Although SEO is primarily done to help boost rankings in SERPs and we can practice it by merely trying to (intelligently?) guess the search engines algorithms, this shortsighted approach to SEO is one of the reasons why many do not see that much effect with their SEO campaign. It is ALWAYS important to factor in every possible aspect that you practically can when it comes to your SEO strategy, and that includes the daily happenings in search engine users’ lives. That may sound a little crazy since it is impossible to know everything that goes on with one persons life let alone all your target audience, the majority of whom you don’t even know personally. Well it is if you look at it that way but if you only look at it in terms of the general events that you know will be impacting or are currently affecting them then it makes more sense.

A perfect example would be a future post on SEO and savings (watch out for my next post ^_^). With all the troubled economy nowadays you can be pretty sure that lots of people are trying to find ways to cut on spending. It shouldn’t be a surprise to find more people now searching more for “cheap SEO”, “budget SEO”, “affordable quality SEO”, etc. Take advantage of this fact and offer solutions (promos for SEOs and informative posts for SEO blogs).

Another simple example would be industry events. Of course people within your industry will already know about upcoming events but it is still a good idea to mention big events, even if just in passing. It will not only show that you are aware of what’s going on but visitors who might have overlooked it or forgot about it will be happy to be informed. Doing a blow-by-blow of the event is also recommended but only if you really attended it and there’s new and interesting information to convey. Otherwise stick to summarising stuff and don’t forget to link to your sources.

Remember it is very important to stay relevant. Your page may rank really well for your targeted keywords but if people have started searching for other keywords then you’ll still end up with no one visiting your site.

The good thing though is that tools like the “Crawl errors” page on Google Webmasters Tools exist to make it easier to track such pages. All you need to do to find all the URLs that return a 404 error when crawled by Googlebot is to click on the “Not Found” tab of the “Crawl errors” page.

The question now is what to do with these pages? Should you 301 redirect them all or should you just let them be?

Obviously, the second option does not make sense. The fact that 404 pages are listed under crawl ERRORs signifies that things must be set to right. However, redirecting all the URLs that return 404 pages is also not the way to go, especially if you have thousands of URLs with such a problem. Instead what you should do is determine which of the URLs needs redirecting, and which you can just ignore.

Before going into detail as to which pages you definitely should redirect, I just want to make it clear that URLs that keep returning the 404 error when crawled by Googlebot will eventually be considered dead by Google and so not be crawled anymore. So while you’ll still see the URLs you don’t really care about still appearing on the “Crawl errors” page, you can just disregard them until they are no longer crawled by Googlebot.

As for the other URLS, the ones that you should pay attention to and redirect, how do you figure out what those URLs are?

I have already written about 404 Pages around two years ago, and my advice still remains the same. 404 Pages only when you get substantial traffic from that page, that page get inbound links from important sources, or is a typo of an important URL. As Google says, “If your 404 page is indexing or getting links from other sites, redirect it,” and if not, just let it 404.

Despite the seemingly disheartening future of SEO, I share the opinion of many who believe that SEO’s demise is nowhere near the future. What is happening is that we are seeing SEO as it evolves right before our eyes. Indeed, some so-called SEOs will probably flounder and fail, but it is only because they cannot adapt.

So how do you adapt in this changing SEO climate?

Well it seems that the biggest areas that many SEOs should work on is the social media aspect. We know how big social media has become, but it’s nowhere near reached the threshold. In fact, its effects on the online community will only increase, including its effects on search. It is plain to see that search is becoming more social, and not only because search engines like Google are pushing for it. Contrary to that, it is actually Google that’s having to adapt to make the most of people’s increasing preference and dependence on the online social circles.

Lately, I have written more about social media and the different ways you can incorporate them to your overall SEO strategies. I suggest that start reading more about the topic, that is if you want to be one of those that want to survive the changing SEO landscape. Forget the line between SEO and social media marketing, and make sure you learn how to integrate the two approaches for a more effective SEO campaign.

I have already written a post about user intent and how it is the foundation of search. I did not, however, breakdown the different kinds of user intent, which the Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines (2011) spelled out for us.

Google classifies user intent into three categories:action intent (DO), information intent (KNOW), and navigation intent (GO). While the way Google determines user intent when they enter a search term is not really that important to us, we should still be paying attention to what WE intend to provide our users once they get to our websites. What kinds of users can we cater to? Which of their needs can we, or do we want to answer?

Ideally, a page should have different content elements that would address each of the three user intent. However, it is important that the page also focuses on primarily addressing one of the user intents. For example, an online store obviously caters primarily to users with the action intent of purchasing a product in mind. This means that while having a good site structure that will make it easy for users to go to another page when needed, thus answering the needs of users that land there whose real intent is to navigate and browse through the different pages of the site, the page should primarily be designed to encourage user to buy the product. The content that should stand out then, aside from information about the product,  are elements like the checkout button, menus for easy colour and size selection, and links to related or similar products that the shopper might be interested in buying.

On the other hand, if you have a blog, then your primary focus is to answer the needs of users who fall under the information intent category. Again, it is better if you also have actionable elements like the subscription/RSS feed button, social sharing buttons, downloadable content, polls, and such to make the blog multi-dimensional. However, you have to ensure in this case that you always have informative content that caters to your audience’s specific needs. I find it a good idea in the case of informative sites, such as blogs, to refer to About.com’s study on the mindsets of search, since the three mindsets (i.e. Answer Me, Educate Me, Inspire Me) discussed will guide you into deciding how to present information so as to make it more authoritative, relevant, and interesting to users with different mindsets. Should you provide short informative snippets on general topics or should you provide in-depth articles on the same topic and have an expert/professional on the field write it? Knowing the mindset of your target audience will help you figure these things out so that you can come up with a better concept for a new website, or overhaul an existing site if need be.

Last but not least, you should realise that ALL users want to have an easy time navigating a website. That means that a good site architecture and alternative ways for site navigation are imperative. However, there are users that have navigation as their primary intent upon landing on a page. Examples of these users are those that look for the homepage of a website (i.e. company site such as Apple.com) with the intention of looking for a more specific page on that site (i.e. iOS 5 page). While you might wonder why they simply didn’t enter the search term “iOS 5” instead of “Apple”, you should realise that people go about search in different ways, and there are people who just prefer to do it this way. Sometimes users also do not know the exact search term but have an idea of where to look for information about it. In this case they might not know the term iOS5, but only know that they want to upgrade their iPhone to the new OS they’ve heard mentioned by a friend. Because of such users, you need to make sure that your homepage does indeed have a very clear and easy way for users who land there to go from page to page. At the least, if they lose their way once they get to subpages, it should be easy for them to go back to the homepage and start searching once again. If you don’t have a clear navigation structure, you can bet that your bounce rates will be high despite good content.

Of course not! Common sense tells us that the guidelines that map the road for manual raters in determining a quality site indicate the same principles that guide Google’s search developers as they continually make changes in the search algorithm in an effort to provide better search results. Ideally what Google wants to happen is for their algorithm to be good enough so that all of the results returned for each search query will be the most relevant ones, without having to depend on manual reviews to ensure that would be the case. In the meantime though, since the algorithm has not yet perfected (nor will it likely ever be able to do so) the “art” of determining relevancy, Google has to depend on manual reviewers to ensure that at least the top results returned will indeed be what the users are looking for.

So, just what is it that we can learn from the raters’ guidelines that we can directly apply to our own SEO efforts today?

The most important lessons we can take away from the document is summed up in the purpose of statement, “Good search engines give results that are HELPFUL FOR USERS in their specific LANGUAGE and LOCATION.” {Emphasis are mine.}

The helpfulness of the search results to the users refers to its relevance. However, in order to determine the relevance or helpfulness of a page’s content , it is important for the raters (and before them the algorithm) to be able to determine the intent behind the query. This includes asking what it is exactly the user is asking for, a question that is especially hard to answer when search terms have multiple meanings. As webmasters, the take away from this is simple, we need to give search engines as much contextual information as we can to help them figure out the specific meaning of the content. This means using keywords and phrases in its various forms and being as specific as possible, not only in your phraseology but also in the use of images. I’ll delve on this topic more in succeeding posts.

Intent also refers to what the user aims to do once they land on a page. As webmasters, you should also know what YOU want your users to do once they get on the page. Is the page primarily a way to get information out to your users, or is the aim to make a sale? Structuring each page so that it is clear to both search engines and users what they can get out of that page will help search engines funnel queries so that users that do land on your will be the kind of users that you are indeed targeting.

Language and location are also key in determining the intent of a query. This makes sense because the meaning of words can vary greatly depending on both factors. An example given in the guidelines is the search term “football”, which would refer to American football the United States, but would refer to soccer in most other places in the world. Simply knowing the nuances of the language of your target users for your sites will automatically help you in knowing ensuring the content indeed contains the “right” keywords.

In short, search is all about USER INTENT. You can’t make user happy if you don’t know what it is they want exactly. So the main take away is to determine what it is your target users want, put in content that would make them happy, structure your site to make sure Google can decipher that it contains the specific information your users are looking for, and only then should you focus on the other SEO strategies. Without this foundation, your site is no better than most sites, which means it’s unlikely you’ll ever make it to the Internet A-list. And even if you do make to the top of SERPs, it’s only a matter of time before manual raters “decide” to demote your page for non-relevance. Get your foundation right if you want to not just get to the top, but also stay there.

“The dot.com world was about coming up with an interesting idea and finding unknowledgeable investors to throw at them. But we are now back to live in the practical world, where technology can provide business with an edge over their competition” (Richard Greenwood)

Marketing is actually the craft of connecting different producers (or potential producers) of product or service with prospects, both existing and potential. Marketers basically use four variables while writing marketing plans and making market strategies. They are sometimes referred to as the four P’s (which are Project, process, people & product). The combination of these variables is referred as Marketing Mix. A marketing mix is the combination of these four variables in a way that will meet or improve organizational objectives. A separate marketing mix is usually crafted for each product offering. Whenever a strategies or plans are build it engages a blend of these four combinations. A strategy of selling expensive beneficial products in discount stores has poor coherency between distribution and product offering.

Drawbacks of Internet Marketing The actual size of the market is usually not available Difficult to get demography and penetration figures Coverage is not consistent There can be lack of authority There is no certain control, which causes lack or reliability

Benefits of Internet marketing · Easy, less expensive and comfortable access to the information · Most of the information is free · There are numerous web sites available through which the required subject can be covered efficiently. · Contains a lot of background information · Information can be found in a very short time · Has a broad geographic scope · Briskly improving and increasing · Many companies are interested to add their own web pages

Non-stopping development of business online has also augmented the field of online marketing. Before starting any business the most important element, which have the most considerable influence of the success or failure of the business is the initial business idea. For the success of any business there must be a proper business idea along with appropriate techniques to run the business accordingly.

The precise approach towards the Business The business plan for any organization consist of three main parts which are

1. Product 2. Targeted Market 3. Unique Selling proposition (USP)

Product The product is any thing for which you are going to charge your customers. These are the things which you are selling and it can be any thing like books, e-books, electronic items, software to download, it can also be a membership of any online community, a professional service, or any thing else which you are interested to sale. The ‘value’ of the product is its most valuable feature. The product you are selling should have the following characteristics · It should be beneficial for the customers · It should be good enough to solve the customer’s problems · Full fill their requirements · The product should satisfy the customers

Targeted Market The Targeted market for any business is the audience and the customers to whom the product is being sold.

Even if their analytics provider doesn’t partner with a search or e-mail provider, many marketers are now using their Web analytics package to make decisions about their overall marketing plan-and their business in general. (Karen J. Bannan)

Following are some essential points to keep in mind while selecting the targeted audience · The targeted market should have an appropriate size · It should be large enough to generate a good profit · It should be small enough to fit in the total resources of the business · If the business is small then it should avoid contending with comparatively large business · The targeted audience should be easily reachable on the internet through the particular websites.

USP (Unique Selling Proposition) The USP is basically the market strategy or the motive of the business through which the corporation is connected with the targeted market. It is the most important part of the business idea in which the corporation decides how to persuade the customers and letting them know that how our product is different from any other item on the shelf waiting to be sold. It should influence the customers and provide them with the reasons that why our product is the best solution for their requirements. When we talk about the profit margin, then it may not necessarily be the financial profit only; there can also be many side advantages, which are essential for running the business smoothly.

Establishing your business on Internet Nowadays Internet is not just a source to get information but it is also a very effective place to run you business. Many people are doing their business on internet and even more people are willing to join them. But unfortunately all of them do not get success and there are also many dot-bombs or fail e-commerce startups. This is because of the lack of awareness about the self-education before starting the business.

The best thing about establishing an internet business is that, there is no big investment required to start an e-business, so if the business is don’t in a proper way so you can get a good profit without investing too much.

Understanding of Customers For the progress of any business, it is essential to have a good understanding of the customers. This issue becomes even more vital when we talk about the online business, where we mostly have no idea about the customers.

Due to this fact, large corporations are spending millions of dollars on marketing research to get as many information as possible about their customers, which allows them to improve their product and make them according to the appropriate requirement of the customers. Although this research is help full but if the business is so this expense can be avoided. “They will try to replicate the in-store experience on many levels, developing applications that enable users to see how something will look on someone. The challenge is to develop applications that simulate the in-store experience while still maintaining the speed, convenience and efficiency of the Internet” (Speicher, GCI) It is important to have a sound knowledge of different ways by which customers buy their products. Few points are important in this regard

· Vendors should design their offerings to meet the appropriate needs of their customers. · Venders can persuade buyers at decisive steps during the buying process. · Venders can provide the additional offers for further business.

Trends & Strategies to boost sale in Internet Marketing

Vivid Word Pictures When developing the advertisement of your product, web pages or other or other sales tools, some vivid word pictures should be used to give a pleasant feeling to the customers. It exaggerates their desire to have it and prompt them to buy the product.

Use of appropriate advertising and marketing methods There should be a continuous observation to the advertising and marketing method of the business which ensure the use of latest advertising methods and some old methods which have not been tried.

” eBay says it reaches 56.1 million active users. The obvious drawback: A vast majority of those users aren’t in the real estate market. But to reach those who are, eBay is a tool–like direct mail or news-paper advertising–that some practitioners are using to market listings, drive traffic to their Web sites, and attract new prospects.”

Cost of the ads If there are some ads allied with any business then it should be carefully examined that if the size of the ads is bigger then it should be reduced to run more ads for the same cost.

Some times the short ads can provide even more response then longer ads and can provide with a bigger return of the cost.

Postcards advertisements There can also be another effective way of advertising by printing a good small ad on a postcard and then send it to the targeted market. People often read postcards if the message is nice and short. This small ad on a postcard can be very effective at times and can make a very rapid change on the sale of the products.

Inspiring words & phrases Lively words and phrases in the advertisements and sales copies make people interested in the product. Try to find some dull sentences and replace them with some active and lively words to obtain the involvement of the prospects.

Eradicate the fear of lost In the manner of revealing the benefits of your product to the customers the other important aspect is to tell them what they lose if they do not buy that specific product. Consumers want any product because of the benefits it offers and on the other hand if they have been told the downside of not buying the product so it will persuade them even more for purchasing that product.

Use of surprise strategies To remove the last minute hesitation, any surprise or pleasant announcements regarding the product also helps influencing the customers to buy the product. The surprise can be any unexpected bonus or additional benefits just before the completion of concluding action of the sale.

Use of special packages For getting a boost in any business the vendors can also introduce some special packages, which combines two or more related items and set a lower prize as compare to each item. These sorts of packages leave a good impact on discount hunters and procrastinators.

Promoting the business sales to new prospects and existing customers Every business always hunts for new customers for intend of improving their sales. But the auction from the existing customers of the business should not be overlooked. It is much easier to get further business from them rather then depending on new prospects. Additional benefits, products and services should be offered to the current customers to get more sales from them.

“As a result of our exposure on eBay, we can attribute two sales, one listing, approximately three good prospects per month, and about 700 visitors per day to our Web site,” (Christopher Walker)

Receiving appreciation from the customers is always good for the motivation of any business. The same sort of respond should be provided for such customers, which induce them to do more business.

Hype the product by the help of customers Often the existing customers of your business can be an important asset for capturing a better market of your product. Incentives can be provided to the customers to let them introduce your products to their friends. Assistance from them can increase the sale of the business in a great deal with out wasting much of the money in ads.

Internet Marketing Through E-mails Email marketing is one of the most influential marketing tools accessible to businesses of all sorts and sizes. No matter how you define success, you can achieve outstanding results with Email marketing while investing only a small amount of time and an even smaller amount of money.

“54% of small businesses surveyed rated Email as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.” (Experts of small business) Following are the key benefits of Email marketing

1. Economical Email marketing is a reasonable & affordable way to stretch a limited marketing budget. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense.

“This information has been only available to big businesses who had research and marketing departments, companies like American Express, Now any business can have it.” (Bill Chasse)

2. Effectiveness Email marketing allows active communication with existing customers and prospects instead of passively waiting for them to return to your web site or storefront. Emails can easily be targeted by source, interest, or list. In general, Email communications sent to the prospect and customer lists, and it improves the ROI of all lead generation and customer relation programs, single-handedly.

3. Instantaneous response Email marketing has two great advantages over other marketing vehicles. First, with the existing and easily obtainable self-service tools, anyone can generate and send compelling Email newsletters, promotions, announcements or more in hours or days. No agency or production time is necessary to create and send professional communications. Second, Email marketing generates an instantaneous response. The call to action is apparent: “Click here to take advantage of this offer”, or “to learn more about this service”, or to “attend this event”.

4. Quantifiable results Unlike other vehicles for marketing, results from Email campaigns are easily measured. Results are reported in terms of “opens”, which report the number of people saw your offer or newsletters, Click Through Rates (CTRs), which measure how many people actually clicked on the links in your Email, and in a many cases, who actually clicked on those links.

5. Uncomplicated For small and medium business there are web-based Email marketing products. Most of them include professional HTML templates, list segmentation and targeting capabilities, as well as, automatic tracking and reporting. So, you are free to concentrate on your unique message while the rest has already been done.

Conclusion and Evaluation Internet marketing is no doubt the most effective and efficient mode of communication with the customers and prospects. But unfortunately in some of the developing countries the scope of Internet marketing is not so wide because organizations still relay a lot on advertising through the other channels, as a result spending a lot on conventional marketing.

Apart from some of the developing countries most organizations around the world have found the Internet marketing as the most easy, cost effective and efficient way of marketing.