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Search Engine Optimization or SEO is important for your website. People do searches all the time to find what they are looking for. It doesn’t matter if they know the business is down the street from where they live or if they are traveling to a town and want to know what to do while they are there.

The internet is the ‘in thing’ and everybody and anybody is online. When you add a website and other things to the internet people will likely find you. When you make it easy for them to navigate around your site and you tell them what you want them to do they will stay and look around.

Search engine optimization is important to your business and your website. There are things you need to include when you are setting up your site for search engine optimization.

With your website, you have the ability to set up titles, descriptions, and keywords for each page. This is important for your website. The reason for that this information shows up in the search engines.

1. Title

You want to put as much into the title as you can. This is the first thing that people will see when your site comes up in a search. You are limited to the number of words you can use so you’ll want to keep an eye on that. It’s approximately 90 characters, so make the most of your words.

2. Description

The description is what comes up below your title in the search. You are limited to 160 characters in this section. Again you want to make the most of your words. Describe the page in as much detail as you can get with the amount of space you have.

3. Keywords

Keywords are the most important part of your SEO work. These are the terms people will use to find your site. So make sure you use words that people will use. You can use approximately 12-13 keywords so pick them wisely.

Search engine optimization is important in the growth of your business. When you use the right titles, descriptions, and keywords for your business and your website, you will grow and your page rankings will be high. Consider all your options and make the most of your search engine work.

Tags: Uncategorized by Carrie Wilkerson
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Some business owners don’t even consider press releases for their business. They feel nothing will happen with them so what’s the point in wasting the time on them. Well, this is far from the truth.

Press releases are a great way to get your business noticed in publications that you may not have ever been able to get into. Could be the cost or it could be other reasons.

Press releases used to be submitted to local newspapers only, but that is not the case anymore. More and more of the newspapers are starting to gather these requests online and they are publishing them both in their paper and on their website. Press release directories are popping up online as well.

Press releases are a great way to share with others:

• what is going on in your business
• a new service you added to your business
• a new person you hired to do a specific task that is booming
• to announce a monthly newsletter that you started

Submitting keyword specific press releases to online sites will help with your website traffic and search engine rankings. News related websites and search engines will pick up on this and they will include yours within their site.

Press releases also give you credibility. The best way to build the credibility factor is to continually submit them. When you submit well written press releases and you continue to submit them on things that are important and really matter, people will begin to trust and believe in you. One thing to remember is that you should write one or two a month and submit them to both local, online, and out of state venues.

Press releases are a great way to share your business with people all over the world; people that you may never find any other way. Sharing what you offer and what you can do to help others is an added benefit that will come when you submit press releases regularly. Building trust and new business relationships will come when you submit press releases on a regular basis to the same locations each time.

Tags: Uncategorized by Carrie Wilkerson
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Website promotion is key to your success. Sometimes word of mouth is not enough. You need more to reach people that you never see or talk to on the phone.

There are many techniques you can use to grow your business, but do they truly work? How much money will you have to spend before they finally work for you? Will it work for a short amount of time and then stop? These are all questions you have to ask yourself when you are spending your time and money on website promotion.

There are certain things you can do that will continue to work for you day after day. Do you know what they are?

Let me share them with you so you can implement them right away.

1. Reciprocating links

Reciprocating links are basically link exchanges. This means you exchange links with other website owners. You put their link on your site and they put your link on theirs. It’s a win-win situation for both because you will receive traffic that you might not have had and the same goes for the other site.

Reciprocating links are good for search engine ranking as well. The spiders like the more links you have so they will give you a higher ranking. Of course you need to check to make sure they are live sites because having dead links can hurt your rank as well.

2. Link submissions

Submit your link to the search engine directories. This will help your site in the rankings. The spiders will search your site and look at what you have to offer. There are free submissions and paid submissions that you can use.

3. Other tools

Creating weekly newsletters, social media posts, article marketing, and blog postings are just a few of the other tools that you should use regularly to increase your traffic.

When you have a website promotion plan in place you will continually grow your business. These tips are the best and the easiest to do and you will see improvements after time.

Tags: Tips by Carrie Wilkerson
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For many businesses there are many ways you can market your business. Some may work and some may not. You must try them a few times before you know for sure.

One technique that works very well for almost any business is email marketing. There are two types of email marketing that you can use. Mainly the difference is the cost involved.

Email marketing is used by more and more businesses every day. You need to gather email addresses so you will have a list to send your information to. You need to make sure you are careful about the way you gather email addresses because you don’t want to be hit with SPAM. Have a button or sign-up form on your site for people to use.

You can send out weekly or monthly newsletters, flyers, special notices, or solo ads to the people on your list. You don’t want to send too many emails though because you will run the risk of losing subscribers because they can’t keep up with everything you send.

Email marketing is a great way to keep your business in front of your list on a regular basis. When you keep yourself in front of them, they will remember you and what your business offers when they are in need.

Weekly communications are the best way to do this. Create a newsletter that you can send out. It doesn’t need to be anything huge. List your specials, highlight on a product or service you offer, and tell them how to contact you. Of course you can have it longer by including an article, other tools or products that you don’t offer, but that they may need or want, or you can include information that they may find interesting.

Email marketing can be done through your regular email or you can use online programs to create them. Online programs such as Aweber, 1ShoppingCart, and Constant Contact are just a few of the popular ones that you can use.

Keeping your business in front of your email subscribers is important. It’s a way of building trust and reminding them of what you offer and how you can help them with their needs.

Tags: Marketing, Tips by Carrie Wilkerson
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Creating a marketing plan is the best way to run that portion of your business. In fact it’s the only way it will work successfully. If you don’t have a plan in place you won’t know what to do and when to do it.

There are a couple ways you can create a marketing plan. One way is to purchase software and enter all the information. The other way is to create it on your own. We are going to discuss the latter option in this article.

The first thing you need to do is describe your business. Write out what your business does and what each of your products or services are for. Describe who your competition is and how you are better than them. Also include your prices and how you plan to promote your business. One last thing to include is your business location.

The second thing you need to include in your marketing plan is target market. You need to be very specific with your description. Describe who your target market is. List specifics if you know them, for example do you target women between the ages of 18 and 25 that make more than $25,000 a year and live in the Midwest? That is a very detailed way of describing your target market.

Also include the different ways your target market will find you. Will they only be able to find you online or will you have a store front as well? Don’t go into a lot of detail as far as websites you will advertise on and the days you will do this, but list the different types of advertising you will use. For example, you can list social media, website advertising, phone book, or postcard mailings.

The last thing you need to include is your budget. You will need to decide how much money you will have to spend on your marketing plan. If you have been in business for awhile you can include things that worked and didn’t work. List the cost involved for things that did work so you will be able to consider those. List the cost for new ideas you have for promoting your business. These can include radio ads, flyers, or press releases.

Creating a detailed marketing plan will help you reach the level of success that you set yourself out to do. Include as many details as you can so that you will have all the facts and figures in front of you when you sit down and put this plan to work.

Tags: Marketing by Carrie Wilkerson
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Like everything else in your business, you must plan out your marketing techniques or you won’t know what to do to be successful. That’s were a marketing strategy comes into play.

You must plan your weeks, months, and year so you know what you need to do to reach your goals and dreams. Creating a marketing strategy is what you need to do so you can reach your levels of success through marketing.

What you  need to do is sit down in a quiet spot with a pen and paper or your computer. You must write down everything so you know what you are doing and what is needed in order to work it all into your schedule.

The first thing you need to figure out is your unique selling proposition. When you look at this you need to determine why people should buy from you rather than another business. You also need to decide why your products or services are unique. What makes them that way? And most importantly you need to determine why you started your business.

The second step to planning your marketing strategy is deciding who your target market is. You need to be really specific on this. For example if you offer products for moms, your target market would be mom’s not women. Decide who you want to work with or sell your products to and write it down.

The next step is deciding the benefits of each product or service. Why would someone need what you offer? What makes your product or service so much better than anyone else on the market? Do you have a product that is a step above the rest? Write down all of this information.

The last step is all about positioning your products or services. How do you plan on selling what you offer? What ways will you put your products or services in front your target market? Will you use social media, newsletters, article marketing, blog posts, or website ads? Write down all your options.

Once you have this all written down, type it out in a way that makes sense to you. You will be evaluating and making changes to this plan often so it’s important that you make it understandable to you.  You may also want to write this on a white board or place this strategy in a place that you will see it everyday..this will definitely keep you focused.

Tags: Marketing by Carrie Wilkerson
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To be the best you can be in business you must present yourself as the best to your niche. They must know that you are the one they need to always do business with and they need to know that they can trust you to help them whenever it’s needed.

The best way to dominate your niche is to constantly be in front of them. You need to be the first thing they think about when they wake up and the last thing they think about when they go to sleep. When they need something you need to be there to give it to them.

There are a number of ways to keep your business in front of your niche and below I share a few:

1. Keywords through the search engines
2. Newsletters and other email notices
3. Blogging
4. Joint Ventures
5. Podcasts (start your own or be interviewed on others)
6. Teleseminars and webinars
7. Social media
8. Forums and message boards
9. Special reports and ebooks
10. Article marketing

You need to be open to suggestions and recommendations from your niche or from others. We all have competition in our business, so watch what they do and see if you can work it into what you are doing. You may need or want to change it up a bit so it’s not exactly the same.

When you find things that work, stick to them. Use your website statistics to find the pages people are landing on and coming back to regularly. Use your email marketing program to see what links are being clicked on and how many people are opening your emails.

With article marketing, most directories offer statistics for each article. Look at the article that are receiving the most views and continue to write on those topics. Also make sure that your bio is good, updated, and that your links work.

One last thing to consider is a survey. Ask your niche what you can do to help them grow or improve. Ask them what they need from you and what you are offering that they don’t need. Including them is important because they will know that you are there to help.

Dominating your niche is the way to grow. Success comes when you are always the one your niche thinks about and you are always there for them when they need you.

Tags: Marketing by Carrie Wilkerson
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Auto responders have become  quite popular.  With the digital age upon us it is quite difficult to keep up with the influx of messages.  Remember the age of voice mails and answering machines?  Although some of those are still available, auto responders are becoming the latest craze.

What is an auto responder?  An auto responder is an automatic messaging system.  It is most commonly used as an instant messenger as well as for incoming emails and also used for outgoing messages when information is requested. Auto responders can be reconfigured for your needs, such as sending messages while you are away from your desk or on vacation.   It can be easily customized with your own message letting the sender know when you will return or if messages are not being accepted at the moment.

Many are choosing to use auto responders instead of voice messaging systems.  It is definitely a way to work smarter and not harder.  Using auto responders will eliminate the time needed to call your voice mail or answering machines to retrieve messages.  The goal is to save time and use that time more effectively and with auto responders this is possible.

Auto responders can also be used for advertising.   Many of us will post our site information on the signature line of our emails but auto responders are quicker and will reach a larger target market than a simple email.   Auto responders can also be used to send messages to a specific list, where you can choose who will receive your messages.  The ultimate goal in using an auto responder is to make communication with customers and staff more effective.

You are able to use as an advertising method or let others know that you are not available, without having to check emails, voicemails or answering machines.  The goal is to work less and ultimately make more.

Consider using an auto responder for your business.  There are many companies offering auto responders with different packages to choose from; find one that works for you and see your business flourish with less work on your part.

Tags: Tips by Carrie Wilkerson
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