How to use FeedBurner

An RSS feed gives people and programs a standardized way of automatically accessing your blog content without needing to visit your site each time it is updated. While all major blogging tools today generate a standard RSS feed for your blog, your RSS feed can be leveraged even further via feed management tools. These tools help you enrich the content your feed pulls from your blog, and they also help you monetize and advertise your feed – all of which allows you to grow your audience base even further. One of the most popular feed management tools available is FeedBurner, which works with your existing RSS feed in the following ways:
Allows you to customize the titles and descriptions of post content in your feed, which in turn encourages higher click-through to your blog
Let’s you see who’s clicking through on your feed, what other feeds they’re reading, and which feed reader they’re using
Allows your readers to share articles that they find useful with others in their community, such as by bookmarking them on sites like Digg and Delicious
Integrates Google AdSense into your feed to monetize the traffic you’re getting through RSS
Includes an e-mail subscription form on your site so that your readers have another way of subscribing to your content
Notifies major blog aggregators such as Technorati, My Yahoo!, Newsgator, and Bloglines when you post new content so that your subscribers using these services get your freshest content as soon as possible
Let’s you display the number of subscribers to your feed on your blog or website, which serves as another avenue of blog promotion
FeedBurner is now a Google product, so if you already have a Goolge account, you can log in with your Google account details at www.feedburner .com to get started. Once you’ve logged in (or created an account), you’ll be guided through the setup process, during which you’ll be prompted to add the feed URL into the FeedBurner interface. After your account is set up, you can begin promoting and enhancing your feed.

Why including picture to your post

Including images in a blog post is a good way of capturing your readers’ attention and making the post more interesting. Some people connect better to visual formats than written ones, so by including both images and text you’ll be appealing to a wider base of readers.
Uploading images to posts is easy and intuitive on most blogging tools: when you’re creating a post, simply navigate to where the image is stored on your computer and upload it into the body of the post. When you upload an image, you’ll be given various options for the size the image is uploaded as, such as thumbnail, medium, or large. You’ll also be able to add a caption, description, and URL to the image if you want it to link to another site or post on your blog. If you want to include an image on your blog that you don’t own, be aware of copyright issues: credit the image source by linking back to the site where the image originally appeared or e-mail the owner directly for permission to use it. Another option is to purchase the rights to an image through stock photography sites like www.istockphoto.com and www.gettyimages.com.
If you don’t want to store your images on your own hard drive, you can store them on an external image-hosting site. Doing so saves space on your own computer and gives you a centralized image storage location – particularly useful if you have multiple contributors to the same blog. Examples of popular free image-hosting sites include:
Flickr: A free account allows you to upload two videos of 150 MB each and 100 MB’s worth of photos per month. Image size is limited to 10 MB each
Picasa: A free account gives you a maximum of 1 GB of storage space for images and videos. Image sizes are limited to 20 MB each, and videos are limited to 1 GB each if uploaded from Picasa.
TinyPic: Unlimited storage space and bandwidth, but images are limited to 1,600 pixels in either length or height, and videos are limited to 100 MB and five minutes or less in length
ImageShack: Unlimited storage space and bandwidth, but images are limited to 5 MB in size, and videos are limited to 15 minutes for free accounts.
Photobucket: A free account gives you 500 MB of storage space and up to 10 GB of bandwidth per month. Image size is unlimited for images up to 1024 x 768 pixels, and videos can be 300 MB or less and must be 10 minutes or less in length.

How to leverage stats for your blog

When you start a blog for your business, you’re putting time and effort into another marketing channel. As for any other investment, you should monitor the return you’re getting – with a blog, this return could mean growing your reader base and increasing your brand exposure, or selling your product or service as a result of your blog, or generating revenue from ads that you’re displaying on it. No matter what your goal is, the best way to monitor your return is to analyse your blog’s statistics. These will give you information such as:
How many people are visiting your blog
How many people are arriving at your blog but then leaving again
The average amount of time people spend on your blog
Where your readers are coming from
If your readers come from a search engine, what search phrases they used to arrive at your site
Which posts they read
Armed with this knowledge, you can get a clear picture of the audience that is reading your blog and what content is most useful to them.
Most major blogging tools such as WordPress and Blogger provide basic blog statistics. If you’re looking for more extensive analysis, such as returns on ads you’re displaying on your blog, you’re better off using an external tool. One of the best free tools available is Google Analytics, which you can access using your Google log-in (if you already have one) at www.google.com/analytics. Like most statistics packages, Google Analytics provides you with custom tracking code that you’ll need to include on the pages of the blog that you want to track. With a blog’s template structure, tracking the whole blog is easy – you simply paste the code into the part of the template that is common to all the pages of your site. Doing this also means that new content will be tracked without your needing to add the tracking code to the new page of content each time. Once the code has been included on your blog, visitor activity is tracked and translated into the statistics you see in the Google Analytics reporting interface.

Writing a useful blog content

When it comes to content for your business blog, it’s really all about what your readers want. This may seem counter-intuitive  after all, you’re writing about your business, so shouldn’t you be the one to decide what to write about? Yes and no. At a high level, it is true that you’ll be writing about content that’s related to your industry. But within your chosen subject, you should write content that is useful primarily to your readers and that answers the main question when they’re on your blog: “what’s in it for me?”
The type of content that works best on a blog is very different from the content you’d include on your website. Your website is best for outlining details and specifications about your products or services or as a place to give general information about your company. In comparison, while your blog can still be related to the products or services you sell, it should offer something that adds value to your readers without asking anything from them in return. Rather than writing a post that outlines the benefits of one of your products, write a post that mentions your product or industry in the context of something that adds value, such as unique research you’ve done or insights you have about your industry. If you sell accounting services, for example, don’t just talk about the great value pricing you offer on your accounting services; rather, teach your readers how to file their tax returns or provide objective critiques of popular automated tax software products.
When your blog content adds value to your readers without trying to push your products or services on them, they’re more likely to associate your brand with quality and usefulness. In turn they’re more likely to become loyal readers who will return to your blog for the insights lead your customers to want to know more about your product, they’re more likely to convert from readers to customers, which in turn grows your business even further.

Need to carve out a niche

Starting a new blog can feel overwhelming once you realize how many established bloggers already exist in nearly every major subject area. Despite this strong competition, you can make a dent in your industry by creating a specific niche for your blog’s subject matter. For example, if you sell greeting cards, a unique take within the greeting card industry could be to document the real lives of the greeting card writers on your blog. You could write about the real events that happened in their lives to inspire the messages that they write, or you could describe the process they use to come out with new greetings.  When you write original content, you create a unique angle with your blog, increasing your chance of standing out from your competitors even if your blog is new.
To find out what kind of niche you should carve out, start by familiarizing yourself with what other established bloggers in your industry are writing about. Using blog search engines like Technorati and normal search engines like Google, search on keyword phrases relating to your industry to find the blogs that you’ll be competing against. Once you’re familiar with what’s already being written, you’ll be better equipped to brainstorm ideas for new content on your blog that will be original.
Carving out a niche applies not just to what you write about but to how you write your blog posts as well. Some bloggers may draw cartoons or pictures each day instead of writing text, while others may choose a specific style of writing. Whatever format you choose for your blog, if you let your unique voice show through in your blog, you’re more likely to cut through the noise of other bloggers competing for the same readership. Carving a niche also means that you narrow your focus, which is a good route to establishing yourself as an expert in a particular area. Only blogs associated with the most well established brands can post very general news and still be successful; in general, if you’re a moderately to little-known brand worldwide, sticking to a specific focus will help you establish better traction in the blogosphere. This, in turn, leads to a steady and loyal reader base.

Knowing your subject matter

Similar to the advice given in a creative writing class, the key to having a blog that adds the most value to your readers is to write about what you know. That means you should either be an expert on the topic at hand or have the personal experience to back up what you’re saying. If you’re writing a business blog, you’ll most likely be writing about your business in the context of your own industry, so it should be an easy task to give examples of real life situations or pass on expert knowledge about the subject you’re talking about. When you give real life examples, don’t be afraid to write about your own failure points as well as your successes. By being a company that can admit its mistakes and learn from them, you come across as being humble and honest, which improves your brand perception among your readers and makes for a more loyal blog audience. Overall, by giving insights in a real life context, you not only provide a better explanation for the point you’re trying to make but also make your blog more colour and interesting to read.
A good way to ensure that you’re always writing about what you know is to have multiple contributors to your blog from within your company. Choose people who have different roles and skills within your organization so that they can bring varied knowledge to the blog in a personal context. For example, your technical staff can write about technical problems and solutions they’ve come up with, while someone from your sales team can write about the marketplace in general. If you do go the route of multiple authors, make sure you don’t have too many contributors so that the voice of your blog begins to seem disjointed. Another idea is to have a theme week, where different people within your company write about the same issue and how it affects them or their department.
Whatever you choose to do, the overarching strategy for your blog should be that every post be written by someone who has earned the authority to write about his or her chosen topic, either by being an expert or by having gained personal experience with that topic.

How to attract new readers

To attract new readers to your blog, you need some way of spreading the word about it. The fastest way to do this is to have one of your blog posts reposted or referred to on other blogs. When this happens, the other blog’s readers are exposed to your content, which increases the chances of their visiting your blog and becoming your readers as well.
A blog post that lends itself to being shared easily because it is interesting or new in some way is said to be viral in nature. The word viral describes how it is passed on – someone who finds a post interesting might repost it on his or her own blog, and then readers of that blog may in turn repost the post or link to the post on their own blog. Like a virus, the blog post then spreads quickly in its exposure among increasing groups of people. Writing a blog post that is viral in nature means you quickly get traction beyond your own readers, which builds up your blog’s audience as a result of your original post.
So what does a post that’s viral look like? There is no single answer to this. Sometimes a post “sticks” simply because it taps into the zeitgeist of the moment – for example, you may be one of the first bloggers to talk about a hot topic that subsequently grows in popularity. At other times your post may simply be amusing to a large proportion of people who then share it with their own community. Overall, types of posts that tend to spread virally include:
Controversial or timely posts that talk about a current hot topic
Posts that consist of lists; these are easy to scan and often touch on real life examples
Humorous posts
Posts that give unique insights into a particular topic
Posts that talk about useful resources or tools for your readers
Contest posts, where readers are asked to provide input in return for the chance to win something
Since it’s hard to define what works and what won’t, especially among different industries, you’ll need to experiment with different types of posts to see what works. You won’t always be successful, but it’s worth the effort of writing twenty or thirty posts if only one of those becomes a viral success.

Why avoid the jargon

As with any other reading matter, the best way to connect with your audience is to write content to which they can relate. Every industry and company has associated jargon that its members use, and you may not even realize you’re using these technical phrases or words in everyday conversations with your clients or colleagues. Remember, though, that when you write your blog a varying proportion of your readers won’t be in your industry, and most of them won’t be a part of your company. So, to make sure you connect with your readers, steer clear of jargon and even from writing posts that are too theoretical. If readers don’t follow what you’re saying, they may end up leaving your blog and not returning. And even if every one of your readers does understand the jargon you use, you’ll still have a better chance of connecting with them if you illustrate your point clearly and simply.
An easy way to keep it clear and simple is to allude to a personal experience – an actual real life situation. Blogs are also a more informal medium than other communications such as press releases or even website copy, so blog writing lends itself to being less like a lecture and more like an informal discussion. Also remember that if you write clearly and simply, people will associate “clear” and “simple” with your brand. On the flip side, blog posts that are unclear, too complex, or too hard to follow may result in your audience associating those qualities with your brand and related products or services.
Sometimes, because you’re so immersed in your industry, it’s hard to recognize when you’re using language that is too jargon – filled or too technical. Consider having a trusted friend or other blogger outside of your industry give you feedback about how easy your posts are to understand.  If you can have someone proofread them when they’re in draft format, you’ll have an opportunity to revise them before they go public, but even if read after being published, the feedback you get can help you refine your writing in the future.

Self-contained is blogger mistake

One mistake that bloggers often make is to keep their blog self-contained they don’t like out to or refer to other blogs for fear that these blogs will take their audience away. By its very nature, though, the blogosphere is open and democratic, and therefore functions best when there is an easy flow of information in and out of blogs on the same topic. Assume that your audience is reading other blogs besides yours anyway and that linking out to or mentioning others won’t jeopardize the size of your readership. Embrace this easy information flow by acknowledging other blogs that inspire you in your own posts and linking out to other blogs that you feel may be useful or interesting to your readers. By providing extra resources, your blog will show that your business is willing to learn from others. As a spin-off, trackback functionality on most blogs means that those blogs will know you’re linking to them, so you’re exposing your content to other bloggers who may in turn link back to you for their own readers’ enrichment.
It’s important also to acknowledge when you’re mentioned on another blog. Whether it’s in a positive or negative light, don’t shy away from a response in your own post – this is another way of showing that your business is open to learning from others.
To find extra resources to include in your blog posts, join blog networks and use blog search engines and directories to see what other bloggers are saying in your subject area. Research who the influential bloggers are in your industry and read their blogs for ideas and information that you can share with your own audience. This can include anything from a plain blog post to rich resources like white papers, presentations, photos, podcasts.
As well as linking out from within your posts, your blogroll is a place where you can refer your readers to quality resources. Since a blogroll is usually highly visible on your blog’s home page, be discerning about the blogs you include on this list and keep them relevant to your industry.

Getting experiment, track and respond

Until you’ve been blogging for a while, it’s hard to predict what kind of posts will work best for your particular audience and industry. And, you may define what works best differently from to someone else: does a successful post for you mean that it’s shared often, that it generates a lot of comments, or that it results in inquiries about the business services you’re offering? Once you’ve identified what a successful post means to you, experiment by writing in varied formats to gauge which types of content work best. For example, trying writing a few of the following types of posts:
Lists
Case studies
Roundup posts that compare different products, services, businesses, brands, or solutions in one subject area.
Posts that experiment with associated graphics: with picture and without, or using photographs versus illustrations.
Video posts
Podcasts
Once you’ve published a few posts in different formats, use your statistics linked to your blog to analyse how they’re performing. Over time, you should be able to see a trend where certain types of blog posts attract larger audiences than others, generate more comments, or attract more inquiries. Once you’ve identified what format is working, create more posts like these and fewer in the formats that don’t work as well. Doing this will help you build momentum for growing your readership: the larger your audience becomes, the quicker your blog will grow since more people will be sharing the content you product.
Besides changing the type of post you’re writing, you can experiment with more subtle attributes on your blog such as the format of your post title, the look and feel of your blog, the length of your blog post, and how much you link to other blog posts or link out to external resources. To help you with this, you can even ask your readers for input into what they’d like to see on your blog that’s not already there. By involving your readers in the testing process, you’re also encouraging more audience participation, which is likely to make them a more engaged audience.

How to set up an RSS feed

Depending on who’s talking, you’ll hear that RSS stands for real simple syndication, rich site syndication, or RDF site summary. In all cases, though, its meaning remains the same: an RSS feed is a file created using a programming language called XML that contains an aggregate of all your blog’s content in one place. The file is then updated as more content is added to your blog, so that it remains an accurate and up-to-date record of all the content on your blog. Having an RSS feed for your blog is useful for two main reasons:
It’s in a standardized format, which means that many different software platforms, websites, and devices can access your blog’s content, no matter what platform you’re on.
It allows subscriptions, meaning that as your content is updated, people or programs that have subscribed to your feed will be notified of the update.
These two features make an RSS feed an easy way for people and programs to access the latest content on your blog without needing to visit the blog each time you add more. Through this simple “push” syndication of your blog’s content, an RSS feed is an excellent way of staying connected with your blog audience, and promoting your feed is a good way of attracting new readers.
The most common way that people interface with an RSS feed is through an RSS reader, also known as an aggregator or a feed reader. In the RSS reader interface, content is usually shown in the form of post headlines and summaries – sort of like looking at an email inbox. Then, as with e-mail, you click the headline to read the entire post, which opens up in a new window.
If you’re already using a major blogging platform such as Blogger or WordPress,  your RSS feed is automatically created and updated as you add new content. However, the degree to which you promote your feed to gain more readers depends on you. At the very least, make sure you include an RSS link on your blog home page for people to subscribe to your feed. Most blogging software tools will allow you to do this through the inclusion of an RSS widget into your blog interface. Besides including this link on your blog, you can also add it to your website, e-mail signature, and anywhere else you have a presence online.

Create blog domain name

When you create a hosted blog, your blog’s address, or Uniform Resource Locator (URL), will display as part of the particular blogging platform you’re on. For example, if you’re using WordPress, your blog address will be in the format http://myblog.wordpress.com, and if it’s on Blogger, it will be in the format http://myblog.blogspot.com . While this is fine to leave as is, many blog owners prefer to have their own domain show as their blog address: http://www.mybusinessblog.com or www.mybusiness.com/blog.html if they want their blog to be part of their main website. For business blog owners especially, having your own domain as your blog address looks more professional, and it allows you to create a better brand association between your blog and your website. This brand reinforcement carries over if you’re listing your blog on other places such as your Facebook page or even on printed marketing material such as brochures and business cards.
If you want your blog to have its own domain name, you’ll first need to purchase the web address you want. The cost will depend first on whether the domain name is available: if you buy a domain name that someone else owns, the price you’ll pay depends on how much the seller is willing to sell it for, which in turn depends on how much of a demand there is for that domain. If you buy a domain that isn’t owned by anyone straight from a domain register from Iboobo Web Design, you’ll pay much less. Domain names that end in .com are also usually more popular than other endings, like .net or .biz, so you’ll pay more for a .com domain than one that ends with .net. As a general estimate, an unused .com domain bought from Iboobo web design will cost you about hundreds plus per year. You can also buy domain names directly through your blogging platform if you have a WordPress or Blogger blog.
Once you’ve bought your domain name, you’ll need to link it to the standard address that your blog was created with (for example, http://myblog.blogspot.com) . You do this by changing the DNS settings for your domain name so that they point to the server where your blog is hosted (the process is simple and well documented by both domain registrars and blogging tools). Once you’ve updated the server settings, you may have to wait several hours for the change to take effect.

How to set up blog

Although the user interface differs among blogging platforms, with some offering more functionality than others, most blogs have common elements that allow you to customize it for your business. Four of the most important areas of your blog that you’ll typically customize are:
Templates: All hosted blog applications let you choose a template, which is another name for the basic design layout options for your blog. Some platforms are more flexible than others in terms of what you can customize, but most will let you change the fonts, colors, and footer and header image. Applying a template to your blog is easy to do, so experiment with different ones to see which works best in communicating your brand’s image.
Blog profile: This is an introductory paragraph about your blog that is displayed somewhere on your blog’s home page. Since it’s usually the first thing a new visitor will read when trying to find out more about you, it pays to spend some time writing a well-thought out profile paragraph. Think of it as your blog’s elevator pitch, so make it informative and memorable while still keeping it brief and as nonsalesy as possible.
Blogroll: A blogroll is a list of links to other blogs that you choose to link to from your own and this list usually appears on the right or left column of your blog’s home page. In the context of a business blog, think of a blogroll as a list of blogs you’re endorsing as resources for your readers, so be picky about what you include. If you’re looking for ideas of blogs to include, think about blogs written by your clients, partners, or employees and blogs written by influential thinkers in your industry.
Comments or no comments; blogging platforms let you choose how stringent your comment policy is: you can choose to allow anyone to post a comment or require that readers be logged in to do so, or you can make it so you have to approve a comment before it is posted. How you handle comments have a surprising amount of influence on your readers’ behaviour on your blog and their perception of your brand: allowing people to comment without logging in, for example, opens up your blog to comment spam, but adding this extra log-in step means you may discourage some people from commenting at all. Usually opting for the middle ground is best, where you require people to log in to leave a comment but you don’t have to approve the comment before it is published.

Choose a blogging platform

Assuming you’ve chosen a hosted blog (where a third party keeps your blog on its domain), the next major decision that you’ll need to make is which blogging platform to use. You can choose from a wide range of platforms, all of which offer a basic level of quality, functionality, and ease of use. There are certain notable differences between them, however, and which platform is right for your business will depend on what you want to do with your blog. For example, if you want your blog to be simple and fuss-free but want to generate revenue from it through advertising, blogger is your best option. If you want maximum flexibility but don’t want to generate revenue, WordPress is a better choice. The following comparison chart shows the pros and cons of having a basic blog on three popular blogging services: Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad.
Blogger – Pros
It’s free, simple to set up – targeted specifically to beginners. Simple to associate your own domain name with your blog, owned by Google, so you can easily integrate other Google products such as Google Analytics and Google Reader. Easy to set up Google Adsense so you can make money of advertising, offers a wide range of highly customizable templates.
Blogger – Cons
Limited functionality in terms of menus, pages, and categories.  Allow content to be organized only by labels, not by category.
WordPress – Pros
It’s free; a large number of plug-ins let you add extra functionality such as creating pages, menu items, categories, and subcategories, and built in statistics and spam blocker.
WordPress – Cons
Doesn’t allow advertising (e.g on Google AdSense), free templates are limited and not very customizable. If your traffic grows significantly, you have to pay for an upgrade to accommodate extra traffic.
TypePad – Pros
Easy integration of advertising programs such as Google AdSense. Built in image uploader for hosting your images straight from your computer. Mixed media templates available and allow guest accounts.
TypePad – Cons
Nominal monthly subscription fee, slightly complicated to have your blog hosted on your own domain.

Hosted or Self-hosted blog

If you’ve decided want to start a blog. The next major decision you need to make is whether you want it to be hosted or self-hosted.
A self- hosted blog means that you manage the blog’s software yourself and organize your own server space to store your blog’s content. For most people, this means paying a monthly fee to have their web hosting company look after it. Besides this cost, the main issue with having a self-hosted blog is that you need to set up and manage the blogging software yourself, which requires you to have a certain level of technical skill. If you don’t have these, you’ll need to factor in the added cost in time and money to find someone who does. Although having a self-hosted blog costs more money and requires more technical resources, you’re less restricted in terms of how much data you can upload to it, and you have maximum flexibility with its structure and look and feel. In general then, most businesses that want an optimal brand experience for their audience on a blog that is highly customizable opt for a self-hosted blog.
The hosted alternative involves signing up with a third party to host your blog on its domain. The main advantage with a hosted blog is its cost savings: in most cases, it’s free to sign up for a basic option, and you don’t have to pay a monthly hosting fee. The other main advantage of a hosted blog is its simplicity: you don’t set up or manage the software yourself, and setting up and posting to your blog is a quick and simple process. However, unlike with a hosted blog, you’re more limited with your blog’s structure and look and feel and how much data you can upload to it.
These pros and cons notwithstanding, if you’re new to the world of blogging, it’s probably a good idea to start with a hosted one. This option is the simplest to come to grips with if you’re a beginner, and you won’t have to commit a lot of resources in terms of time, money, and technical expertise to set it up. For the sake of simplicity, the rest of the tips on setting up your blog will assume that you have a hosted blog.

What is Blogging?

Blogging has come a long way from the late 1990s, when it was started as a way for people to share personal commentary with other internet users in an online diary format. More than ten years later, with hundreds of millions of blogs in existence, the industry has matured far from beyond the fad that many critics initially proclaimed it to be. Today blogging is far more than just a personal diary tool (although millions of those types of blogs still exist) – for a business, it can be an effective marketing tool as well. Besides being able to spread the word about your brand quickly and easily, maintaining a business blog gives you an informal way of connecting with, listening to, responding to, and engaging in conversation with your target audience.
The barriers to entering blogging are low: platforms like WordPress, TypePad, and Blogger are free, it’s simple to set up a blog on them in a matter of minutes, and you don’t need any extraordinary technical skills to maintain or publish content. Once your blog has been established, there many ways you can market it to grow your readership and, ultimately, expand your customer base. Although writing good content is critical to a blog’s success, if no one can find all your well-crafted posts, your hard work is going to waste. There are several ways you can make sure people find it, including optimizing it so you’re visible on search engines and joining other blogging communities.
Many Bloggers are able to make money from their blog by capitalizing on the traffic their site gets. This traffic is used as a selling point to potential advertisers: if your blog has a significant number of readers, and it falls within a specific topic, advertisers are often willing to pay in some form for exposing their product or service to an audience that’s specifically suited to that product or service.

Social media campaign goal

Although the tools used to implement a social media campaign may be newer and shiner, using social media is just like any other form of marketing in several key ways:
A social media campaign requires a strategy and a goal.
A successful campaign needs to use channels that are appropriate for your business and your target market.
A social media campaign takes time to show results.
Since implementing a social media campaign can be as simple as signing up for a Twitter account in just a couple of minutes, some businesses believe the campaign should yield results just as quickly. In reality, the basic principle of social media is to connect with your target audience on a shared platform and then give them a reason to keep engaging with you. Doing this takes time. For example, providing useful resources to the point where you become known as an expert in your industry, resulting in more people visiting your website or reading your blog, takes time. If you persevere, the rewards are worth your persistence- people are given more of an opportunity to learn more about your brand and develop a positive sentiment about it. In turn they are more likely to become your customers by visiting your website and buying your product or service.
The easiest way to make sure you persevere with your social media campaign is to build it into your daily work tasks. For example, you or your social media champion could spend a set amount of time each day or every couple of days to tend to the campaign. This could mean responding to questions, participating in conversations, uploading content to your blog and other social media profiles, or commenting on other content provided by those in your industry. Spending regular time on your social media campaign also helps you monitor your brand’s reputation online and stay up on news relating to both your industry and your business.

Social media referral traffic

No matter how large or small your social media campaign is, you should be monitoring its return on investment to your business. What you should track depends on your goals for your social media campaign – driving traffic, converting visitors to customers, or encouraging your site contents to be shared by others, among others.
To track a social media campaign effectively, you should already have an analytics package (for example, Google Analytics or Omniture Site Catalyst) interfacing with your website to give you information such as a site traffic trends, referral origins, and click paths of your visitors through your site. When it comes to social media efforts on your site, more website analytics package will let you create campaigns that isolate referral traffic to specific domain. For example, you could create a campaign that tracks which visitors are coming from MySpace, Facebook, or your own blog. If you’re already using Google analytics, you can install the “Better Google Analytics” extension for the Firefox browser that vies you social media metrics within the analytics interface. Besides using your site analytics to track your campaigns, several tools specifically track social media campaigns. Some examples are:
For twitter, Hoostsuite (www.hootsuite.com) shows statistics associated with your Twitter account, such as the number of users who clicked on a link within a tweet. SocialToo (www.socialtoo.com) tracks who follows and unfollows you on Twitter, TweetStats (www.tweetstats.com) provides graphs of Twitter stats such as your tweets over time and reply statistics, and Twitter counter (www.twittercounter.com) shows you statistics of followers and whom you’re following, plus your tweet over time.
If you’re using social bookmarking as part of your campaign and want to track how others are sharing your article, tools like PostRank (https://analytics.postrank.com) track bookmarks of your content on Digg and StumbleUpon (as well as shares on twitter).
If you’re using Facebook Advertising, Facebook insights contain built in statistics that can tell you the performance of your ads if you’re using Facebook Advertising.
Along with paid tools like Radian6 (www.radian6.com) , free tools like Addictomatic (www.addictomatic.com) let you monitor your brand across blogs, forums, social networking sites, and more.
Finally, for quick and free monitoring, Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) emails you new content picked up by Google that relates to keywords you want to track, such as your brand name.

Negative review on website

Having a social media champion within your organization can heavily impact the success of your business’s social media campaign. Whether this champion is you or someone you delegate, the individual should take ownership of the day to day running of the social media campaign. Having a champion is also a good way of ensuring constant monitoring of your brand’s reputation, so that swift action can be taken where necessary (for example, in the case of a negative review on a reviews website). Overall, a social media champion’s main duties should include:
Engaging regularly: The champion should ensure that there is regular activity by your business on whatever social media channels it’s using. For example, a champion would ensure that content is regularly added to your company’s Facebook page, and that updates are posted to Twitter each day.
Selling internally: A social media champion can help sell the idea of a social media campaign internally, such as by publicizing success on an internal blog or by giving presentations that contain examples of the strategy in action and what effect it’s having on the company as a whole. The champion should also be responsible for tracking the impact your social media efforts have had on the business, such as an increase in traffic to the company’s website as a result of using Twitter to market it.
Coordinating employees’ personal social media activities: Nowadays most employees engage with social media on some level personally, for example via a Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace page, a personal blog, or a Flickr account. A social media champion can coordinate this independent activity by integrating the social activity of the business and the employee: in this way, you can spread the word about your brand throughout those employees’ own circles of influence. For example, if you’ve uploaded new content to your Facebook page, you could ask employees to mention it on their own Facebook accounts. Or, if you post articles on Digg, you could ask your employees to vote for articles you’ve posted.

Social media tools available

With so many social media tools available, the choice of which ones to use can be overwhelming, and many people feel pressured to use as many as they can. But, in fact, the success of your social media campaign depends less on how many different kinds of social media you use than on how effectively you use each one as part of one coherent strategy. There are two main steps toward achieving this:
Know your business’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you’re a business that doesn’t use any kind of professional imaging in your product offering, you wouldn’t choose to use Flickr and engage with its community of photography enthusiasts. One the other hand, if you publish regular research and how to documents, you could connect much more effectively with your target market by contributing to Yahoo! Answers and a niche finance wiki or holding Meet ups where you provide workshops about.
Know your target market. By knowing where your target market engages online, you’ll better be able to choose which social media tactics will be more effective. For example, if you’re targeting upper-level executives, you’re likely to have more success on sites like Linkedln and Plaxo then on sites like MySpace that have a younger user demographic.
Engaging properly with a social media channel requires a time commitment, so the more tools you use, the more time you’ll spend managing those separate campaigns and engaging with each separate audience. And letting this interaction slide can be bad for your brand’s perception: for example, if you don’t follow up with a customer comment or question on Facebook due to lack of time, that customer could see your business as one that doesn’t respond to its customers, which could result in the customers’ moving to another competitor to get the desired product or service. As always, you should measure the returns of any social media tools you use so that you can see which ones give you real returns.

Social Media is a highly effective way

Social media can be a highly effective way of engaging with your current and future customers, increasing your brand’s exposure, and driving traffic to your site. However, if you think of your social media plan as one aspect of your greater marketing mix, you’ll get even more benefit from your efforts. Do this in the following ways:
Have one consistent voice: Remember that many current and future customers are exposed to your brand on more than one place online, as well as offline, so don’t confuse them with different messaging on each channel. Whether you’re using only a website and a blog, or you’re using Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedln as well, keep the contents of your message and the way you deliver it consistent across all channels. Dong so creates more coherent brand messaging, which can be more effective in converting a site visitor into a customer.
Decide on your goal and a central aim: Is it to drive more traffic to your blog, or is it to make more people buy products off your website? Once you have your overall goal, delegate one central focus for your strategy and then use separate channels to drive traffic there. For example, if your aim is to drive traffic to your blog, use Twitter, Digg, and Delicious to advertise your blog posts. Or your goal could be to drive traffic to your website by encouraging visitors to access articles, white papers, or tools on your site and then to buy your products and services. In this case, link to the resource section of your website from your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels.
Don’t forget your offline messaging: More traditional forms of marketing within your business can be an excellent way of driving traffic to your social media site s and other channels. For example, include your blog and website addresses in promotional material such as brochures and business cards. Include your website address, along with your Twitter and Facebook URLs, in presentations you give.

What is micro blogging?

On micro blogging sites such as Twitter, where space is at a premium, getting to the point quickly is a necessity. Be certain when you post content in such areas that you share a diverse selection of links with your followers. If you are perceived as supporting only your own business, users either will stop following you or simply ignore your actions. By sharing a wide selection of links related to your area of expertise, you prove your value to the community, and people pay attention to what you have to say. To help you post more efficiently and maximize the number of characters for your own message, be sure to use a service such as TinyURL or Bit.ly to shorten all of the URLs you wish to share. Such services compress long URLs into short, unique character sets. This allows you to use more of the maximum 140 or so characters for your own message.
Being actively engaged is the best chance you have at cultivating a deep and diverse following in social spaces. In an area such as Twitter, following popular figures often results in their following you. In Twitter, you receive updates by selecting whom you “follow”. By choosing a person to “follow”, you tell the system to share with you each post the other person makes. While this may not work with celebrities, those who are well known in specific industries usually return the favour. When users see your profile and notice the important people who are following you, they begin following you as well. By repeating this pattern you can build a relatively large group of followers by which you can spread your message many times each day.
Micro blogging requires its own specific skill of wordsmithing. Often you are limited to a specific number of characters within which to get your message across. This limitation necessitates planning exactly what you are going to say to maximize each character. Services such as Bit.ly and TinyURL can go a long way toward helping ensure that you have the most number of characters available to get your message across.
Some other items to consider when in the microblogging space or even in the macroblogging space are specifically about the concept of “hooks” catchy turns of phrase or points of view that attract attention. Here are some of the point: Attack hook. Openly attack someone’s point of view. Post a response 180 degrees from the person’s, but take care to think it though first.  Humor hook. Create a point of view that is humorous. Look for a funny angle or note the obvious joke. Contrarian hook. Somewhat like the attack hook, this approach will see you disagreeing with noted experts. When experts make a post, don’t be afraid to call them out. Pick apart their theories and thinking and pursue the experts openly. Be polite, but firm. News hook. By breaking news first and fast, you can create  a name for yourself and drive results. Although popular, this approach is tough, and, because of the time difference, those on the East Coast usually get the jump on the West Coast folks by posting the day’s latest news first. Nevertheless, striving to uncover news and “break a story” can get you recognized quickly. Resource hook. If you show users that you are the best resource by providing useful links, they will respond. Be willing to gather other resources and share them openly in your social spaces. Ego Hook. This is a big one, as it is driven by people’s primary motivations for recognition. If you want recognition yourself, do something newsworthy. If you suspect others of doing this, call them on it. Better yet, set things up so you can help them get the recognition. They get the recognition and they owe you one.

Social Networking and Blogging

Social media and social networking are still relatively new ways to reach customers and draw them to your site. It seems that every day there is a new social space to join. But think carefully before jumping on the latest bandwagon, or, for that matter, about joining the oldest bandwagons.
You need to have a clearly defined plan around social media or you could make simple mistakes that may negatively impact your brand perception. Know exactly what your goals are before fiving in and invest in ways to track how your exposure affects your number of conversions. Deriving conversions from the tens of millions of people participating in social media web sites requires a deft touch, so smooth presentation, and well- honed instincts. Participating in social media will have you rescheduling your calendar to make time, but the rewards in terms of credibility and reputation-building can easily pay off. Never before has it been so easy to reach so many people in order to influence how they see you and your products or services and to interact with them.
The social environment online is a unique area in which to pursue conversions. While much of the activity on social web sites is exactly that, social users can still be influenced toward purchase decisions. One of the most important aspects to understand when participating in social media is to avoid overt, direct sales tactics. Much of the social environment exists in an informal unstructured manner. Showing up in this space and doing a hard-sell for your product will, at best, be met with silent dismissal, or, at worst, with a direct backlash against your web site and product. Users engaged in social activities online need to be approached in a more thoughtful manner.
You must clearly define your goals and make a plan for how to achieve them. When engaging in social media, as with any other space, your goal should be concrete and attainable. As examples, here are goals that are appropriate for the social media environment: (a) building brand awareness, (b) tracking brand awareness, and (c) driving sales. Most businesses think that by simply opening a Twitter account and posting occasional content, they are participating in driving awareness and sales. While opening such accounts is the first step to marketing in social media, understanding how to use your presence in this area is critical for your long term success.
Social media can be summed up in one word: engagement. The primary goal of marketers using social media is to encourage active engagement around a brand or product name. This active engagement can take the form of mentions (which is when someone else mentions your username or business in a conversation you did not originate) and discussions about your business, or it can take the form of actual conversions, some even involving you. You’ll have a long road to travel, though, between opening an account and seeing your users’ active engagement pay off. Many people think that by using social media they will find a shortcut to driving awareness and conversions; however, the reality is that, as with so many things, engaging in social media takes a lot of time and effort.

Banner advertising can be very effective

Since we've already discussed how you would encourage users to click on the ads, let's go over how you manage to sell the ads in the first place. Getting users to click on your banner ads requires that you place the right message or image in front of them at the right time - which is whenever they are on the web site while your ad appears there.
If your goal is to sell banner ad space on your web site, your job is no less difficult. You need to ensure optimal placement for your advertisers, which means striking a balance between the user experience and the advertiser experience. This can be difficult because, while your advertisers will happily tell you exactly where on a page they want their banners to appear, your users won't contact you to say they don't like the ads there. They will simply start going to other web sites.
Another point to consider is size. Larger ads perform better for advertisers, so you should seek ways of designing your pages so that they can accommodate these larger ad sizes. Don't be afraid to offer smaller sizes; just be thoughtful about where you place them and how you price their value relative to your larger, more prominent ads. Often, web sites throw these into banner ad deals at no charge for advertiser willing to purchase their more expensive ad slots.
When selling banners, it's important to be realistic. Always be honest with potential advertisers about your volume of traffic. Trying to impress them with inflated numbers will backfire when their ads fail to perform. Unless you have millions of users on your site every day, no one is likely to pay your $10,000 per month for ad space. Given how track-able everything is today, you'll be better served by starting out with modest ad rates for the first few advertisers who pony up. You should watch their results and see if you can use their success to increase rates slightly for a new advertiser. Using Google AdSense is a great way not only to monetize your site but also to define ad spaces, test them for effectiveness, and track what ECPM rates you could start with (ECPM measures the effective cost per each thousand page views). All this information will be provided in the reporting system used, such as the one provided with the Google AdSence platform.
Rarely do advertisers talk and compare notes on ad rates, so this is a legitimate route to increase your yield from these spaces over time. Just be sure that you can justify the increase if you are asked about them. Although advertisers rarely share this information, it does happen. For that reason, you should also have a plan in mind for advertisers who started out with you at a lower rate. Keep them at their lower rate until you see revenues increase from other advertisers. Then you might want to approach them and offer a locked in rate for the next six months or so, politely explaining that as traffic has increased on your site, so has demand for ad space, driving your ad rates higher. Give them the option to renew at a new rate after the extended grace period. Another option might be  to transition them to smaller ad units (or even to text links) for their current ad rates. the main point here is that you plan for the changeover and communicate with them. Upsetting advertisers is not a good way to keep the ad dollars flowing.
Banner advertising can be a very effective way to deliver traffic to your web site. Given that the nature of the ads is highly visual, you can also ensure that users are pre-qualified before they even hit your site, helping your efforts to convert. Like many areas of online marketing, banner advertising is best served with a big side order of testing.

How to sell ads on website

For some web sites, the end goal is page views just getting folks "thumbing" through the website. Essentially, these web sites are selling ad space, as opposed to a spcific service or product. This increasing page view count expose the users to more and more ads, one of which they might well act on. Google's AdSense (adsense.google.com) program is a great way to get a site monetized with ads related to your content - which is always the goal. The only way to win is to show users what they want, when they want it. While not the only program of its kind online, the AdSense program is a proven entity, and Google reliably pays out money to those who are enrolled in the program and meet requirements set forth in its guidelines. You might think this is an obvious point, but many people have been burned participating in dubious affiliate programs where the other party reaped the reward, and the web site owner was out all that time and effort.
Google has done a great deal of work tracking ad placements for its clients' Web pages and understanding which locations generate more clicks. The information has been collected from a long history in Google's database and is generally considered the accepted best practices for advertising placements. As usual, you will get optimal results by starting from a position such as those suggested here and then testing to figure out what your users respond to best. In the heat map shown here, darker shades represent areas proven to show increased click-through rates. In short, place your ads in the darkest spots, as they perform best in these locations.
The AdSense program allows you a great deal of control over how the ads look, and you should use this to your advantage. The best place to start is by building ads that blend with the web site as much as possible. When you've had such ads in place for a while, you can begin experimenting to see what changes move the results up or down. You might discover that your users don't even see the ads that blend into the background. You might need to switch to ads that contrast with your pages to make them stand out.
Ultimately, though, your ability to control these ads is limited. While you can block certain ads (ideal when you don't want competing sites showing up on your own), there is little you can do to select which ads are shown. Google does a lot of work to make sure the right ads are shown at the right time and that the ads shown match the content of the page they are being shown on. The end result is a handy way to get started in monetizing your web site. The good news is that there are no minimum requirements for traffic. Google doesn't care if you have one visitor or one million.
Sometimes you might also notice ad banners rotating through your inventory from the Google AdSense system. Some advertiser want to be able to show banners, and while generally not as effective at generating the click action everyone wants, image-based banner ads will stand out in a space typically populated with text links. You can opt to turn these off, which you might choose to do given that text ads typically have higher click through rates (CTRs) and you are paid based on those clicks.
Google's AdSense system also allows you to select the size, shape, and number of ads that appear in a given ad unit. This makes the overall system more conducive to placements in a wide range of areas and applications. From blogs to traditional web sites to community forums, AdSense has ad formats that integrate and work well.
This ad is very effective, as it cleanly meshes with the main site navigation. While some might think this sort of tactic is misleading to users, the fact is, it works. In the business of monetizing web sites, you need to test, and test again. Overtime you will find a balance between what users will accept and what brings in revenue. This particular ad isn't even the highest performer for the web site. That status is reserved for the bigger ads.

Buying Ads from Website

Buying your ads directly from web sites themselves can be difficult work. Most web sites, in an effort to minimize the amount of work on their end, opt to participate in networks. Thus your only opportunity to advertise with them is by going through those networks. Once involved with a network, a web site will not be allowed to also sell ad space on its own - one condition of joining a network is that the network controls the ad space.
Many of the larger web sites join an ad network, so a great place to look for ad space for a direct buy is within niche websites. On any given topic there are tens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of web sites catering to the common interests of potentially millions of online users.
You name the topic, there are web sites online loaded with information about it. Now, many of these sites tend not to have the highest quality in design and layout, but that should matter little to you. Remember, overriding goal should be conversions. Do you really care if the site showing your banner is a plain html web site with basic black text on white pages? No, you don't. The only thing you should care about is traffic. Does the site have any? Can the site owners provide you proof, either in the form of past reports and traffic numbers, or with a test flight of your ads? Posting your ad for one week should be long enough to test the exposure for value. With these smaller, niche sites, don't be afraid to ask. Worst case, they say no. Best case, you get the flight of test ads running and see for yourself. For many niche web sites it's unlikely the site is the sole focus of the webmaster or whichever individual you'll be dealing with. In many cases the web site is a sideline or hobby, so you should remember to be flexible about things like actual start dates, whether the web site returns emails immediately, and the ad sizes it can accommodate.
It's no secret that blogging has exploded, so look to blogs as opportunities for exposure for your banners too. Blogging is an entirely different world than the one inhabited by regular web sites, so be ready for a difference when you get involved. Generally speaking, bloggers care more about credibility than profits, though this trend is starting to change. While you might want to place your ad on a particular blog, finding the owner, talking to him or her, and, in some cases, convincing that person can take time and effort. In the world of blogs, you might be better served starting high up and trying to work you way back down. In other words, you should look for ad space on popular, well known blogs for your products and services before seeking out smaller ones. Usually these more well known blogs will already be set for advertising and be accustomed to dealing with advertisers, so working out a solid plan that drives converting traffic to your site will be easier.
Take the time to figure out who the informal leaders are in the niche. Do the research. Participate in conversations on blogs and websites, and then approach the most appropriate ones about advertising with them. Bloggers and niche site operators tend to be very connected to their users and communities, and they are keenly aware that whomever they promote reflects on their own sites.
In many cases you will find that when you purchase banner ads, you tend to get more than you paid for. By setting expectations around performance up front and by clearly communicating with the site about performance each week during the campaign, you can have productive discussions once the campaign is over. If performance was better than expected, write another check and keep going. If it was lower than expected, ask the web site/ blog to work out another arrangement. In exchange for another month of advertising, sites will usually give you more exposure.
When i was running banner ad campaigns, if any were returning 10 to 20 percent below my expected success rates, i'd often ask the web site for another 10 to 20 percent on top of the contractual agreement It didn't matter whether it was impressions or clicks the website was charging for. The web site usually agreed to help me try to meet my overall goals. Unless a web site is totally sold out of ad inventory, it will usually accommodate this request after the first month's results are in. You do need to be realistic and honest, though. The worst thing you can do is to build a reputation for trying to swindle web sites out of traffic and users by pretending your banner ad campaign results were much lower than they actually were. If your results truly were that bad, don't sign on for a second month. Period Try another site.

Internet Advertising Banners

We've all seen banner ads. In fact, almost every site has either had them in the past or has them currently. Banner ads come in all sizes and shapes these days, and seem to be integrated everywhere online. The most common ads are banners across the top of a web page, or an almost square ad just below the header area. They remain an excellent way to monetize a web site, and if you optimize your own banners carefully, you can have highly effective campaigns that deliver pre-qualified users to your web site.
It might seem that the way to get banners on a web site is by contacting a web site directly, but this is not so in many cases. Many medium and large web sites sell ad space through networks, and even smaller sites are starting to follow this trend. Lower costs and headaches on their end are the main reasons. You can, however, still find lots of sites willing to sell you ad space. Even sites displaying no ads at all may agree to place your ad. They simply may never have thought to try this before you contacted them.
Converting users who arrive on your website after clicking on banners requires a dedicated focus on optimizing your banners. Refining the message and testing multiple versions is the best way to figure out which works best. You must choose your replacements and banner sizes carefully as well. Don't be afraid to suggest new banner sizes to sites either. Larger banners perform better, as do banner locations "above the fold" on a web page, so seek these placements.
Increasingly, banner advertisers are turning to day parting as a way to increase click through rates. Day-parting allows you to show your ads only when you know traffic on a site is high, and you stand a better chance of seeing traffic more likely to convert. For example, if the site where you banner will appear is frequented by users during their evenings, when they are home from work, your banners can be set to show only during those hours. If the locations from which you are buying banner ad placements allow day-parting, there is usually no increased cost to you, so it's worth it to ask. Combine this practice with dedicate landing pages tailored to match the message your banners promote and you have a very refined approach to banner advertising. Now let's take a look at your options  in more detail.
A network can be thought of as a collection of web sites across which banner advertising appears. Indeed, many web sites that you visit every day are part of an ad network. It's not something that is openly advertised, nor is there any reason to do so. By being part of an ad network, a web site can increase its ad yield rate (meaning how much it gets paid for each instance that a user visits a web page and your banner is displayed). If a user refreshes the web page, that's a second impression. It removes the burden of managing the ad units itself, and limits the website's need to invest time in the entire process of finding advertisers. On the surface, joining an ad network might seem like just the ticket for a webmaster. Ad revenue rolls in, while the work is limited to placing a small bit of code on your site one time.
There are, however, some limits to keep in mind.
There are basically two types of networks: tier one and tier two. As you might expect, things are typically better on tier one networks, "better" being subjective, though i'll try to break down the difference between the two tires a bit more thoroughly. On a tier one network, there is full disclosure about the websites on which ad advertiser's ad will appear, and the rates tend to be higher. As a result, you tend to find more well-known web sites participating. On tier two networks, while ad rates are lower, there is less transparency about where an advertiser's ad might appear. This is usually due to the practice of buying remnants, which are ad impressions left unsold either on individual web sites or across networks.
The real downside of joining a tier two ad network, as an advertiser, is that you may not know where your ads are appearing. And since we are judged by the company we keep, this could spell trouble if your ad were to show up on a less than desirable web site. Just to be clear here, i'm not suggesting your ad would immediately show up on adult or gambling web sites if you join a tier two network. Just know that the ad you spent time and money crafting might be shown to an entirely inappropriate and/ or unresponsive audience. That's the downside here - a waste of your money. Today, many networks offer pay for performance models, meaning you only pay when an action is taken. If the action is "click the banner and visit my website", then you pay per click. If the action is a conversion or sale, then you only pay for that action, not the traffic alone, which is preferable because you can easily track the ROI of any campaign you run this way. You can then adjust as needed the time of day the ads run. If allowed by the network, you could also shift between web sites in the network and opt to introduce improved ads to try to increase your results.
As always, there's a trade off here. If you choose to simple pay for traffic, you'll get better rates. If you specify a conversion, rates will increase. This is where understanding your own web site and optimizing if for conversions makes a difference. Investing time in simplifying the path users take to make a purchase, in essence, optimizes the conversion process altogether.

How to generating leads

This brings us to the generation of leads. Whether a Webinar has the effect of turning over immediate sales following the session or encourages viewers to put you on the short list when they make their purchase decisions, you've got a lead in hand. By running a well-executed Webinar that attracts attention, you can fill your lead pipeline to capacity. Your attendees are directly expressing interest in the topic, and they're saying as much directly to you. From here you should have a well crafted plan to manage communications and help escort these folks to the final conversion. Your plan might have steps such as these, starting from when they sign up for the Webinar:
- Thank you e-mail reminding them of the date, time, and topic of the Webinar and who the expert speaker will be. Including a one-click way for them to add this to their Microsoft Outlook or Gmail calendar is always a nice touch, too. Keep this email clean, simple, and easy to read. Bullet points work well here.
- Reminder email 24 hours in advance of the event. User the information captured during their sign up to personalize this email with their names, and take the time to remind them that they signed up to "learn more about .." or to discover ways to.. " The goal here is to excite users about the Webinar and generate enthusiasm to attend. Again, skip any sales pitches and stay close to the point.
- This is optional, but i always like to send a quick reminder a couple of hours before the Webinar is going to start. This e-mail can be extremely short and to the point, such as, " This is a friendly reminder that the Webinar on [Topic] which you signed up for will begin in two hours. Please click here to join the session when ready".
At this point i'll remind you that in each email, you should include a link to the webinar itself. You have no way of knowing which communication users will open to join the webinar, so make sure the link to join the session appears in all communications prior to the session.
- After session wraps up, a "Thanks for attending" Email is acceptable. Use this opportunity to thank attendees for their time, to suggest ways the ycan learn more, and to invite them to contact you for further information. If there is a special offer associated with the Webinar, this is a chance to remind them about it and about any deadlines that are involved.
Now that you've completed this cycle with users, it's time to migrate their email addresses onto the "future Webinars" list. This is the list you will use to send out information about upcoming webinars. Don't worry about the topic either. Let users decide for themselves if they are interested in attending. Use these communications to bring value to users' in boxes, thus cementing your position as a valuable information contributor in their world. The name of the game here is to build credibility, because credibility sells..

Local Search Marketing

When we speak of actual local search, we are referring to the ability to locate and find specific businesses in specific locations. An example of this would be a locksmith ranking well for a search on locksmith services in a select city or community. This mode of search works particularly well for local businesses. If you are primary online, or have no local storefront, the concepts discussed around "localization" will still be of interest, but true local search requires an address and phone number in a location.
There are two components you must understand in order to be successful in local search. The first is the concept of localization, and then the idea of local search itself. When websites speak of local search, they often refer to being found in a specific location or across multiple specific locations. For example, you may want you web site to be found for a particular product in all areas that are most likely to consume this product. If your product is ski wax, it would make sense to appear in search results originating from any area that enjoys an active skiing culture. While this may seem like a great idea, local search is not without its challenges. In localization, you are trying to be associated with many regions, but you may not necessarily have a physical location in any of them.
Obvious in the local search results are phone numbers and addresses. The rest of the results on the search page, whether paid or organic, are a mix of local business as well. One main differentiator between localized search and local search is the need for a web site. Business can be found quickly and easily through local search with the most pertinent information on hand: a phone number and physical address. There is no need to have an actual web site to participate in local search. This might seem counter intuitive, but when you understand that searchers are actually looking for a specific service in most local searches, it becomes clear that what they need are directions to a product or service and a contact number so they can find out if this product or service is available immediately.
In local search, you will enter into a process with a search engine to identify yourself and associate yourself with a specific area and location. You'll be required to provide a local phone number and mailing address, both of which the search engine can opt to contact with confirmation information for you. When you've completed that part of the process, you can help the engine understand more about you by entering as much information about your location and area of service as possible. The more information the search engine has, the better it understands how to rank your website in a search engine results page.
The information contained in this ad is fictitious, but you will note there is no web site listed in the ad. None is needed to appear in the local search results. It's similar to being in the phone book, or the search engine's version of a phone book. No actual web site is needed, as they show your name, location, and phone number when users in your area search for your services or products. Google uses the information you provide on the first page, as well as all the information on this and subsequent pages, to understand exactly what your business is about. Don't take shortcuts. Make sure you fill in as much information as possible so that the search engine can rank you as relevant result. if this means going outside and taking photographs of your business, products, or services in action, then you should do it and upload the photos into your profile.

A Unique Landing Page

A landing page is any page a user is sent to upon clicking on an ad. these pages usually are dedicated specifically to the information in the ad a user clicks on. In many cases, however, they can be actual pages that currently exist on your Web site. There is no official rule that says a landing page must be one or the other. There is, however, a great deal of study put into the success of conversions on dedicated landing pages, and given their high success rate, it's not surprising that most people choose to run unique lading pages with their paid search campaigns. To be clear, you can use any page on your Web site as the location where a paid search ad directs traffic, but using a unique landing page is usually way to go.
Such unique pages exist to serve one purpose only: to get users to buy the product or service you mentioned in the ad they just clicked, so the pages should be designed to speak only of the actual product. These pages are not ones you'd link to in your normal Web site navigation, though, as they are simply a means of converting sales and make sense only when viewed immediately after the paid search ad is clicked. Otherwise, they might seem a bit abrupt or random.

Running a unique landing page to directly match a search campaign gives you the added ability to craft a completely customized sales message for each keyword or group of key words an advertisement targets. In this way you present the user with a very clear and clean pathway to the conversion. If the pages on your Web site are designed in such a way that they contain only the relevant and needed information on a given product or service, then they may well be candidates to serve as landing pages for paid campaigns. Take this thinking one step further and make sure that the data and information shown on these pages drive users into the sales funnel and through to the conversion.

Often, a dedicated landing page is a much simpler version of the standard Web page. Through the systems available at search engines and their platforms, you can run a number of tests with an infinite variety of subtle changes on the page. All this testing is designed to help you understand which version of a page converts the best. The results may differ between products, services, search engines, and keywords. The point here is to use the tools and the information to help you finely tune each landing page to a specific keyword or set of keywords. If this sounds like a lot of work, it usually is. Your best bet is to start small and grow as your experience and revenues increase. Taking this approach will save you a lot of time and headache as you progress toward more expensive keywords. Getting things wrong with a short list of key words and a handful of landing pages is easily managed; getting things wrong with 10,000 keywords and hundreds of landing pages is extremely costly.

Be sure to set up individual campaigns within the search engines' paid advertising systems to better track your results and efforts. These systems are incredibly detailed, and you should use that to your advantage. By setting up individual campaigns, which are then mapped to select advertisements targeting select keywords or phrases, you can quickly drill down to see which areas are performing well and which are lagging behind. This data, coupled with the systems scanning your landing pages, will help you understand where you are losing people in the conversion process, and give you a true picture of where to apply your efforts. This data paints a clear image of exactly how users are interacting with your Web site. You will likely learn that users originating from a paid search will click through fewer pages than those who originate from an organic search. Your goal at this point is to try to fix the conversion process to capture those users and ensure they end up on your well-designed landing pages.