Northern Virginia SEO Services and Social Media by KME Internet Marketing

Promoting Your Employer Online via Personal Social Media

2010-01-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

We’ve been asked from time to time by businesses about how to educate employees on using Social Media – from two perspectives. One perspective is simply as part of a broader Internet use policy, to help employees stay safe and protect information assets. Another perspective is to encourage employees to support their business in their daily online activities, should they choose to do so. This is essentially giving employees as “social media enthusiasts” the tools and guidance they should get, to help them positively contribute to the overall online marketing efforts of their employer.

Following is some template guidance that can be used and shared with employees. Let us know how this can be improved or updated. We can and do provide consulting regarding planning and implementing social media programs for businesses and organizations - contact KME Internet Marketing in DC for more information.

Use of Personal Social Media to Support ABC (Employer)

This non-legal memo contains straightforward, general advice regarding things to consider when using Internet Social Media to promote your employer. While ABC (Employer) may or may not have an “official” Personal Social Media or Internet Use Policy at this time – these additional guidelines should be very helpful in maintenance and growth of your relationship with ABC, where use of Social Media to promote ABC is concerned.

Note this guidance can and should also be used to promote the area and industry your employer serves – i.e., from an Economic Development or "Place Marketing" perspective. By promoting your neighborhood, county or city for example as a great place to visit or live, this helps promote the general business climate and possibly attract new customers and employees for your company. Here’s an example of how some businesses and employees are actively promoting Loudoun County VA online.

The Internet is a great tool and venue to use for promotions and advertising, whether for personal reasons (i.e. promoting yourself, your cause or interests), or for promoting businesses, products and events, whether commercial or nonprofit. ABC does draw a clear line between actively engaging particular employees in their online marketing and communications strategy, and simply providing guidelines for personal Internet activity (i.e. not related to, or requested by the employer).

ABC is currently engaged in many different kinds of online (and offline) advertising and marketing efforts for its business and brand, such as posting links about upcoming specials and events on its website, in various newspaper and social media websites, and on local search engines (like Google). ABC is directly paying service providers and specific employees to do this - this document provides guidelines for all other employees, partners or contractors.

Employees of ABC, like employees of just about any other kind of business, aren’t required or expected to market, advertise or otherwise promote their employer in any way, unless it’s specifically a part of your job description or contract. If marketing isn’t part of your job, it’s usually better to check first with your supervisor or employer if you’d like to promote your company or services on your own – this will help avoid any risks or issues based on mis-communication. There may be some ways you can help promote the business and your role in it, that are aligned with the company’s business strategy, operations, legal and personal privacy protection responsibilities. There may also be some specific training available.

It is typically helpful in one’s personal, professional development to support your employer’s public presence, whether directly or indirectly. Using a restaurant as an example, if you really like the restaurant menu or a particular entertainer, starting some “buzz” and telling your friends and family about it is a good thing. Proudly wearing an ABC-supplied shirt or hat with the ABC logo in public can draw positive, helpful attention to ABC. The more positive conversations or impressions you generate, the more ABC and its employees benefit over the short and long run. Likewise, negative or conflicting impressions about ABC can quickly spread, whether intentionally or not…your family of employees should always be supported with the respect and professionalism they deserve.

Social media on the Internet is a much-discussed venue for sharing information and engaging others. Social media is generally easy and quick to use, can be really helpful in spreading the word, and enables interesting ways to see and share videos, music and pictures. Social media includes websites you may already use, like MySpace.com, Twitter.com and Facebook.com – along with many other kinds of Weblogs (Blogs), “Chat” applications and other bookmarking or review-oriented sites. While social media can be really helpful and entertaining, using it for any reason is not without certain elements of risk…just like any other use of the Internet.

Risks include others finding out your personal information, damaging your computer, possibly stealing information or money from you, or otherwise intruding on your personal, family or professional privacy. Risks also include damage to reputation – whether that of your own, someone else’s or even that of a business. Damage to reputation takes many forms, and on the Internet, it can be very hard to recover from. Risky online behavior and negative online postings (about anything or anyone) can also be damaging to your career and employment status – so be careful and safe on the Internet, especially using Social media. An example set of good guidelines for “engaging in public discourse” is available at http://www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp . Take a look, and let us know if you’ve got any questions, or would like more information.

IF you do use the Internet and Social Media regularly, and IF you decide to share or point out positive information online about your employer (or anything related to your job or industry), there are some helpful, additional guidelines and methods to take note of here. This advice can only help your contribution be as positive and effective as possible (and help avoid some of the risks mentioned previously). Again, ask others who know for more advice, or let us know if you need help with questions or issues.

Bookmarks – if you see news, an article or website on the Internet about ABC, and you like it, feel free to share the link with others – using bookmarking tools like Digg.com or Mixx.com.
Sharing – if you find an article, advertisement, picture or other information about ABC, its events or entertainers – feel free to share it with others through your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or Flickr account. This can be especially helpful for an upcoming event or product announcement. Do be extra careful about infringing on copyrights, brand trademarks or personal privacy of others – for example, posting videos identifying other people online without their permission.
Following, Friending, Fans – for those of you who regularly use Twitter or Facebook, you know that sometimes other people or groups may start social, online conversations about topics you’re also interested in; by joining the group, or following such a person, that helps build both your and their credibility and influence regarding the topic. If the topic relates to your employer or industry, all the better! Also check ABC’s site for “RSS” feeds – subscribing to these with an RSS reader is a quick and easy way to keep up with news and events.
Reviews – there exist many forums and online websites like Yelp.com or more industry-specific sites that encourage fans of local businesses to record their reviews; if you like a business, it’s always helpful to let others know about it. Be truthful, and don't post unwarranted negative reviews about the competition!
Traveling around town – there are some applications that allow you to notify others of your location-based interests; for example Brightkite or FourSquare on your GPS-enabled mobile phone – these location-based social networking tools are great to let others know where and when you’ll be visiting ABC!
Your own site, blog or emails – it’s always nice for a business or organization to get positively mentioned or linked to, from somebody else’s website – especially with helpful, professional comments and descriptions. Let ABC know about your site, and your support – ABC may find it helpful to promote you!
ABC email list – ABC has its own website, and may (or does) also have additional website and group presence on social media sites – if you want to stay up-to-date with ABC services and events, register for available email list notifications, and let others know they can too (emails can be forwarded).
Your social or professional profile – many professionals provide personal details such as their employers, the type of work they do, and certifications on networking sites like LinkedIn.com or Facebook.com; this is generally a helpful thing for professional growth and networking, but you’ll want to be sure to not reveal any particularly sensitive details about your work, employer or family. Stick with the basics, like “I work at ABC in Northern Virginia” – but avoid giving out non-public information (like your work hours, employer team profile, home address, family names or home telephone number).
Keywords – any information you post on the Internet is more helpful to your employer, if it includes words and phrases that are associated with your employer’s business or industry. For ABC, great phrases to use include things like “[insert key phrases here]”. If these words are actually used as a website link (i.e. one clicks on the phrase and is taken to www.[ABC].com, for example), even better.
A note on Web Links – some of the very most helpful things to a business on the Internet, are “hyperlinks” (i.e. web links) pointing back to the business website. The more, the better, especially if the links are from very popular, well-read websites. Therefore, anytime you post information about your employer or industry on the web, be sure to use a good link – it’s helpful both to the business, and to readers, and search engines really like to see these. If you know that someone else will be posting information you provided (like a reporter or a newsletter editor, online or printed), ask them to include a hyperlink.

Thanks for reading through this material about your Employer and Internet Social Media. There are many other resources available to you; search around the Internet, ask someone who knows, or check back with us.

DC Business Marketing in 2010 – 6 Online Marketing Steps to Take Right Now

2010-01-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

Although the last decade hasn’t officially ended (we’re in the 10th year, after all), 2009’s economy and a double-digit change in years is enough for us to officially declare an end to the first decade of the 21st century. We entered the decade helping businesses and government agencies design websites and portals for maximum “user experience”, application performance and browser compatibility, all in the name of attracting and converting visitors. We end the decade designing for the same, albeit with a lot of change in the definitions of “users”, “experience”, “applications”, “performance” and “browsers”. Business marketing and systems engineering objectives remain the same for this new year, like every year - but the tools, methods, costs and audience are dramatically different.

Businesses like yours and ours use information technology to help manage and deliver many elements of our trade, from performance reporting and financial management, to data security and storage. “What” we need to do, to support our underlying sales and service processes, hasn’t changed – but the tools we can use sure have. For example, many more options will crowd the market this year for “cloud computing” services; basically made-to-order, flexible computing capabilities accessed over the Internet. Many more devices will enter the mainstream consumer market pre-wired for Internet access, from cellphone/PDA variants to personal game consoles and entertainment devices.

There’s simply a tremendous shift in attention and expertise required for successful business marketing from the platform or technology with which it’s delivered, to the channel and circumstances when and where it’s absorbed or delivered – more often than not in geosynchronous real-time.

While the fundamental methodology for online business marketing won’t change (appropriate content through the right channels to the right audience, backed by analytics and right time customer service) – new methods are required to deal with new contexts. Some degree of automation is essential, both in publishing and monitoring online content. Long-running campaigns require much shorter refresh cycles, that are created with the ability to respond to real time news and feedback. Press releases will continue to be useful, but implemented with a much broader and social definition of who or what the “Press” actually is.

Search will dominate even more, driving even more rapid shift of our marketing strategy to appease the ever-hungry search bots – every letter of our advertising need to be absolutely findable, from any Internet-connected device or channel.

Our audience for goods and services hasn’t really changed – it’s simply grown and segmented. Considering you’ve got a worthwhile, essential or just really cool product, more people than ever will have reason to buy it – provided they find it when, where and how they’re interacting online. So you’ve got to be there, everywhere – and it doesn’t need to cost the farm. We can all achieve huge returns on marketing and advertising dollar investment with a finely tuned, optimized and responsive Internet media campaign.

Such a campaign can smartly benefit from the very best of a horde of cheaply-available online tools and services – though the filters of experience, risk management and practice are even more essential than ever. Yesterday’s ISP and anti-virus software don’t work today – nor do yesterday’s advertising agencies and broadcast or print media strategies. What’s the Google page rank of your advertising firm, or publisher?

That’s not to say all traditional media should be abandoned in 2010. Sure, post a classified or consider a print advertisement – but track the discrete conversions from each dollar spent, and balance this spend across ALL media channels available and that make sense, PARTICULARLY online search marketing. Challenge the magazine to which you just paid $1000, for a quarter-page ad, to do much more for you, with their own assets – promote your website on theirs, track conversions through both web and phone, send your ad out through their email distribution. Or just spend the $1000 on well-managed pay-per-click – try it out this year.

So here’s the lowdown, for DC, Northern Virginia and Loudoun business marketing – here’s what you need to do this year, to make 2010 your year of business recovery and marketing fitness:

Get smart – learn about online marketing and Internet media; here’s a fantastic local Northern Virginia marketing and media course to consider
Get mean and lean - restructure your entire marketing budget – spend more online, and track the results
Where’s your audience? Meet them online, through social media - and it’s not all about advertising, it will be personal, and it will be a little scary
Inventory and leverage your own digital assets – you’ve got photos, videos, papers, presentations, emails…everything has value as part of an integrated online marketing campaign
Hire experienced staff, or outsource what you don’t do – the technology, digital publishing, media management, website maintenance and analytics, following and friending people, tracking all the new twitter apps
Help each other in the local, regional business community. Realtors, promote local service providers; IT firms, promote local tourism – a rising tide lifts all boats!

Happy New Year!

KME Internet Marketing and Media - DC, Virginia, Maryland

Loudoun County, VA Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2009-11-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

Loudoun County, VA Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services

Loudoun County, VA Search Engine Optimization (Loudoun County, VA SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing via organic or natural search results. In other words, Loudoun County, VA SEO is a process of getting your website found on search engines when people search for you, what you do or sell.

Pretty straightforward, right? Not necessarily. Search engines use a complicated mathematical formula called an “algorithm” that generates the order of websites displayed (called “search results”) when people search. Each search engine has a different algorithm and the algorithms change often. At this time, Google is the most heavily used search engine, with Bing, Yahoo, YouTube and Twitter Search advancing fast. Loudoun County, VA SEO is the process of aligning your website with the search engine’s algorithm, targeting Loudoun County businesses, residents or organizations.

Complicating matters even further, achieving a high ranking within search results is an extremely competitive, multi-billion dollar per year industry. With over 85% of all clicks on Google, for example, occurring on the first page of relevant search result – if your Loudoun County, VA website isn’t on the first page (or perhaps the first three pages), it just won’t get found.

KME Internet Marketing is based in Loudoun County, VA, and has been studying SEO, search engine algorithms and consumer search behavior in this DC metro, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland region for the last 6 years and has developed a highly unique, effective and dominant strategy to consistently get our Northern Virginia and Loudoun-focused customers on page one of Google, Bing and Yahoo. We have Loudoun County, VA SEO Plans to serve small and large businesses, nonprofits and communities.

We use three primary SEO strategies for achieving high organic search results placement for your website - (Read more at Northern Virginia Business News, Marketing and Advertising).

Google's Sidewiki - Business Implications or Not? What to Do, Now

2009-11-01T05:58:00.000-08:00

We've been following the torrid discussion of Google's Sidewiki for a while now, essentially waiting for the dust to settle and Google to react to lots of commentary and feedback...

Sidewiki is essentially a plug-in for your browser, that comes along either with the Google Toolbar or using a bookmarklet, that lets you add and view comments about most webpages (doesn't work for https sites, for example). The problem is, it's either a way for some people to legitimately and helpfully add commentary on sites to the Google toolbar community, or a new way for spammers or troublemakers to basically "tag" your site with unwanted graffiti. It's actually both, right now, and website owners should take some steps to control their brand a bit.

Things to do:

1 - don't panic; auto-spamming hasn't started yet, and the culture of trust among the Google toolbar community is holding.

2 - either install Google toolbar or bookmarklet yourself, or ask someone else (like your webmaster or Internet Marketing company) - and then take a look at Sidewiki comments for your page; you'll likely have none, right now.

3 - if you can, verify and register your website with Google webmaster tools - and then post a Sidewiki entry with this Google ID, thereby establishing your entry as the verifiable, "trustworthy" one....note that a Sidewiki entry, like any other comment on the web, should be thoroughly "optimized" with keywords, links, and enough content to push most other comments down the first page. While Sidewiki results aren't currently indexed, and therefore don't contribute to page rankings (and you can't even find them), they probably will be at some point in the future.

See the sidewiki comment at our site, http://www.kmeinternetmarketing.com, for an example posting.

4 - if you feel compelled, do comment on other sites - but honestly, openly and true to Google's Terms of Service. It's not, however, untoward to let others know your "tagline", i.e., a backlink to a good source of support you may have already published that supports your comments (like your own website) isn't unexpected.

5 - let us know if you've got other comments, questions or concerns - we'll stay on top of this for our clients as it quickly develops.

KME

Social Media Training and Simulation - Internet Media Coaching

2009-10-31T02:15:00.000-07:00

All well-known systems engineering methodologies and enterprise system development programs leverage testing environments. Testing environments can be built and operated for very different purposes, ranging from prototyping and simulation, to pre-production load testing and usability or “Section 508 Accessibility” checks. Specialized SOA testing frameworks are sometimes required, for difficult infrastructure integration challenges. Most major systems that get deployed to large numbers of users also feature a training environment. This working copy of the “real” or “production” environment affords the user and company a lot of protection against mistakes, mis-operation of system functions, and basically allows you to test-drive a system, but reset and try again if something doesn’t work right or mistakes are made. Play around, learn and mess up - no harm, no foul, and the system assets, data and reputation of you, the system owner and others are all protected.

That’s one very difficult challenge to learning social media, for commercial or government employees. It’s nearly impossible to learn how to use social media tools and techniques in an environment that forgives all missteps, can be wholly reset and leaves no incriminating traces of your mistakes or potentially embarrassing, compromising communication skills after you’re done. The best way to learn how to post to Flickr, to learn the nuances of Twitter and engage in the myriad of online dialogue environments is to actually do it “in production”, as they say, which comes along with a lot of actual or perceived personal and organizational risk. That’s the reason most social media programs and users representing significant companies or governments are usually associated with the “Public Relations” or “Internet Marketing and Social Media” department – these folks are trained and expected to know how to engage in public dialogue, within the bounds of legal, regulatory and policy controls (when available).

Much is being written and discussed online currently regarding the state of Government 2.0, and how we’re quickly reaching an impasse where the ability to become a social media practitioner is simply neither supported nor available to employees working behind government firewalls and Internet usage policies. Social media simply isn’t very social or usable at all, to those for whom it would most benefit. As well, the public forum is missing out on a lot of really good insight and dialogue, because so many employers and employees simply can’t afford the risk, or don’t have the capability to learn, understand and test the risks, that come with posting material online.

Read more about Social Media Simulation and Training at http://information-mgmt.blogspot.com/...

Northern Virginia and Loudoun Social Media - Hyperlocal News

2009-10-26T09:50:00.001-07:00

What's next for Loudoun and Northern Virginia social media, blogging and hyperlocal news? Read at Gateway to Loudoun...

Northern Virginia Internet Marketing, SEO Services, Social Media - Easier to find us...

2009-10-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

Now it's easier to find us, check out our services, and follow some of our great case studies....

Northern Virginia Internet Marketing

Northern Virginia SEO Services

Northern Virginia Social Media

Check out great free “how to” new blog post “Help for you: Top 10 social media Twitter follows” – please retweet

2009-10-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, the title of this post is a bit misleading, since you won't find this "Top 10" list here. This is actually just a little experiment based on the "Most ReTweetable Word and Phrases" list in a recent FastCompany article.

The title of this post, and the accompanying tweet from @kmeintmktg, is a sentence entirely composed of the words from this list.

Will be interesting to see how this "catches"...

Initiating a Corporate Social Media Presence – Unleash Your Inner Star Power

2009-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Social Media’s a scary animal, especially for companies or organizations that are accountable to stakeholders, policy, law or any other governing entity that exists to mitigate risk. Also, social media is an online collaboration channel and tools domain that’s most appropriately and effectively utilized by humans, i.e. individual personalities (preferably employees) – vs. corporate personas or third-party services. So how does a company begin to use social media, break into and contribute to the online dialogue, and avoid reputation issues while maintaining appropriate accountability?

Find, identify, nurture, coach and ultimately unleash your employee social media stars – they’ll be the face of the company, the purveyors of online dialogue, and will most likely do a great job at it. Why and how?

Read more...

Northern Virginia SEO Services - Search Locally

2009-06-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, we run across some very appropriate and well-written articles espousing local Northern Virginia SEO Services.

For example, this one at ezinearticles, which states in part "Attempt to look for an SEO or Search Engine Optimization company on the internet and you'll see a confusing list of technical services and offerings. Often times a search in your local area on Google will produce a more focused list of results, such as searching for Northern Virginia SEO Services - however knowing how to interview any SEO service company is your best option for success."

Good guidance - searching for "Northern Virginia SEO Services" (without the quotes) on Google typically yields, at this time, Northern Virginia's most experienced, professional and helpful Northern Virginia Internet Marketing and Social Media Engineering firm available - i.e. KME Internet Marketing. Same with searching for related terms, like "Northern Virginia Internet Marketing" or "Northern Virginia Social Media".

Being listed high in search engine results isn't a permanent thing (and is sometimes touted by inexperienced companies with embarrassing results) - but it does typically reflect a company's breadth and depth of capability as gauged by the relationship of its material and website to others on the web, i.e. its "popularity". In this case, legitimate results can be expected.

Ask kelly and Ted - Keywords in Twitter?

2009-06-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a good question that came in - "Is it important to use keywords in microblogs like Twitter? It seems like Google results don't contain any Twitter results, with keywords."

If you're not working with a knowledgeable, experienced firm, you might get answers like:

"Really, twittering only has value when building a list of followers and then driving that traffic to a page or offer. Twitter isn't really ranking for any terms in the search engines say like a squidoo lens or hubpage would."

(This is a real answer, from an obviously uninformed 2nd-tier SEO provider)

Our answer? EVERY SINGLE posting made in Twitter or other microblogs(if your intention is to attract attention or business on the Internet) should consider keywords...while "tweets" themselves don't necessarily show up well in Google results (but profiles do), tweets do get syndicated, burned, friendstered, repurposed, piped, dugg, mixxed, emailed, blasted, etc. to many other social media channels, plus end up in search results of "other" search engines than Google - i.e. niche engines, social engines (like SocialMention), etc.

For example, we search for "social media governance" in SocialMention.com (with "ALL" option) - practically the whole first page of results with these keywords are repurposed links to an original blog/tweet (from a KME contributor) on the subject....including actual links to the retweets. Same thing with a recent tweet we made regarding "detoxify your mind" - tons of retweets for the eyword "detoxify" showing up in the search results.

Heck, I'm making the kids use keywords in their homework now...

DC Online Marketing Videos, Web Videos & Production - Coming Soon!

2009-06-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon!

KME Internet Marketing shortly will be offering professional online marketing videos and web videos for use in promoting yourself, your organization or business through online video channels and websites! KME Internet Marketing will provide professional video planning, staging, production, scripting, voiceover and post-production services, create videos for offline distribution via CD or DVD, and online distribution in all popular video streaming formats (i.e. flv, mp4, avi, etc.) and thoroughly optimize the video for universal search engines to find....Video SEO! As we do now, we'll also load, promote and optimize placement and distribution of your online marketing video on sites like YouTube, Metacafe, Blip.tv, DailyMotion, Yahoo and other popular online video sites.

Adding online videos to your website, and syndicating them around the Internet using SEO techniques, is a fantastic way to increase website visitor engagement or "stickiness", and ultimately drive conversions. Adding streaming video to your website is a relatively inexpensive way to enhance your website and brand while most effectively presenting your product, service or other marketing material. Pair this service with our digital asset optimization services, and you're in business producing and distributing your business marketing videos around the Internet!

DC Video Production, Professional Videographers and Video Online Marketing available this July from KME Internet Marketing - contact us now to plan and reserve production time!

Cloud-based Wiki for Semantic Ontologies

2009-06-08T18:45:00.000-07:00

In our spare time, we plumb the depths of the information management, search architecture and semantic web concepts that (1) Google uses and (2) will likely lead to very interesting new ways of describing, sharing and promoting online digital assets in the future.

Read more...

Ask Kelly & Ted - Should I Use a Blog Ad Network?

2009-05-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a great question recently in from our business partners; "Should I use a blog ad network?"

Advertising via "vertical content networks" is certainly a viable option within your overall marketing plan. Vertical content networks are a collection of websites that are focused by audience, topic, or other binding factor - blog advertising networks (like Blogads, AdBrite, Feedburner, etc.) are an example. Placing a very compelling advertisement into a set of great blogs that pull in just the kind of dedicated viewers you'd like to see your ad can drive up to 5-8% click-through rate. However, to "connect" with these loyal blog readers in a very niche area requires a really good visual ad and message, a really accurate campaign (i.e. placing the ad in just the right blogs, at just the right time), follow-through relationship-building, and payment. Like any other advertising medium, to get really good, focused exposure will cost a lot more - while casting a broader net and relying on more coarse matching between viewers and your ad content will cost less (as when using Google Adwords, with your content appearing not only in search results, but throughout the Google Adsense network, which many bloggers use). We'll point out that a key benefit to the Adsense network, is that advertisements include text-only types, which get indexed by the search engines.

Therefore, the first criteria to consider when embarking on such a specialized and effective advertising campaign, is your cost-benefit ratio. Costs will include time researching and planning the campaign (such as figuring out which blog network to use, which blogs or collections to select, and what actual advertisements to use), creating the advertisement itself, implementing and monitoring. Benefits can be a rapid boost to your image, reputation, inbound traffic and actual conversions. Note that the primary benefits are actual sales, but secondary benefits like impressions, brand awareness, "buzz" and word-of-mouth advertising are also important and can lead to future sales. Note also that a poorly-executed campaign brings not only the risk of wasted money and no sales, but could actually damage your reputation, especially in this social media (i.e. blogging) environment. Advertisements regarding "something for sale" run in social media networks (like Facebook or blog networks) that aren't focused on "buying things" will perform less effectively than the same advertisements run as search engine PPC campaigns (like Google Adwords). That's because more people are in "shopping mode" when searching, than when socializing.

So, figure on 8-12 hours service ($50-150/hr) from a typical, small ad agency to plan and create the basic campaign (if you're not doing it yourself) with one content network (presuming it's fairly straightforward, plus the ad and landing pages aren't real complex graphic designs), and then anywhere from several hundred to many thousands of dollars for the "blog ad buy" to run your advertisement, per week, in the blog network. We can quote you an estimate for a Blog Ad campaign, if we know approximately what your "ad buy" budget is, and obviously what the nature of the advertisement is (i.e. is it a special offer, just general awareness, a new product, response to competition, an ad combined with newsletter signup, etc.).

One last point - visual banner advertisements are fast becoming less effective than contextual and search advertising (and in fact aren't typically indexed by search engines); however, really well-placed graphic ads on well-read blogs can overcome the traditional stigma of "spam-like" banner ads.

SEO is #1 Recommendation for Business Marketing in This Economy

2009-05-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

A very timely and interesting element of a set of marketing principles delivered to IBM business partners at this week’s IBM Impact 2009 conference included this recommendation listed as #1 – attend to your SEO (Search Engine Marketing), and definitely be social about it.

Read more about this important Information Management topic...

What your webmaster or advertising firm won't tell you..

2009-04-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Internet marketing, and in particular Search Engine Optimization (SEO) activities using traditional and newer social media Internet tools, is an extremely specialized profession - and one that requires constant education, testing and a good deal of professional experience. Your webmaster or advertising firm may or may not know this, but certainly won't tell you they don't know.

We've provided outsourced, third-party Internet Marketing capabilities to many other Web technology and advertising service providers, and they generally fall into 4 categories of service capabilities you absolutely need for your business, but that don't actually provide effective Internet Marketing by themselves.

1 - Web designer/graphic artists - while these professionals are essential for creating your brand identity, attractive graphics and packaging, and all other visual, multimedia elements for use by your business; these folks or firms are "producers" of online content, not "marketers" of it - and typically spend no time learning or implementing search engine optimization for clients.

2 - "Traditional" advertising and communications firms - there are many advertising firms around our DC area who are experts at creating great campaigns that take existing or unique brands, create an advertising "story" and "look" with them, and then place buys in traditional media (like banner ads, tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.). We've found, however, that many of these firms do not yet understand nor provide services that enable optimum exposure of these advertising campaigns on the Internet, and that can be easily found via search engines. In fact, we've seen examples of utterly wasted advertising dollars, when implemented without proper understanding of SEO and search engines - basically, advertisements no one will ever see or act upon.

3 - Web Programmers/Hosters - these professionals are obviously experts in their arena, programming and managing the actual web technology and web pages for clients; sometimes this service is provided by individuals or web programming shops, other times, the website hosting provider provides it. In nearly all the cases we've dealt with specialists in this area, who claim to also offer SEO/Internet Marketing services, it doesn't ring true, and no SEO skills actually exist or are supported by these outfits. This is especially true when seeking SEO skills via outsourcing forums such as "Elance"; we've found that about 75% of the time an opportunity is posted in technical forums seeking SEO/copywriting skills, the responses are (a) technically competent but (b) utterly rejectable from a copywriting and Internet Marketing perspective, especially if the job requires local marketing.

You'll get horridly-written responses from firms (many overseas) claiming to provide great SEO services, such as "You may surly ignore our resent feedback as we were close for renovation" or "We are a team of professionals having a fair understanding on Search marketing - our experience as a SEO company might be less, but our skill sets are unique & diverse". If their proposals and initial impression utterly fail from an English grammar perspective, how could their online marketing possibly succeed?

4 - Copywriters/Authors - these professionals are actually quite good at what they do, and their content is essential to be leveraged for online marketing - they simply don't know what to do with it, how to optimize it using HTML for search engines, and where on the Internet it should be placed, using which tools.

The key takeaway is that in order to absolutely succeed in promoting your business or organization on the Internet, driving more traffic and conversions to your site, and in general establishing a fantastic Internet presence - you do need the kinds of "content" these professionals listed above provide (and by the way, we offer all of these as specialty services). However, you ALSO need the kind of professional online marketing services and management that ONLY firms like ours provide - to pull it all together and smartly leverage for maximum benefit.

Build your site, create your images and write your books - but hire an SEO firm to make sure the Internet knows you exist.

Ask Kelly & Ted - Advice on Selling a Website?

2009-04-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

Here's a question we answered over at the very hip DC Web Women's Organization and Email List...

"Anyone have any advice on selling a website?"

Buying and selling Internet real estate and online digital assets is big business -you certainly can make good money from this, so long as you've got a good means of assigning current and potential value to the online property (i.e. "appraising" it, just like your home). Value doesn't have to only be about income-producing potential, either - sometimes websites are purchased simply for marketing, as a defensive move against competition, or for more altruistic purposes.

A quick online analysis of your site doesn't indicate much actual revenue-producing value or clarity in purpose, and there's much onsite work to still do, to make it ready for "prime time", in terms of online marketing, performance and usability from a conversion perspective. It probably wouldn't appraise for much - but that's only one opinion, without extensive research and competitive analysis, and the market ultimately decides value.

Regarding the market, sitepoint.com and sedo.com are examples of markets that cater to this...

Funny, we actually just finished helping someone evaluate and "stage" their site for sale (again, just like a house!) - and the site was a place for people to buy and sell other websites!

The best steps to take for your site are probably (1) get a decent appraisal of your site, (2) create some "sales copy", i.e. verbage about why the site is so great, (3) find a few outlets online on which to pitch it, that make the most sense, given your motivations and the site's theme, and (4) do a little online marketing and "buzz" creation of your own, pointing to your site from a blog or two, for example.

You could also simply "monetize" it a bit (i.e. add some ads), improve the seo a little, and let it "soak" a while (i.e. get its pagerank up from "0") - you might find it brings in just enough interest and revenue-generating "click-throughs" (i.e. from Google adsense) that it covers the hosting/domain charges, and basically just pays for itself.

Social Media for Your Business - Loudoun BizConnect

2009-04-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

Be sure to check out our Social Media Overview for Loudoun County and Northern Virginia Businesses, in last month's Loudoun BizConnect....here's the article:

"As the Obama administration settles into office this year, what’s described as the “most connected ever” group of leaders are quickly focusing on how to leverage the groundswell of “social media” use and expertise demonstrated by the campaigns. Social media, proven useful in politics, is rapidly being adopted by students and families, and is dramatically changing the landscape of traditional news reporting. But is it good for business, here in Loudoun and Northern Virginia?

Social media may be difficult to define, but you’ll know it when you see it. It’s about talking back to the web, sharing your opinion, and participating in a multimedia dialogue among interested people in public – anonymously or not. There are many styles of online conversation and tools – from those focusing on photos or videos (like “Flickr” and “YouTube”), to reviews (like “Yelp”), to those focusing on profiles, expertise or favorite bookmarks (i.e. “Facebook”, “LinkedIn” and “Delicious”).

For business owners and employees, the prospect of engaging customers in a public, un-moderated dialogue (that can’t be erased) can be daunting. Local businesses typically aren’t used to this – but it’s already an expectation of most online customers. If your digital assets, press releases and online communications about your business aren’t managed across social media, you’re at risk. Really great news or feedback might be developing, that you can’t harness - or your reputation may be quickly deteriorating, whether justified or not.

Loudoun businesses and organizations can and should learn from those already finding success in leveraging social media – especially in this difficult economy. Look online at the Loudoun Times, read local blogs like “Gateway to Loudoun County” and follow “Digg”, “Mixx”, “Twitter” and “Google News” for Loudoun business news. Join a LinkedIn group and create a “social media policy” (i.e. part of our “Internet Checklist” for starting a Loudoun Business, at (http://wwwKMEInternetMarketing.com/InternetChecklist.html).

Socialize your business online, though with purpose, restraint and professional guidance."

KME Internet Marketing's Internet Marketing and Technology Consulting staff are recognized leaders among Northern Virginia and Washington DC's Social Media Digerati/Goverati - contact us today for assistance with your online social media needs.

Top 20 Internet and Social Media Checklist for Starting a Business or Nonprofit Organization

2009-03-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Here are a number of straightforward actions to take for your business or organization, to leverage the Internet, Social Media tools and other online advertising techniques. Please note that these are only very basic actions - there are many, many more - depending on your business and marketing plans. Contact us for more information, a strategic plan to increase your business leveraging online marketing and social media, or for other technical and graphic/web design assistance. This list uses the example of a business located in Loudoun County, VA.

Internet Checklist for New Businesses and Organizations

Call to All Real Estate Agents/Brokers - Help Nonprofits

2009-03-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

One way to truly help your communities, your local buyers and sellers, and the overall real estate market in your area is to help the local nonprofits. Without nonprofit, charitable organizations, communities and therefore the associated real estate markets would suffer - even more than they're suffering now, with additional hardship to come in light of the rapid drop-off in philanthropic contributions across the nation.

Here's something you can do today, to support and leverage a very unique, collaborative nonprofit fundraising mechanism that leverages the power of Internet Marketing and Social Media. This will help your community, and your business.

Choose your favorite nonprofit organization (local, national, global). Let them know you'd like to help them raise money, help their cause, and improve the community (your community, and your market).

Together, review the "Nonprofit Funding Solutions for Charitable Organizations" program, at http://www.npofs.org. This is a very quickly-growing, worldwide consortium of nonprofits, brought together under a program run by the Virginia-based Paws4People Foundation, who together leverage online Charitable Raffles to raise money (and provide many attractive cash prizes to the ever dwindling donor base!).

Sign up as a Corporate Sponsor of your nonprofit (termed a "Referral Organization", i.e. PTAs, community groups, churches, etc.) - and loads of benefits accrue:

Your nonprofit gets badly-needed legitimate cash help, fast

Donors and communities benefit

Paws4People and all the charities of the nonprofit consortium benefit, with very little overhead taken out and away from direct community support

The local market and community profile improves, as does hopefully your business

You get FREE online marketing/social media exposure for this support, and for your business

It's pretty simple and straightforward, but a brilliant concept. A PTA raffle on steroids.

Collaborative support of local communities between nonprofit organizations and local realtors/brokers. Get involved. Or just buy an online charitable raffle ticket yourself, to support and win.

FREE Internet Marketing for Nonprofits

2009-03-13T06:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a very timely nonprofit fundraising and marketing program we're now offering for registered 501(c)(3) organizations, here in the US or any other legitimate, approved nonprofit organization in the world.

By participating in the NPOFundingSolutionS^TM nonprofit charity consortium, and helping to promote online raffle fundraising for your nonprofit or one you're supporting, we'll help you.

A donor who buys an online raffle ticket (A) can win one of thousands of cash prizes, (B) provides a significant portion of the donation directly to your nonprofit, and (C) provides a donation percentage to ALL consortium members. At NO cost to you.

It's a very simple, very effective, and very unique win, win, win situation.

We'll not only help you with Internet Marketing and Social Media techniques to promote the online raffle fundraising mechanism, thereby raising money for you, we'll help you promote your cause and awareness online altogether.

Find out more here.

Government 2.0 Camp

2009-02-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Planning to attend Government 2.0 Camp this March, to participate in the 2.0 fun applied to the Government 2.0 "Tribe". Watch for our Twitters!

We're Growing in More Local Regions for Internet Marketing

2009-02-22T07:17:00.000-08:00

We're Hiring...

2009-02-19T18:30:00.000-08:00

Are you an Internet Marketing specialist, with experience in SEO/SEM and Social Media? You know if you are - if you're looking for PT work in Northern Virginia, let us know - we could use your help and expertise.

Market conditions are absolutely right for leveraging Internet Marketing and Social Media to control and focus marketing spend, establish a reputation with new audiences, and take advantage of Social Media trends.

A Better "About Us" Page - West Palm Beach, Florida Website Management Tips

2009-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

(Reprinted by Permission from WebMasterForHire.US, a West Palm Beach, Florida-based Website Management and Design Firm)

Though it's called by many names (About Our Firm, Our Company and About Us, for example), you have captured the visitor's interest if they click on this page. Most likely, they have been on your other pages that are client-focused, educational and promotional. Now, they want to know about you and the business behind the offers. They want to know you are credible, experienced and skilled — able to actually do the things you offer with quality.

- Don'ts -
First, don't undersell yourself. Many people, even professional writers, have a hard time writing about themselves and "toot their own horns" effectively. If you are one of these people, consider hiring a professional writer — at least for your About Us page. Webmaster for Hire in West Palm Beach, FL or KME Internet Marketing in Washington DC/Northern Virginia can assist you with this, should you have an interest.

Second, don't oversell yourself with hype and unsubstantiated or exaggerated claims. If you cannot back up these claims in your writing, you lose credibility. Phrases such as: "We're the best ...", "Our service is unique ...", "We're #1 ... ", and so on should never be used, unless you can substantiate it directly below the claim with appropriate testimonials or third party statistics. Unique is probably the most overused. It means that no other business offers your idea, method, process or product in the world. If you actually offer something unique, specifically name it.

Next, avoid clichés and obvious statements, such as:

"We work as a team" — don't most companies?
"We put our clients first" — in this day and age, if you don't, you won't have a business!
"We partner with our clients" — isn't this part of doing business and expected by clients?

These and other weak statements don't really say anything to the reader and wastes your precious writing space, where you could be saying something really important. Use of such statements looks as if you don't really have any credible statements about yourself and are using fillers.

- Do's -
Your About Us page should be presenting the reader with a compelling marketing message of credibility, experience, quality and reasons why they should trust you to deliver on your offer.

Credibility. Give evidence that you are qualified to do the work you offer. Stick to the specific data that illuminates your important accomplishments. Illustrate how your specific skills support your claims.

Where's Your Passion? When you speak to a business owner in person, they have so much energy and passion as they discuss their business. This same energy and passion should be translated into words on your About Us page. Make this easier by speaking to someone about your business, using a tape recorder. Then, use the recording to pick out "sound bites" to use in writing the About Us page.

Voice. The majority of people write in what's called an inactive or passive voice, such as: We will, You may, We did, etc. A passive voice basically is always speaking in the past or future. An active voice is speaking in the present. For example:

We implement the process vs. We will implement the process
Clients appreciate ... vs. You may appreciate ...
We received ... vs. We did receive

Active voice makes your writing more immediate and urgent in the thinking of the reader — "pay attention, this is important to YOU" — rather than "think about this whenever you have some free time", which translates to "I'll forget this before I even get to your competitor's site!"

Language. Your writing needs to be powerful. Such as: "This is what we do for YOU!" vs. "We offer the following services". The second statement is in an active voice but doesn't have any power to it. Secondly, your writing should always be positive. NEVER introduce a negative. For example: "We have very few complaints". This automatically puts into the reader's mind that you DO have complaints. Always, always, always use positive language.

Take a few minutes now to review your own About Us page.
Put yourself into a potential client's shoes.
Would you call the owner of your site?

West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Jupiter, Lake Worth Web Design and Website Management.