Blog Category: strategy

7 SEO myths that don't help your search rankings

30 March 2012

There are thousands of little tweaks you can make with your website in order to better optimize it for search engines and for readers. People are coming up with new and exciting tactics every single day, not to even mention that search engines are constantly changing and are forcing the wheel to be modified if not outright reinvented every other year. But some of these tactics you will try will not work. They might not harm your site, but they also won’t improve your search rankings.

The nonworking SEO tactics are now known as myths. And just like a good myth—think Bigfoot, Loch Ness, little green men—some people just cannot help but believe in these tactics. They try and try to implement the steps, but nothing seems to happen.

Don’t waste your time on myths. Here are seven of the top SEO fairy tales out there.

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How Did the Google Freshness Update Affect SEO?

28 March 2012

Google has long been the biggest name associated with the internet, with its changes ultimately setting the entire table for how the SEO game is played. If Google decides to insert a new policy or to tweak its algorithm, you better believe that everyone is going to follow suit with the changes to keep up with the times. This is now the case thanks to the Google Freshness Update.

A long and drawn out explanation may be necessary if you’re not that familiar with Google on the whole, but for those who know how Google previously handled content, it suffices to say that the Google Freshness Update was all about the freshness of content and how it’s ranked via search results.

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Driving Upwards Value in Your Product or Service to Outshine Your Competition

14 October 2011

Business is a competitive field, no matter how you look at it. Anyone's goal in business should be to perform better than the competition. Of course, there are many ways to go about this, some legitimate and some quite unsavory. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to drive your product or service's value up in order to lure more customers to your business.

When we speak of driving the value upward, we're not necessarily speaking about attaching a higher price tag to your product. In fact, it's the exact opposite of that. One of the best ways to increase your product/service's value is to increase the public perception behind it. Pricing your goods lower than the competition will automatically give you a credibility boost.

Some wisdom out there states that actually raising the price of our product adds value in a customer's eyes. Try that during these tough times, however, and you'll be out of business quickly.

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Increase Retail Sales Quickly and Easily

03 December 2010

If you already have a relatively solid business in place, then those supposedly easy methods will work a lot easier than if you have no business in place at all. In fact, that's how everything labeled easy is supposed to work. It simply helps you tune up your machine; it doesn't necessarily give you the tools and know how to build it from the ground up.

In this short guide, well go over a few ways you can quickly and easily increase your retail sales. Of course, as mentioned up top, this is for businesses already in operation, already advertising and already selling. If you're looking to set up a business on these tips, you might be deterred when you find out they wont work so readily for you.

That's not to say they're not good tips to carry around with you if you've yet to open up your business. You can use these. The point is that they wont be quite as effective unless your business is off the ground.

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Creating an Online Brand, the Pitfalls to be Aware of

08 November 2010

Theres more to business than just a brand name, certainly, but how many people would drink Coca Cola if it wasnt Coca Cola? There are many products out there on the market less expensive and that taste relatively the same. However, theres only one Coca Cola a brand name that has been working for decades for their popularity.

Every businessperson wants to emulate that type of effectiveness in terms of their personal business brand. Having name recognition, the perception of fair business and loyalty, the stoic business presence thats something we all aspire to. But there are pitfalls associated with branding that you must be aware of, especially branding in the fickle online world of business.

In the real world, a stable brand can last through some controversy and some bad business moves. As long as the brand is formed, it can be recovered. In the online world, however, even the most solid brands can be instantly brought down if they do bad business or decide to skimp on customers in some form or fashion.

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Managing Customer Perceptions and Expectations Effectively

05 November 2010

A lot is said in business about building and effectively marketing products. While it's undoubtedly true that great products marketed successfully will result in a higher probability of accomplishment, the true make-or-break of any business is its customer base. If you can keep customers satisfied, your business is bound to do well.

Customers expect a lot from you, as well they should. Knowing how to effectively manage customer perceptions and expectations of your business will go a long way in keeping your base happy and when your customers are happy, everyone's happy.

First up, let's discuss how to manage the perception end of the equation. Unless your customers know what to expect, they will each have various expectations and form an endless array of wants and grievances that you simply will not be able to handle. You'll have to be pre-emptive here and present your business exactly how you want customers to perceive it.

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The Benefits of Outsourcing

03 November 2010

There are multiple different ways in business to lighten your load. You can get an investor to help with your startup capital. You can hire a business partner to share some of the responsibilities. One of the best ways to ensure that you get to spend more time being the business owner instead of the Jack of All Trades is to outsource work when it's needed.

Outsourcing is always popular and can be found in nearly every country around the globe. There are always a slew of people in the freelancing market looking for outsourced work. It can also be cost effective, quick and allow you to move on to other projects while your short-term employee handles what you need handled.

There are quite a few negatives to outsourcing, however. You could always find someone wrong for the job or who seemed right for the job before doing poorly with it. You can wind up in monetary disputes that remain unsettled and end up wasting your time and money. You could also hire someone only never to hear from them again.

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Using Online Marketing to Leverage Costs Benefits

18 October 2010

Some aspects of business truly seem too complicated to tackle for the regular Joe's and Jane's of the world just looking to open and run a small business. Take the financial term leverage for example. When you look at it as a general term, meaning a technique to multiply gains and losses, it seems a straight-forward, non-threatening term.

Then you get into borrowing money to spread the risk across a small base proportionately or leveraging revenue through fixed assets instead of variable cost assets or, everyone's favorite, dealing with derivatives to leverage assets by setting a margin. Confused yet?

Luckily, we'll avoid the hedge fund derivative jargon and focus only on how to leverage cost benefits though online marketing. For this, you don't necessarily need to know all about how to measure your leverage as it pertains to investments and finance. All you need to know is that online marketing presents a low-cost, low-risk marketing opportunity.

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Using Cognitive Profiling to Study the Attitudes, Beliefs and Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

15 September 2010

We'd all like to delve into the minds of the most successful among us to see if we can recreate the formula. Moguls like Bill Gates and Donald Trump, just to name two of too many, we believe to possess some secretive trait that will propel us in that direction if only we can find and unlock it.

This is undoubtedly the reason that people are sold on the proverbial get-rich-quick schemes they're looking for that secret. It's also the reason that people buy literature and treat anything published by successful business people as the bible. But what do they really think? What are their true beliefs and the real personality traits that have helped them succeed in life?

A technique called cognitive profiling may help you find out the vital keys to success by allowing you to research and study successful entrepreneurs in a way that no book or for-sale system could. Even still, be forewarned that there is no easy way about it here. You'll find, above all else, that every successful entrepreneur worked hard and even failed before succeeding.

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Effective Online Customer Acquisition Strategies through Competitive Intelligence

09 August 2010

Many strategies have been forged in the business world in order to help companies gather intelligence about their competition and to acquire and retain customers. Theres never a sole method to use; youll always be able to find competing strategies for your online business. Looking at the competitive intelligence method, well cover a bit about customer acquisition strategies.

Competitive intelligence - or competitor analysis - is a system made up of fundamental principles that allow you, the business owner, to gauge your competition. This sounds vague, to be sure; and truthfully thats due to what the intelligence process encompasses.

There are various sub strategies within the framework of competitive intelligence. Think of it like spying, if you will (only not sinister by any stretch). Youre basically trying to find out how your competitor thinks, what his/her strengths and weaknesses are, how to plan a course of attack and carry it out, and what the risks are to you and your business by doing so.

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Using a Manufacturing Line Approach to Managing Virtual Employees

08 August 2010

Hi everyone, here is another video blog from us about how you can use a manufacturing line style methodology to manage a team of virtual employees.

These days more people are considering outsourcing, so the things going through your mind might be questions on how to implement virtual staffing solutions, without the pain of mis-communication or mis-direction.

See the video for more info.

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What are the Best Ways to Find Affordable SEO?

05 July 2010

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any online business. Of course, not every online entrepreneur is skilled enough in SEO to develop big-earning sites. This is why the field of SEO is so prominent in the market today. Choosing the best SEO plan will make a big difference, but choosing an affordable plan is the way most folks want to go.

Unfortunately, many SEO companies overcharge for poor performance. The Internet is packed with highbrow organizations wishing to charge people and arm and a leg for substandard services. Luckily, however, there are a few ways you can find affordable SEO and still have it pay off in the long run.

While it is still relatively true that you get what you pay for, it's important to note that SEO experts have their art down to a science and can quickly work with methods that are neither costly nor time consuming. These are the SEO experts we're looking for in order to save some money.

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How to do Competitor Analysis when Starting Your own Business

30 June 2010

One of the biggest factors in failing businesses is undoubtedly the stiff competition out there. Far too often, people assume they have an original and winning idea and leap right into their businesses completely unaware of the competition. They then find themselves up against the wall, as their efforts continuously fall short of the competitors who are already established.

You can easily get around this by performing a proper analysis of your competitors before entering into the business arena. This way, if there is still competition out there, you'll know exactly how and why to tweak your ideas so that you find an untapped niche market.

Any competitor analysis you do will start and end with your willingness to do some research. This isn't something you want to outsource or trust to instinct. You need to become part of the market and find out exactly what's going on around every corner. If you miss something or choose to take something lightly, it could easily come back and bite you.

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What are the Right Questions to ask an Internet Marketing Consultant?

28 June 2010

Finding the right SEO expert to handle the Internet marketing for your online business can be a tough task if youre not prepared for the hiring. A lot of people simply outsource their jobs to the cheapest available or the highest rated workers and hope for the best. More often than not, this ends in disaster and no one gets what they want out of the deal.

You have to approach an Internet marketer just like youre the boss looking to hire an employee, because thats exactly what you are the boss, and the marketer is going to be working for you. Its imperative that you start out by asking questions. You need to see what the marketer is made of and if he/she or the company is going in the same direction.

What are some of the best questions you should be asking? These questions will range from simple and basic to precise and intuitive.

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Creating a Company Culture That Works in Today's Technology Age

23 June 2010

A lot of businesses struggle in defining their corporate culture. They either find that the culture runs contrary to the marketplace and times in which they're competing, or they fail to establish a successful culture altogether. Corporate culture is basically an unwritten set of values that sets the tone in the workplace.

Corporate culture is how a company chooses to conduct business and how it chooses to build an atmosphere. Corporate culture could be defined simply as a business's principles. In order to create a successful corporate culture in today's age of technology, some of the values must center on the technology available.

In order to set a corporate culture, it must start from the very top and trickle down. A personal value set needs to not only be established, but also adhered to by the company heads and employees alike. Integrating technology in this culture is all about using technology on the top level and letting it become a part of everyone's regular business routine.

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The Pros and Cons of a Dedicated Office Space

21 June 2010

A dedicated office space in the Internet world could be referred to as a virtual office. Simply put, a virtual office is an offsite location where a professional staff steps in and provides services for your business that a real office would. This allows you to maintain a strong sense of professionalism in the business world, even without having a large company.

Dedicated offices offer your business the advantages of telephone messaging and address services. By leasing out virtual space from a reputable company, you have the features of a real office at a price that could be merely a fraction of a real estate lease.

Like anything in business, however, there's an upside and a downside to a dedicated office space. Going over the pros and cons of a dedicated office will help you to make an informed decision before proceeding.

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What Items are Zero Rated from VAT in the UK?

09 June 2010

VAT is something many businesses will have to contend with when purchasing items and when attempting to sell them. The UK's VAT isn't quite as high as other European countries, but in 2009, the nation suffered a 3.7% consumer inflation bump, and then Chancellor Alastair Darling (pictured) declared that VAT should be restored to 17.5% on a wide range of goods and services.

Similar to a sales tax, the value added tax is a levy tacked on based on estimated value as a product goes from material stage, manufacturing and finally distribution. This tax is ultimately passed on to the consumer, so finding zero-rated items is the ideal for most small businesses. This creates big savings on expenses and, of course, customers appreciate the lower prices.

It's hard at times to find a proper niche in the market and grab a product that isn't subject to VAT. This becomes especially difficult when dealing online, as most affiliates are working to sell high-end electronics. However, there are a few products for online businesses not subject to the high VAT.

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The Fragile World of Webmaster and Affiliate Manager Relations

10 May 2010

In the business world, relationships are always fragile. Even strong bonds forged over many years can be easily broken when money and livelihoods are on the line. Some of the easiest business relationships to break happen in the online world, and especially when dealing with webmaster and affiliate relations, even a minor miscommunication can be disastrous.

The relationships between an affiliate manager and a webmaster can be quite different. A webmaster is a person in charge of maintaining a website. For the sake of this article, the webmaster is the individual(s) handling your servers, hardware/software features, and ensuring that your site operates correctly.

An affiliate manager is an individual helping to manage affiliate marketing programs by assisting in generating sales, traffic and tracking purchases as well as sending commissions. In operating your own web affiliate business, you may end up dealing with both a webmaster to handle your site and an affiliate manager to help with your marketing efforts.

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Partnering up in Business to Achieve Maximum Success

05 May 2010

Going into business for yourself is a very risky venture, and this is intensified if you decide to go at it alone. This is why many people, regardless of the business they're trying to operate, decide to find at least one business partner to pair with.

While the disadvantages of having a partner are numerous and well known, the advantages and avenues to reach maximum potential are exponentially expanded.

Not every successful business was forged from partnership, obviously; but having a successful partnership is if done correctly literally doubling your chances for success.

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How Does Your Organization Define Corporate Culture?

03 May 2010

In business, there are many ways in which any organization can define corporate culture. To put it in simple terms, an organizations corporate culture can be defined by its management style, hiring practices and also the physical space the organization provides for its employees. When defining your organizations corporate culture, these aspects must be looked at closely.

Because of the many different aspects coming together to run a corporation, actions taken by upper management to shape the business, as well as employee activities and other factors, can work to either align or contradict a particular corporations goals and values. These factors may have a direct effect on how you view and subsequently define corporate culture.

Take hiring practices for instance. How does looking at this help one to define corporate culture? It has to do with the demographic/s represented by the workforce as a whole. In the business world, theres a lot of emphasis placed on the age of an employee. While young employees can usher in new and fresh ideals and an enthusiasm, older workers bring more experience.

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How Do You Keep Operational Risk To A Minimum?

14 April 2010

There are all sorts of risks associated with business. If you were to take the more commonly occurring and more potentially harmful risks and give them all a category, they would fall under operational risks. Operational risks in business are encompassing and include every risk stemming from a company's business functions.

Obviously, it's essential to avoid these operational risks. However, there is no surefire way to completely eliminate them. The idea is simply to keep them to a minimum.

Luckily, there are many ways to do that that won't really cost your business a lot of time or money. What it will take, however, is effort on your part to see that the need for risk awareness is ever present.

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Five Solid Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

05 March 2010

Marketing has been an essential part of business for as long as business has been around. No matter what youre trying to sell, its vitally important to spread the word and develop a customer base.

Theres no better way to run a business than to get your name out there. Name recognition is everything, but in order for a name to be recognized, you must reach a broad base even if youre only catering to a niche market.

In todays high-tech world, there are many advertising methods that are extremely effective. However, business owners are forced to pay high rates for many of these methods. But where theres a will theres a way, and in recent years, quite a few low-cost marketing strategies have been developed. Here are five of the best-working for Internet marketing purposes.

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