larger firms because of their gargantuan overhead while the boutique firms can take a more personal approach because they have a steady flow of business and referrals because they are not stressed about bringing in the next big deal so they can meet payroll and keep their lights on. The smaller companies that focus on turnaround consulting, private placement memorandum authoring, top tier business plan writing and taking companies public usually take a one on one approach to the consulting process and will rarely pressure clients to sign on because their phone is ringing off the hook with previous clients who want to hire them for the next stage in the evolution of their company’s growth.

This business is all about relationships. Ditch the consultant that applies the high pressure sales tactics and seek out the smaller, more personalized groups that don’t ‘need’ your business but will cultivate and value it.

March 29th, 2010 - Posted in Blogging | | 0 Comments

Private Placement Memorandum: Get Investors Now

Entrepreneurs are being turned onto Regulation D in droves. Regulation D Rule 504, 505 and 506 allow companies a more lenient fund raising process than those who choose to go public by other means. In the past year I’ve seen more PPM consultants pop up on the internet than ever before and I have to admit I’m concerned. As a veteran in this field I’ve seen it all, now we have a legion of self proclaimed Reg. D gurus who buy templates, add some text and tell their clients that they are delivering a customized offering memorandum; here’s where things go bad and a difficult situation gets even worse. You have this worthless document, now what?

You need to gain the confidence and capital of accredited investors without soliciting as dictated in Regulation D Rule 502c. Now you have a worthless document that you can’t solicit investment capital for (which your guru consultant never told you but took your cash anyway) so how are you suppose to raise funds for your company? First, you’ll find that you’ll eventually need to make your way to an actual PPM author, not a broker so that you can get a PPM that protects you from lawsuits and gives the investor a real breakdown of the upside and downside of your business.

Next you’ll need to find a “Investor Finder”, yes this is an actual term for an individual or corporate entity that is completely submerged in the accredited investor realm and is able to match your opportunity with friends that he/she has in their database of real, accredited investors. This is the second half of the PPM equation.

Don’t kid yourself and don’t allow yourself to be lied to; you’re going to need a seasoned professional to help introduce you to investors that have the capital to help you get to where you need to be. Friends, family and employees will commit to investing in your company until your PPM is completed and it’s time to make good on their commitment; all of a sudden little Johnny needs braces and Sally is in the hospital with pneumonia, this happens all the time. Now what? With a real Private Placement Memorandum and a solid Investor Finder you’re problems are basically over. Investigate where the author and I.F. stand in the Internet public domain and after you find a company that meets your needs, get moving and start raising capital.

The internet tells all when it comes to reputations, you’ll be able to tell the difference between a seasoned veteran and a startup consultant after on Google Search and a phone call. A PPM can make raising capital quick and easy if you have the right firm in your corner.

March 29th, 2010 - Posted in Blogging | | 0 Comments

Take Your Company Public Easily: OTCBB, Pink Sheets and Reverse Merger

Whether you’re trying to raise debt or equity capital there are still certain unwritten rules that apply that cater to the mentality of today’s investor and funding community. Certainly there are scores of private placement memorandum and business plan chop shops that wouldn’t know how to properly consult with your company or write a fundable document even if they wanted to but they will gladly take your money to throw together a template and try to pass it off as custom work.

The issue is this, it’s not necessarily the consultant, though these fly-by-nights shoulder a large portion of the blame, but the client usually doesn’t even have the proper structure in place to attract a funding source even if they had the most incredible PPM and business ever to hit the venture capital marketplace. Here is a simple (very basic) way to evaluate your company to find out if you are properly structured to attract capital. Have a corporate meeting and ask yourselves the following questions: What type of corporate structure do you have and why did you choose that particular structure? Break down your executive infrastructure, where do your individual executives stand in your industry, do the unthinkable, Google everyone’s names; are the people running your company real industry players? Are all the basic positions accounted for (president, CFO, controller etc)? Next, look at your advisory board and board of directors. If by some miraculous act of God you actually have these two groups represented in your company, how did you qualify them? Sorry but if you have an attorney on your board because he’s, um…well, an attorney, that’s not good enough.

You need an industry specific legal guru who not only spells out the intricacies of your business genre’s regulation but they must also be actively qualifying potential strategic partnerships as alliances for your company. He should be reaching into his client base and actively picking companies that could enhance your company in distribution or in any other way that will have a profitable outcome for all involved. Each of the members must be serving a similar purpose.

Next, on what criteria are you basing your share price or loan amount? If you don’t have a clear cut ‘use of proceeds’ model, you need one. This and many, many other questions need to be asked before you are actually ready to raise capital and in all reality, until your corporate structure is in place you shouldn’t even attempt to write a business plan or a private placement memorandum. If you are serious about setting up your company to attract investors you need a turnaround consultant, you can’t do this on your own. There is an entire industry that centers around structuring companies for their first and ongoing capital raise.

Before you blackball your company by prematurely attempting to raise capital, the critical concepts you need to keep in mind are (precisely in this order): corporate structure, infrastructure, advisory board, board of directors, use of proceeds, business plan, private placement memorandum, investor finder, funding. Look at each aspect listed here as its own item, break it down and analyze every minute aspect of each element and look at everything objectively and eventually your company will evolve into a structure that is fundable and stabilized for years to come.

March 29th, 2010 - Posted in Blogging | | 0 Comments