Website Visibility - How To Win from Google's Panda Algorithm Ranking

Friends, your website's visibility in major search engines has a lot to do with how many new prospects and business leads you enjoy. New customers are the lifeblood of many companies, which is why Promise Production's SEO / SEM / Website Promotion and Search Engine Visibility play heavily in the marketing strategy we provide to grow your profits.

It is not just your IT department or your Webmaster, but your Marketing that needs to be savvy to the evolutions in search engine marketing. Otherwise, you'll continue to aim at the target where the results "were", not where they are "today." So even if you "win" in your goals, the target keeps moving, so in reality you have missed the lion's share of the profits. Up-to-date marketing strategy is so key, along with search engine optimization, you need smarter strategy to outthink the competition!

Below is an excellent article by that underscores everything we at Promise Productions have been saying. (Nice to find experts that agree, eh?) But seriously, it boils down to a few key concepts that Promise Productions knows exactly how to implement on your behalf:

•  Quality Content  - are your products and services communicated in a compelling way that makes their value stand out to your prospects?
• Video Marketing - are you making video more and more central to getting the message out? This is a win with your customer but also a win in the search engines - but only if you do it the right way!
• Quality Backlinks - how many others are talking about your brand, your products, your services. How many signposts pointing back to your website are there and how relevant  This area has been one of the most elusive to do in an effective and legitimate way with search engines – until now!

Both the Video Marketing and the Quality Backlinks overlap with Social Media Marketing, but as always the exact strategies we provide is what separates winners from losers. Again, these are not just "webmaster tweaks" – they are keys your company's decision makers need to be aware of to inform the entire way you orient your marketing, sales and advertising efforts. 

So contact Promise Productions for expert marketing strategy and implementation to promote your company at 877-858-0071.

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Without further ado, see the below recent article by Titus for a detailed discussion of these matters:

Lately, like many full-time webmasters, I have been spending a lot of my time dealing with the Panda/Farmer Update - Google's major Algorithm Changes which they did in February 2011 with further adjustments in the months following. This update was a major "game changer" since even some very prestigious sites saw their rankings drop and the debate/fallout is still continuing as I write this material.

Figuring Out "Exactly" How Google Ranks Web Pages Has Become the "Holy Grail" of SEO.

Webmasters and marketers have been debating these "ranking factors" for over 10 years now and that discussion will continue far into the future or for as long as Google remains the dominant search engine on the planet.


Rank Local Top 10 in Google
Of course, I have formed my own opinions and views on this matter, mostly from the information I get from running 9 or 10 websites. But mainly I derive the majority of my beliefs from observations of some major "keyword battles" which I have been fighting for about as long as Google has existed.




There are a lot of myths out there. For example, many SEO experts insist you must update your site/pages often. But I have one site which I have barely touched in over 4 or 5 years and it still ranks in the top spot in Google for its targeted keyword phrase "Internet Marketing Tools."




Now I have been constantly building backlinks to this site over the years, but I have not updated it or changed the content much since it was created. I have a few sites which I don't promote with link building and they have dropped off the map in Google.

What this tells me about Google is that quality one-way links is a very important factor in how Google ranks pages. These keyworded links back to your homepage and to your interior pages are extremely important for getting top rankings.




Actually, I would bet the shop, that if you ONLY concentrated on quality backlinks you would achieve those top spots in Google. While, of course, there is no need to ignore the other ranking factors, if you did, and concentrated most of your efforts on link building, you would still get to the first page of Google. At least that is how things were working...


The Panda Algorithm


The Google Panda Update threw a monkey wrench into the whole ranking game. It is more or less, the ultimate filter which can override all the other ranking factors. It finds poor quality content and filters it out or lowers its rankings in Google's Index.




The key here is that this Panda filter doesn't just rank your web pages, it can rank your whole site. In other words, webmasters have to worry about the over-all quality of their sites because if you have too many of what Google believes to be "poor quality pages" then your whole site could drop in their rankings.






If Panda struck your site, then you must take a closer look at all your content and make adjustments so that Panda (Google) perceives it as all top quality material. Also, you have to look carefully at your internal linking structure and avoid excessive "keyword spamming" within your site.


What's out: thinking that having a bunch of links within your own website pointing to a certain page will boost that page's visibility. 


On-page elements must be in order and factors like site load times and speed have become more important. Writing quality, style, spelling, and grammar have also taken center stage. So too has the trust factor. Can your content or site be trusted? There is also an ongoing argument about "bounce rates" and whether or not Google can even measure these? My own opinion on this is that Google can track your every click on the web and has massive amounts of data derived from your usage of their search engine (cookies-R-us), the Chrome Browser and countless programs such as Analytics, Adsense, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, etc. All this anonymous data can be compiled, analyzed and dissected to create their ranking metrics. They would be foolish not to use this data.




Videos are Winners


Of course, I haven't survived on the web for this long without learning a few tricks. You must go where Google is going.

Like many others, I have noticed videos and pages with videos on them weren't hit hard by the Panda Update. Ignoring for the moment that Google owns YouTube, videos have always done well in Google SERPs and Panda hasn't changed that in any significant way.




For years now, I have been enriching my web content and pages with videos - mainly through YouTube - not only because Google owns it, but because everybody uses it. I believe videos are a good way to get traffic and help your rankings plus videos are a form of quality content around which you can build channels and an online community.




Because I believe videos play such an important role in Google's SERPs, I have created several channels on YouTube. And, I just recently created another channel around my main site. These channels contain simple videos and are usually created from my articles.


Hopefully, one major consequence of Panda will be that companies will have to take a closer look at all of their content and filter out the inferior stuff as well as improve site speed, minimize ads, delete pages with little or no real content, fix broken links and make sites more user-friendly. Do all this, not just to please Google, but because having a clean, fast and easy-to-navigate site filled with unique top quality content is a great way to attract more business.




Titus Hoskins owns the copyright to this article.

Beyond SEO to Higher Website Visibility - Link Building Strategy

Being Found in the search engines involves multiple disciplines. 

1. First one must have a well-designed website with properly-written content and rich visuals. 
2. Second your websites needs to have SEO (described below). 
3. Third, your website needs meaningful inbound links from relevant sources. This is the most elusive part, but the part that today is the key to trumping competition. These inbound links can come from Social Media assets, but also other online sources.  

SEO for a website means it is keyword-rich and avoids coding technologies that displease or confuse search engine spiders (i.e. flash, some javascript, frames, all text as text and not images depicting text, etc.). An SEO – savvy website will have keywords both in (a) the text the user reads, in the titles, and in the content designed, not for the user but (b) for the search engine spider to read – in the Metatags and in the Alt tags (those describing a photo).

Promise Productions has always been very careful to communicate and not to hype SEO as doing something beyond its powers. In our online marketing industry, we repeatedly see two fatal mistakes business owners sometimes make regarding promoting their website. (1) One is to think of SEO as a one-time event versus an ongoing process, (2) the other is to think that having the SEO described in the paragraph above is enough to rank in the top spots.

It is no longer enough that your website itself is optimized for the keywords you want to rank high for because today’s marketplace is simply too competitive with other websites doing the same. SEO can only provide a website developed according to the current best practices so your website is pleasing to search engines and not displeasing in any known way. SEO can never guarantee rank because rank is determined by multiple, changing factors, including the SEO of all competitor’s websites.

Thus an Online Visibility Marketing program is needed, focused on inbound links. That phrase is key to distinguish, becomes often 3^rd party SEO firms will claim to offer a few pieces of that. Often 3^rd party Social Media marketing firms will claim to offer pieces of that. Does social media marketing involve this? Yes in the way we approach it, but social media has many focuses, and in the pursuit of high organic ranking for a key term, it is not social media marketing in general, but strategic backlink building that best accomplishes this purpose. 

To summarize, SEO attempts to overlap into this area, but not very well, Social Media Marketing defiantly overlaps this but is too broad. Thus the services proposed below are Search Marketing services using both social media methods and other proven methods to develop backlinks.

Search Marketing for the purposes of backlinks, is very distinct from SEO in that it uses assets outside of the website to make relevant links back to the website – spotlighting it in the eyes of the search engines. Social Media is used for many purposes other than increasing the visibility of a company’s website, but for our purposes here I am only speaking to how to use Social Media to most effectively raise the visibility higher in search engine results so it is found by more business prospects.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of "scary stuff" in the advertised SEO world because the less-scrululpous will "sell you" what you want to hear (quick, high results, at a nice price). Sadly, these people are not marketing strategists, they are selling a canned, automated process, designed to scam quick cash and leave the scene before it all backfires on the customer.

They don't want to take the time to really understand your business and generate truly quality content. They don't want to implement the tedious procedures to CRAFT quality links that will matter for years to come. They are search engine "speed" that ends up destroying the client.

Not wanting to do the real work that real results require, they take "shortcuts" that try to mimic the things search engines look for long enough to make off with the client's money. So unfortunately, there are many methods that will work FOR A BRIEF TIME, and you will enjoy #1 ranking for a week or so, but then BACKFIRE badly and you drop down hundreds of places in rank or get blacklisted altogether. These questionable short-term methods are all too common, even in larger SEO companies, because people are lured by the desire for immediate results (like steroids) and demand it regardless of the consequences.

While immediate gratification is an understandable desire, the horror stories around third party SEO companies abound, who often take advantage of these very "quick" demonstrated results to get large fees and then are no longer under contract when the real shit hits the fan for the client's rankings. Anything too good to be true, often is and true results that stand the test of time (and the tweaks in Google's algorithms) are always from (and this is the key to it all) legitimate content linked from legitimate sources.

Promise Productions offers the high-level online marketing strategies employed by recognized Fortune-50 companies and makes them available to medium-szed businesses for millions in profits. Call a marketing strategist today at 877-858-0071.

What's OUT for 2011 Internet Marketing

Getting your website's value proposition in front of your best prospects at just the right time is the key to success for many businesses. Promise Productions focuses on the right communications strategy to do just that!

While technology continues to evolve, communication savvy and human motivation know-how are skills we bring to each client's desire for more profits and market domination.

As things continue to evolve, the customer adapts and some things perish. In this light we will cover what is IN for 2011 Marketing and what is OUT!

This post covers 5 passé internet marketing approaches that are definitely OUT. These are either methods that are over-used and now filled with bogus offers, or they are cheap short-cuts for gaining quick untargeted "traffic" but not actual qualified prospects ready to take action.




Too many scammers are cashing in on a person's desire to get to the top of the search engine visibility without much effort by offering some really useless website marketing techniques that could actually kill their legitimate search engine rankings. The fact is that these are nothing more than "Marketing Fads", that, like cotton candy, may produce some sweet results in the beginning, but when the newness wears off their effectiveness will fade away and drop you lower than before.

Remember when pop-ups and pop-under advertising came out years ago? This was the hottest marketing tool since the time of placing fliers on cars in parking lots. However, when people around the world started using pop-ups to promote their websites there were windows popping up every time you visited and exited a website. Internet users worldwide got so sick of all those pop-up windows that someone invented pop-up killer software. The search engines even started penalizing websites that were using pop-up scripts and soon after that method of website promotion faded away.

I will identify some of these useless website promotion techniques that should be avoided at all cost! Using some of these bad website marketing techniques could certainly damage your search engine rankings.



1. Automatic Search Engine Submission Services



These free search engine submission websites allow you to put in your URL, keywords and a description of your website. You then click Submit believing that your website is on its way to being indexed on thousands of search engines. Not so! First of all, the major search engines require manual submission by hand and even implement coding script to prevent auto submission. Secondly, when you click on that Submit button you have no idea where your website link will end up going. Your website link could be automatically posted to illegal or international directory websites that are nothing but a colony of spam links.

If Google crawls your website and finds out that you have links to your website coming from other websites with rotten content, then your website will pay the price in low rankings.

There is absolutely no substitute for manually forwarding your websites to the search engines. You will have complete control over where your link is going, and the search engines will automatically crawl your website to get your title and description. These days you want to submit to Google, Yahoo, Bing and DMOZ. The rest are pretty meaningless.



2. Auto Submission to Directories and FFA sites


You may have seen those places that claim you can blast your website to over 2 million websites and directories. As a general rule, please stay away from anyone that uses the word 'Blast' because this is just another way of saying Spam. It sounds like you are literally placing your link on millions of other websites and getting tons of instant backlinks to your website.

In reality, those FFA or "Free For All" websites are nothing but a link farm containing links from sites with bad or irrelevant content. The search engines won't ever see your website as being respectable enough to rank high in the search results if it is affiliated with that type of environment.



3. Lead Generation Software



 I once got an email that said, "Hello Webmaster, My name is John. I have been searching the Internet for some business opportunities and came across your website. I just wanted to know if you are still in business today. Please email me at this_email@emailaddress.com and let me know. Thank you."


This is the work of lead generation software that extracts website links and email addresses from the Internet for any category. You just type the keyword in the search box and the software literally pulls in millions of email addresses. The software even allows you to email all those addresses. On the surface it appears to be the perfect way to put your website link in front of millions of people in the same industry as you.



These unsolicited emails are annoying and ineffective. This marketing technique is too lame to even call "marketing", not very effective because the email is generic, impersonal and did not give the reader a reason to respond.

Your emails should speak TO a person's needs and not just AT them. Readers respond to emails if you find a way to reach their interests, giving them a reason to take action.



4. Backlink Generating Software



Google loves websites that have lots of quality backlinks, considering such links weighs heavily on the importance of those sites in the search engine's eyes. The idea is that if your website really does have relevant content that is valuable and meaningful to many others, then they will reference your information by linking to it. That is a measure of the value of the website in the community's eyes and the search engine rewards you with higher rankings.

Somebody got this shortcut idea to automate the link building that Google loves, hoping to get huge numbers of valuable links and move to the top of the search engine results. It did work momentarily.
However, Google has now gotten smart and has found to way to detect how you are getting your backlinks and even the speed at which you are getting them. So, if you are still buying links or using software to get instant backlinks, then chances are Google will find out and penalize your website. Nothing can substitute for writing valuable content that will automatically attract quality backlinks.



5. Automated Article Submission and Article Spinning



Writing high quality articles is a great way to attract targeted visitors to your website. Again, someone invented a way to automate this process as well. They came out with article submission software that they claim will automatically send your written articles to hundreds or even thousands of directories. There is even software that will take an article, switch ("spin") the title and words around, and send them to more directories.

This software sells to those who don't want to do the labor-intensive work of writing their own articles and sending them manually to article directories.

The real, authentic article directories that can syndicate your articles are getting smart and have installed a special code that disallows auto submission of articles. They have also installed a special script that can detect articles that have been spun off from the original. Most of them manually approve articles before they are published in their directory and can easily detect duplicate and spinned content.



Conclusion



Widespread use of these "automated" website promotion techniques is not real marketing and lowers the quality of the content. It annoys more than benefits the recipient.

Looking for shortcuts to real marketing communications has tried to take away the need to apply really genuine website promotion that gets real results and replaced it with "push-button internet marketing."

The Problem is, we're not slot machines; we're humans. And all effective marketing is actually human-to-human marketing regardless of whatever technologies are involved.

With the above gimmicks, you may see some quick and "positive" results, but only for a brief period of time.

Those truly interested in growing their profits through smarter strategies to target, captivate and engage with their prospects enjoy the lion's share of the profits. Let Promise Productions refine and present your value proposition in a compelling way to attract optimum profits - call our Dallas headquarters at 877-858-0071.

How To Use Twitter To Improve Your SEO

When you have a social media site with over 190 million users and 65 million daily posts (and growing),  turn it into a website promotion tool!

When you tweet, you have the ability to put a link in that tweet to your website. All Twitter links are "nofollow" (meaning they don't count towards your Link Popularity score), but that doesn't mean that you can't use Twitter to improve your website ranking.

While some SEO experts say that Twitter isn't a ranking factor, the fact is that Twitter pages directly INFLUENCE Google's SERPs and thus may provide a major force in search engine visibility. Google looks at what people search for on Twitter, both to observe trends and to display directly in their "realtime" section of their search engine.



Whether or not Twitter directly affects the SERPs, here are Twitter SEO tactics that are worth checking out.



The Twitter Website Traffic Benefit



After creating new posts on your blog or business website, it only makes sense to tweet about it. Many users search Twitter for useful information or tips they're interested in right at that moment and Twitter puts the latest tweets at the top.

You can't expect to receive hordes website visitors simply by posting a link to your site. Choose interesting text for better website promotion. A boring title wont get you anywhere. Something like "10 Tips to Maximize Your Twitter Followers" may generate more clicks.

 This doesn't really affect your search engine rankings, but it's an effective Twitter website traffic strategy.



Using Twitter for Link Building



By having a large group of Twitter followers, more will see your new posts and announcements. You're speaking to a larger audience, meaning increased likelihood of someone ready to take action. Here's how to do your Twitter SEO:



First off, for effective website promotion it's imperative that you have a large group of followers. Follow people who share the same interests as you and those within your niche. Roughly 30% of the users you follow will follow back. Those who are convinced that you should be followed on Twitter are surely interested in your latest updates. Yes, when done right, Twitter is really a great PR and website promotion tool.

Furthermore, it's highly likely that your followers will write about your new content in their blogs. This translates to link building. Plus, did you know that, in blogs, Google doesn't index shortened URLs? Instead, they index the actual URLs. Thus, you get even more website promotion opportunities.

There are useful Twitter tools such as TweetMeme and HootSuite Pro that let you check the number of users that have posted tweets with a link to your site. They can also tell which of your posts have been picked up and re-tweeted by the general public.



Important Things to Remember



When doing your Twitter SEO strategies, remember that all your tweets shouldn't be about your own website and content. This is bad for your website promotion and would turn people off. No one wants to follow a conceited, I'm-so-great prima donna. Besides, if your tweets would be all about your products and services, they would look like spam. Post engaging and useful information, answer and ask questions, tweet interesting facts, and send messages that your followers will find valuable.



Optimize Your Twitter Page



This is another Twitter SEO tactic that'll help increase your followers and improve your brand reputation. The major search engines all include Twitter account pages on their SERPs. Here are website promotion tips on how to get your profile on the front page of search engine results.



1.  Consider a username that's relevant to your niche or your business. Your username can affect your website promotion since its part of your page's URL and title tag.


2. Choose a relevant account name. This will further boost your Twitter website traffic, since the account name is also part of the page title. The account name should be different from the username.
3. Promote your Twitter profile page by building links to it. Link to it from your company website and from the company blog. 
4. Since your bio serves as the meta description tag, choose your text wisely and keep website promotion in mind.



More importantly, Twitter provides benefits that are far different from the advantages of search engine optimization. So, before building your SEO campaign via this social network, make sure to achieve Twitter SEO benefits first.



Tweet Optimization


Optimizing your tweets also helps in website promotion. Your tweets help your profile, content and brand gain more exposure.

A tweet's title tag is made up of the username of the account sending out the tweet and the first 30 characters. For that reason, for best SEO value, place your keywords in the post's first few words.

That also means, when retweeting, its better to place the "RT@username" at the end of the tweet so that you'll have plenty of room to place the keywords in the tweet. Also, limit your tweets to 120 characters so that there will be space when other users add the RT@username. Otherwise, some parts of your post might get chopped off.

Twitter SEO tactics are pretty easy to implement. Twitter continues to evolve and has a lot of potential for search engine optimization. Explore its website promotion benefits, discover new website promotion methods, and make your own experiments.

Dallas Marketing and Social Media Marketing Company

For professional Social Media Strategy and Social Media Marketing that maximizes your results through smarter strategies that reinforce all other communications, advertising and marketing efforts, simply call Promise Productions at 877-858-0071.

Business Success Through Targeting Prospects with a Compelling Message Online

Promise Productions is a professional marketing communications firm. By "communications", we mean that we provide your distinctive value to your prospects in a way that elicits the strongest positive response.

We communicate through web site design, search engine marketing, commercial photography, graphic design, video production and social media marketing. Using today's new media, we do more than "boost sales" – we help your prospective clients understand why they want to choose you for their products and services. We believe this is the right way to attract the clients you enjoy doing business with the most as well as achieving maximum profits.

We are highly skilled in promoting your business by combining effective web site design and social media marketing with intelligent marketing strategy. We understand that having a great website, a print piece, or even a beautiful logo is not enough. You need results! That's why we are more than graphic designers, more than web developers – we are marketing strategists. In this way we deliver success in the largest sense of the word.

"You want results and Promise Productions knows the best way to do that is with a compelling message that targets and captivates your prospects."

Email campaigns, social media marketing campaigns, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) /SEM, media placement and other online marketing strategies are all great tools. But the best tool is only as good as the strategy and skill behind its use. So if you're looking for a great looking ecommerce site and a team that can follow through by bringing visitors and orders, you've found the right firm.

Promise Productions welcomes you to a higher degree of success – call 972-822-3587.

SEO Done Right -- Cost-Effective Visibility For Your Business

With so much information - and misinformation - available on the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it can be tricky trying to separate fact from fiction.

Coupled with the fact that SEO changes only slightly less rapidly than the weather, it can be downright overwhelming for a business to know where to start promoting their website's products and services in search engines like Google and Yahoo. So, if you're an SEO newbie looking for a place to start, or cannot afford to waste advertising dollars on suspect SEO, here's a quick tutprial at good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics.

What Is SEO?


Even the most beautifully-designed site won't do you much good if potential customers can't find it. That's where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in: SEO helps ensure your site is more visible in the search engines, drive qualified traffic to your website, and convert that traffic into actual customers.



In short, SEO ups your website's rankings in the search engines by making the pages within your site more attractive to the search engines. The more attractive your site is to Google, the higher its rankings in the search engine results pages. And the higher your rankings, the more likely users will visit your site. Obviously, a site with a result on Page 1 of Google is going to get more traffic than a site buried on Page 3.

 If your site is missing from the top search results, then you essentially dead when it comes to your ability to generate new business and add revenue to your business.

Let's take a look at some stats:


* Over 4.3 billion Internet users

* Over 85% start at a search engine
 and look for their desired products and services using key words
* Less than 20% will go beyond the top 10 search engine results

* Top 10 results get 85% more traffic than all those in the thousands of other pages after them

In addition to obtaining better rankings in the search engines, SEO is effective in several other areas as well:


* Branding/establishment of your business as an authority

* Pre-qualified lead generation

* Easily tracked ROI

* Cost savings compared to other promotion mediums (i.e. glossy brochures, yellow pages ads)

Key Components of Effective SEO
SEO consists of several key elements that work together to generate increases in a website's rankings, traffic and conversions: Keyword Selection, Copywriting, Link Building, HTML Optimization and Analytics.

Let's take a look at each element in more detail:



Keyword Selection

 for SEO
The foundation of any SEO campaign is good keyword research. That's because targeting the right keywords is essential to getting your SEO on the right track. If your sell Rolex ladies watches, then you're going to want to rank in the search engines for the phrase "Rolex ladies watches" and other similar phrases (Rolex Womens Watch, etc.).

You might be hitting the wrong target: If your keyword research is off and you target the wrong keywords, then you may not get visitors who want what your site has to offer. That's why you need to make sure that your site is properly optimized for the most-searched-for keywords related to your business.



Copywriting

 for SEO
Getting potential customers to your site is only half the battle; you've got to convince them to buy. That's where persuasive copywriting comes in. Be sure to tell people why they need your products or services and include conversion points throughout the site. The search engines like content, so you also need to optimize your copy to include your keywords.

This includes things like descriptive product pages, built-out content like biographies, news sections, etc. One important point to remember is to keep your most critical content "above the fold" - that's the area that's visible to your users before they have to scroll down.



Link Building
Link building is like one big online popularity contest, and the search engines like the popular kids. Your success in the search engines depends, in part, on the amount of relevant incoming links to your site.

Of course, having lots of good links also drives customers to your site, which is a good thing, too. Links can come in various sources, including directories, business partners, organizations, social media sites, and much, much more.

HTML Optimization


These are things that the user does not necessarily see, but the search engines do. Title tags, header tags, Alt tags, Meta-descriptions -- the search engines want your site's HTML to be descriptive and clean.

Search engines want to know exactly what your page is about; they don't want to sort through a bunch of extraneous code to figure it out. That's why you'll hear SEO experts talk about the importance of having clean web site code and how to use CSS to make that happen.



Measuring Success


No SEO campaign is complete without analytics. After all, if you aren't measuring things like traffic, link popularity, and conversions, then how do you know if your SEO strategies are working? Programs like ClickTracks and Google Analytics help make the number-crunching a little easier.

Conclusion
SEO is more important than ever because it maximizes your advertising dollars. 

If you want to have an effective SEO campaign, you need to include all of the five SEO elements listed above.

The summaries above just scratch the surface on these topics, and there are certainly other more advanced SEO strategies that can benefit your site as well. These building blocks, however, are the ideal way to get your SEO campaign working for you.

For expert Search Engine Optimization as well as other top strategies to get the most targeted visibility for your marketing dollar, call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Searching for New Customers in Today's Marketplace?

Customers with cautious budgets are doing more research online before choosing their products and services. This apples to everything from daycare to hotel travel.

The luxury shopper or the luxury traveler is still willing to pay a premium BUT ONLY for a top notch product or travel experience. Does your web site design give them that reassurance? Are you using smart video online to, not just tell, but SHOW them what you have to offer?

As a business, your need to be found in the search engines at the right place and time is more important than ever before.

The current recession is motivating businesses to fine turn their online marketing for optimum results. There are several strategies to be found online and savvy businesses are working ALL these angles simultaneously:

• Pay Per Click Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Social Media Campaigns & Blogging

All three areas of online visibility are and will experience dramatic increased spending. By 2013 eMarketer estimates total US search marketing outlays will surpass $23 billion. We think that is far too conservative because:

• Search Engines are THE #1 way customers and businesses find those they do business with -- both locally and abroad.
• Social Media is exploding with no signs of stopping and it has the trust factor with the consumer that slick advertising agencies no longer deliver.

The writing is on the wall -- you either make online marketing an immediate priority or go extinct. Your customers are using the search engines to find the best deal. Businesses HAVE to be found in the search engines because that is where their customers and prospects are.

Got profits? Contact Covenant Designs at 972-822-3587 for Search Engine Marketing Camaigns, Social Media Campaigns, and Marketing-Savvy Blogging.

Social Media Gets Down To Business

Today's companies need to harness the advantage that a Social Media Campaign gives them. Looking at the benefits, they are too important to ignore:

1 • Elevates the Company's Web Site in page rank for searches -- be found by prospective new business opportunities.

2 • Builds Positive PR - people speaking well of your brand, your service, and their experience doing business with you.

3 • Gets your products and services in front of thousands of people who would otherwise not know about what your company offers.

4 • Creates a dynamic network of online buzz about what your company is currently up to.

Let's touch on each benefit.

First, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can only go so far, no matter how much money you throw at it. SEO is a popularity context with the search engines, but you can influence, but never determine, the final outcome Social Media Campaigns offer that additional way to build a mass of links (link popularity) that act like signposts pointing back to your company's main web site, thereby raising your page rank with Google and Yahoo.

SEO is a moving target because of constant changes in
(a) the market,
(b) your competitor's online actions, and
(c) the search engine's rules for page rank

That means the reality is that the SEO that worked 8 months ago is much less potent now. The moral is that:

• SEO needs to be refreshed every 6 months
• SEO needs to be augmented with ongoing boosts from Social Media Campaigns


Regarding the benefit of the Positive PR that Social Media can generate for your company: Word of mouth has moved online. Your prospects are already using social media to see what the "word on the street" is before taking action to trust their business to you. When they search, you want them to find positive reflections about your products and services.

See our past two blog posts for details on strategic ways to manage what people are saying about your brand -- and how to leverage it for positive cash flow.

When it comes to getting your company's products and services in front of thousands of potential customers: social media thrives on the buzz of the latest news. This "hot" information is designed to be spread through interconnected networks in the social media world.

When we orchestrate your social media campaign, we send your latest news out via RSS feeds to key hot spots where people already interested in learning about the things you offer come for information. Because our savvy social media marketing ripples out to benefit you by being found in the right place at the right time, you stand to profit.

Manage and Build Your BUZZ for profitable attention: for purposes of using social media for boosting your business, we will think of Buzz as the sum of all things being said online about your brand and your company. Social Media thrives on something interesting being said. At Promise Productions, we are marketers... communicators... we know how to engage your audience with a positive vision about your company.

Your strategic business blog, is an ideal component of your social media campaign that we use to spread your messages to multiple online networks that generate a social conversation about... you! The result is buzz in the right places. You'll like the results.

Conclusion:
Savvy companies appreciate the importance of managing their brand online. Promise Productions knows how to manage your brand online and influence the influencers. We understand marketing communications (in web sites, in Internet marketing, in Social Media, in Blogging) so we know how to create the right presence for your brand in the markets that count.

Put this to work for you by calling Promise Productions Marketing Communications at 972-822-3587.

Using Social Media for Positive PR

Refer to our previous post for an overview of how Social Media has changed the face of Public Relations. Because what the public sees on the Internet often makes up most of what they know about your business, managing your online image is very important.

An unhappy customer has access to the same Internet as your business does. And these days a happy customer tells 3 people, but an unhappy one can now use the Internet to tell 30,000 people! In addition to the need to maintain high customer service standards, you want to get the positive PR on your company our there on the world wide web.

As Lee Iacocca said "you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere." Social Media is a great tool for getting your ideas "out there" to be responded to. Instead of just being at the mercy of what everyone else is saying online, our Social Media optimization services advocate using Social Media to your advantage is about creative persuasion (aka marketing) and getting across why your prospects should WANT to do business with your company. We call that "Marketing Communications" and it is how you attract the business success you want.

Here are the Top Five ways to use Social Media for beneficial PR.

1 • Instead of the happy customer just telling 3 other people, put them on your blog so the goodness can spread to all the areas your blog is broadcast to. Better yet, do a video feature on your website and blog (it does not have to be fancy, just real) so prospective customers can see and hear someone who appreciated the value of what your company offers.

2 • Blogs are great for positive PR for two basic reasons. First, you yourself write them so you control the content. (Or hire professionals like Promise Productions to ghost write your blog entries in a marketing-savvy way). Second, you can moderate any comments that outsiders make -- filtering out those who would devalue your content.


3 • Put your Press Releases on Your blog. These newsworthy announcements deserve the extra boost in awareness that your blog's (when properly setup) RSS feed can give it.

4 • Be your own publicist. A publicist is there to accentuate the positive spin on whatever their client does. Don't distort the facts, but feel free to utilize Social Media to announce donations made, how your employees volunteer at other charitable organizations, community involvement, to explain the positive motivations and intentions behind company actions, changes and so forth.

5 • Put positive PR out there on other blogs. Find complimentary blogs with common interests and leave a positive footprint there. Comments and testimonials, when done in a win-win fashion and not a self-serving, opportunistic style, can let readers of other blogs know what worked for you. Pay it forward. Think of this as a place to share your positive comments and testimonials.

For Strategic Blogging and Social Media Optimization services call Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Social Media Strategy For Positive Public Relations

Today, everyone gets their information online and does a reality-check against advertising hype by seeing what "the people" have to say through social media (Blogging, Facebook, Myspace, etc.)

Your customers and prospects are getting information about your company online before doing business with you. The days where there were just 12 channels on TV, a dozen radio stations in town, one newspaper per city and died with the 60s.

So isn't it time you managed your company's Image and Public Relations where your customers are -- Online and in Social Media. That is why businesses must replace their old PR approaches with ones that impact social media networks.

Public Relations is about creating a POSITIVE link between the company and the public. Public relations is all about creating and maintaining relationships. Relationships can be between an organization and the public, management and employees or business to business. Distrust of the polished News-anchor is at an all-time high. The public is now thoroughly into Social Media for trustworthy reports about your products and services.

Social media and SEO are constantly evolving, but thankfully, our team knows the latest features, strategies and networks that help distribute information, increase visibility and monitor results.

The days of constructing intricate press kits and snail mailing to editors at publications are gone. In fact, those very publication’s days are numbered. The ones that have survived are the ones that successfully transitioned their information where there readers are -- online.

With all the social media options out there, where do you start? The three main social media outlets to manage are — Bloggers, Facebook and Twitter.

Bloggers now have just about as much clout as the seasoned newspaper columnist. You cannot afford to dismiss blogging's ability to sway public opinion. As we know, customers feel better about a brand and will be more loyal if they believe the company cares about them.

NEGATIVE PR
There is a fly in Social Media's ointment: it is easier than ever to attract negative PR! It used to be that you had to have some credentials in the industry to launch a complaint that would stick.

But today there are a dozen major sites that readily accept any complaint against your company without verifying it. (RipOffReport, for example, along with a host of others) Sadly, these complaint sites make money by charging the business to "undo" the negative PR.

So while the little guy now has a voice (as he should) on the one hand, there is a scam going on and some honest businesses are getting hurt more than they should. Were this in the traditional days of PR and the mud slinging was being done in the newspaper, you could have protested under Libel, but as it is cast as "a customer's opinion" such hearsay is much harder to remove.

POSITIVE PR
This is all the more reason why now is the time for business to protect their well-earned reputation with positive PR. Stay tuned for our next blog post on utilizing Social Media for Positive PR and Optimum Search Engine Visibility.

Call the professionals at Promise Productions at 972-822-3587 for effective Internet Marketing, Web Site Visibility and Social Media Optimization.

Strategic Blogging & Social Media for Business Profits

Social Media is all the buzz today because nearly everyone online today uses it in some form or other. It is growing and developing rapidly and the excitement is warranted. Did you ever wonder if you could harness this giant wave to some degree to benefit your business? This blog post is about just that!

Social Media Grows Up
To start with, blogging and social media was not originally created as a means to advertising. (but it can be used for that purpose.... keep reading) Social Media originated as a place where the average Joe could share what he was passionate about and inasmuch as that included a product, service or company, he gave his personal "thumbs up" as it were.

The enormous mass of individuals now doing this daily, has given rise to serious attention by Web Site Developers, Search Engine Marketers, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimizers.

In fact, more progressive Marketing Communication firms such as Covenant Designs, now include Social Media and Strategic Blogging in their skillsets.

In short, Social Media means that word-of-mouth has firmly moved online. Individuals now consult the "community wisdom" of other people who have already experienced a product, company or service before they commit to action. Studies prove again and again that the opinions and messages on the Internet are the decisive determining factor over friends, coworkers and traditional authority figures. The idea is that this is a pool of unbiased individuals, and that many people "can't be wrong."

Although unassuming in concept, Social Media does something tremendous and priceless -- it bridges the TRUST GAP, thereby paving the way for prospects to sample YOUR product or service.

(for more about successfully bridging the confidence gap in your marketing, click here)

Businesses have an increasingly vested interest in promoting themselves in a cost-effective manner in this lean economy. Businesses should all be very aware and very concerned about managing their image -- their PR on the web.

You see, your official company web site is a formal presentation of your company. Your company blog, on the other hand, is where you get down on your customer's level to interact, share, and listen to THEM. Customers like that and will reward you with business for being EXTRA responsive to their needs. And we all know that no business will survive long without serving their customers where THEY live.

This does not mean that any old blog will do. It all revolves around smart strategy to setup, produce content and distribute your blog around cyberspace. That is where Promise Productions Strategic Blogging Services come in.

Social Media Strategy Tip:
Social Media can cut both ways -- customers can complain or endorse you -- fairly or unfairly, and now their opinion has a forum and a life of its own that spreads its influence. Just think, a rant on RipOffReport will hang around for 10 years even if you ended up making that customer happy later on.

It has become danerously easy for an individual to sling mud at your company for any reason and you not to even know it is hurting your sales! Obviously it pays more than ever to provide great customer service.

What a smart business does is implement a social media strategy for all kinds of GOOD PR to be spread around the Internet, and have that overwhelm any NEGATIVE PR that threatens to soil your company's image.

We market your business to make our best prospects like doing business with you and give you their thumbs up! Want to know more? Contact Promise Productions at 972-822-3587.

Word of Mouth Has Moved Online

If you've read our other entries, you see that Promise Productions offers multifaceted ways with the right visuals and right exposure to connect you with your best prospects for optimum growth.

Recently we've expanded our marketing communications with Strategic Blogging, and for good reasons:

1 • Strategic Blogging puts your products and services in front of a world of bloggers already interesting in learning about the categories and topics you deal in.

2 • Strategic Blogging the less formal presentation of useful information to customers increases your trust factor – paving the way for positive business relationships.

3 • Strategic Blogging is a powerful new tool for Search Engine Optimization as relevant links for key terms point back to your web site -- effectively raising its page rank.

4 • Strategic Blogging is designed to be Shared. Comments, blog directories and RSS feeds find their way to your prospects in places your website cannot access.

Now here's the 5th reason: Word Of Mouth Has Moved Online.

Everyone knows that a timely endorsement by a trusted source makes all the difference in which company your prospect chooses to get their business needs fulfilled. That is why, Social Media – of which Blogging is a key component – needs to be utilized in your company's marketing plan.

Blog readers learn about your business and other Bloggers spread it FOR you. That's right, engage a volunteer army of word-of-mouth through
(1) comments on blogs, and
(2) other bloggers responding to and point to your business' blog.

OK, that part about an "army" is an exaggeration -- UNLESS your blog is professionally promoted by a service like ours.

Your prospects want someone to speak their language. That is what they hear, trust and respond to.

Example: you want to know which of the many new video cameras to buy. Well you cannot just call up Sony itself and get a response. But all too often the local brick and mortar shop does not carry that exact model or your questions are about an upcoming model not on the shelves. The big box stores carry too many items to be an expert on any one of them. The big manufacturer does not talk to the individual customer one-on-one -- too bad for both parties.

Enter Social Media
With Social Media you can search for the inside scoop: the Blogs, a YouTube video, a enthusiast interested in the same thing, user groups, etc.. Now this arena of information provides two vital elements (and wait till we link this back to marketing!) --

(1) an individual in-the-know who will respond one-on-one to your specific needs

(2) a frank conversation without a salesy agenda getting in the way to spin the facts

OK, back to the speak-your-prospects-language part and how that turns into business GOLD...
Social Media is the new word-of-mouth with answers to just about anything. A person's physical network of friends, colleagues, associates and experts could NEVER be as big or well-informed as this.

Face it, your customers are turning in ever increasing numbers to Social Media to get a trusted answer on the product or service they want. These days, the casual word from an equal online who speaks their language is more trustworthy and powerful than the overly-expensive and overly-slick presentation from an ad agency or manufacturer.

Buyers are sick of being patronized. Today's customer is saying, "value my needs enough to tell me something REAL instead of something you think will make yourself a quick buck. When I see that you value me, I will value you enough to buy."

Blogging can do that – with honesty, integrity and strategy. The successful company in 2009's marketplace is responsive enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the individual customer because it understands that to value the customer is to value itself.

Want your quality product and service to receive its fair share of today's marketplace? Have something great that just needs the right visibility? Then call 972-822-3587 and ask how you can start a profitable business relationship with Promises Production.

Internet Marketing Consultants, Dallas Search Engine Optimization Company, SEO SEM Firm

Promise Productions' Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing experts have successfully use SEO and SEM best-practices since 1995 to promote companies just like yours. Our SEO Copywriting team understands the nuances of SEO / SEM and utilize the latest techniques and strategies to get businesses positioned into the search engines to attract the attention of their best prospects.

This way they, and you, can spend time closing deals instead of trying to sell.

There is a lot more to successful Search Engine Marketing than throwing in a few relevant keywords into your content and meta data to affect your rankings in the search engine results pages. An effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign takes several skill sets and each one provides the necessary ingredients for the combined success. While there are no magic bullets to overnight success, SEO is an extremely wise medium-term investment in today's economy where your profit -- or lack thereof -- is now directly tied to your search engine visibility.

Chances are your prospects are searching online for your products and services and you need to appear -- at the right place and right time -- to get their attention, win their trust, and rake in the profits.

In fact, the investment into a professional Internet marketing campaign can yield returns on the dollar up to 35 times higher than traditional advertising.

At Promise Productions, we partner with you. We look at your goals and work to attract your ideal customer. We can improve your site, create entirely new search engine friendly sites and employ pay-per-click to the right audience. Our goal is to forward your business goals.

In order to best present you to your prospects, we first get to know you. Then our SEO copywriters and technicians go to work developing optimized web content that is persuasive to both consumers and search engine spiders.

In 14 years of practicing SEO, we have ALWAYS find key phrases that the client did not know potential customers were using to find their product or service in the search engines. It is true, you are missing some of your best customers because you are trying to communicate with them like YOU communicate instead of how THEY communicate. Our extensive keyword research uncovers and repairs those communication gaps so that prospects welcome your message and are more inclined to WANT to do business with you.

Professional Keyword Research translates into Gold for You

Think of this -- literally every word, spelling variation, and phrase associated with each product and service you offer is a potential doorway that pre-qualified customers can enter your business.

The right keyword research results in tons of new marketing channels through which to reach new customers. See the power of ranking high on the Internet?

As a part of our Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing services, we develop and implement each of the following:


INTERNET MARKETING SERVICES

* Search Engine Optimization consulting strategy
* Search Engine Competitive Analysis
* Current Website Consultation
* Competitor Website Positioning Analysis


SEO STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION

* Search Engine Optimization strategies
* Internet Marketing strategies
* Search engine strategy development
* Key phrase marketing


SEO COPYWRITING

* Search Engine Optimized copywriting
* Keyword and key phrase research analysis
* Keyword and key phrase development analysis
* Keyword and key phrase frequency analysis
* Keyword and key phrase proximity analysis
* Keyword and key phrase weight analysis
* Meta Tag Development (Title, Content, Description, Alt, etc.)


SEO CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

* Search engine rankings
* Website rank monitoring
* Search engine marketing
* Search engine promotion
* Internet marketing
* Pay per click campaigns
* Pay per click campaign management
* SEO campaign results reporting


BLOGGING FOR SEO

* Professional Written Blogs that link back to your web site
* Blog Promotion in directories, RSS feeds and more



CONTENT IS KING
Lesser SEO firms try to trick the system with gimmicks that never last. The fact is that your web site will be visited and responded to because it has truly useful content. Content is King.

Understanding that, our Search Engine Optimization copywriters know how to effectively develop keyword and key phrase-rich copy designed to improve your website rankings and get your website in front of pre-qualified customers – those actively looking for a specific product or service through a search engine. The sooner you have an SEO copywriter optimize your website content, the better chance you have of ranking above your competition.

CONCLUSION
Success in the search engines requires multiple strategies that must integrate for optimum results. SEO must serve your marketing campaign with intelligent integrated strategies that attract, not just traffic, but profits. Promise Productions has the comprehensive skill-sets you need to take your company to the next level.

Call Promise Productions to "Turn On The Results" -- 972-822-3587.