Have you heard about Google’s new search overhaul? Along with a cleaner and brighter logo, the search results will now feature an easy to use left-hand navigation. There will be also different categories so that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for, whether it’s in the news or shopping section. Makes things a lot easier, doesn’t it? This is a good reason as any to consider the aspect of search engine friendly web design for your website. How exactly do you make your web site more search engine friendly?

• Relevant content via articles or blogs
• Focusing on a specific group of related keywords
• Utilizing tags (h1, title, meta) to make your website seen by search engine crawlers

If you’re not sure about these factors, now is a good time to check.

A web copywriter can help you with creating content every month. Because they specialize in the SEO aspect of copywriting, this will take the load off your shoulders when it comes to constantly adding new material. Remember some of the advantages that you can gain with copywriting services:

1. Improved search engine rankings for relevant keyword phrases
2. Effectively bring traffic to your website
3. Broaden your online reputation across multiple search engines and social media sites

• Watch your grammar – Just because you’re limited to 140 characters doesn’t mean that you should watch your grammar. Double check Tweets as often as you can. Check out Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb by Copyblogger
• Trending topics – Sometimes, useful events and stories make Twitter’s list of trending topics. Some prompts may even help you if you’re at a loss with what to update.
• Retweet useful info – It could be a breaking story or a helpful article. Pass it a long and add a message of thanks to the person you’re retweeting.
• Ask useful questions – Whether it’s for personal or market research, this is a great way to engage with your followers.
• Mind your quotes - Many studies have shown that quotes or words of wisdom often receive the most retweets. Tired of the same old quotes, why not make one of your own?

Prosper is a peer to peer lending destination. Home Exchange allows homeowners from all over the world to swap homes for a more exotic location. Fiverr is a new site where people can buy what other people have to sell for just $5. If you’re interested in effectively participating in any of these sites, the key is to selling yourself of course! If you’re looking to spruce up your self-selling methods, here are some old favorites that are good to keep in mind.

Give yourself credit. Are you an expert in a certain field? Update your portfolio and keep testimonials handy. You want your potential customers to trust your work and the more specific your examples are, the better.

Add value. When you talk about yourself, don’t forget to include how you can benefit your customers. They want to exactly what they will gain by choosing you over others.

Be yourself. From your social media profiles to your resume, it’s important to stay true to yourself. Don’t inflate your credentials and experiences. Instead, polish up your past successes.

If you can successfully sell yourself, you will inspire confidence in others about your company and its products and services. A meeting with you could well be someone’s first encounter with your brand, and you want to give them the best first impression that you can. Good communication skills will make your job a lot easier.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how much you spend on marketing yourself if it’s not effective. Budget your time and efforts to let your skills shine through. As many would agree, peers will find you if you continue to be honest about yourself.
Have any secret tips for selling yourself?

Applying Marketing Goals with Twitter
From raising brand awareness to simply gaining sales, there are many different direct marketing goals. You can even use Twitter as an extension of your customer service. As you think about the goals you want to set for your business, you should also think about using Twitter to reach your audience. There are some different consumers to consider before you start and today, we’re going to discuss the Twitter voyeur.

Taking a Look at the Voyeur
Let’s face it, there are lots of them. They go by many names: the voyeur, the lurker, the shy guy, or even the n00b. Not everyone on Twitter is actively contributing, but their presence can’t be ignored. For example, you may be a boutique owner. Although it’s great to network by following others in your industry, they’re not going to buy what you have to sell. It’s the customers you want to reach out to. Offer rewards and give your followers the inside scoop. Inactive users may stay quiet, but they make take advantages of good deals you offer. Not everyone wants to build and maintain an online relationship with their so-called “friends”. It takes thought and effort, so others may just not have the time.

Monitor with Twitter
Even for those who don’t post to Twitter, it doesn’t mean that they’re not watching. Twitter is a useful, social, and entertaining resource. Some may just browse Twitter’s trending topics to see what others have to say. Twitter is a great tool for small business or individuals to use to gain insight. Bigger companies definitely use it to monitor their brand.

Use Common Sense
Although Twitter is an informal channel, don’t fly blind by forgetting to set a goal. In direct marketing, you have the influencer, decision maker, buyer etc. You can appeal to these same types of consumers when it comes to Twitter. The best thing you can do is to be consistent with your marketing message. Keep some Twitter don’ts in the back of your mind while you do so, and have fun!

Real-Time Search for Real Life

Search engines are useful in bringing us relevant results. But what about information that’s relevant in this moment? I was searching for Google’s financials awhile back and came across some reports from before 2004 – before it went public! How and why is this relevant to what I’m looking for? It’s not! In December, Google launched its Real-Time Search, which will help customers get their hands on up-to-date info. With Google leading the way, it’s only a matter of time before others follow. Yes, we’re looking at you Yahoo! and Bing.

Going Mobile to Accommodate Smart Phones

With new smart phones coming out every second, you can’t rule out the importance of having a mobile compatible site. I don’t have a smart phone, in fact, I like to call mine’s a dumb phone. But I do have my handy iPod touch. When browsing the internet on a small screen, you want to ensure that all the essential links are there and that your customers aren’t missing out anything because they’re not on a desktop. The sky’s the limit for mobile in 2010, as consumers will want faster ways to get their info and all in one convenient place. If you haven’t done so already, get started on making your site more friendly with the right mobile web design.

Facebook is Up While Twitter Falls Flat

Ok, so the time is here. In 2009, there were many skeptics who doubted the staying power of Twitter. So far, we can certainly see that Facebook remains in the lead. As Facebook is experiencing increasing growth, Twitter seems to be flat lining. These two giants will continue to fight for the market share in 2010 as they go head to head by releasing international versions of their services. Twitter is working hard to be more personalized and relevant. On the other hand, Facebook’s CEO has publicly announced some questionable beliefs about users’ privacy. In any case, it looks like it will be another exciting year for social media.

So, just how do popular YouTube videos make money? The most obvious answer is that they can act as links that drive traffic to your website. Like updates on Twitter or being featured on social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, your website can benefit from exposure to a huge Internet audience. Video is a growing trend and you can use your creativity to help your site rank higher in search results. From product placement to running affiliate ads on your videos, there are many ways to monetize your YouTube efforts. Just like any other social media campaign, videos are a great utility in promoting your website.

Many have found that video blogs are catching on because you can easily promote yourself, your company, and your brand. Embeddable videos are user-friendly because they are easy to access and share. A popular video can help you gain leverage that you might not get otherwise from using standard PPC ads or SEO. The next time you see a viral video that you like, analyze some of their techniques and see how it can help you in your efforts. Do you have any videos that you’d like to share?

When it comes to Facebook marketing and Twitter advertising, which do you prefer? Both have advantages and disadvantages and social media marketing is still in its early stages of development. Users may have trouble keeping up with all the new changes as marketers struggle to find an effective strategy. An analysis from Compete, shows that Facebook is in the lead, but is Twitter a threat? I believe that Twitter and Facebook are strong competitors that and can be strongly beneficial when properly utilized.

People like to use Facebook because they can keep in touch with old friends and easily meet new ones. However, with Twitter, individuals and companies can build a strong following and promote their awareness of their brand. It is important to keep up on changes with both of these giants because it is hard to tell which has more potential. Taking it up a notch, viral marketing is also becoming prevalent on these social networking sites. For example on Twitter, Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a “popularity” contest and won! This may be a victory for Kutcher and embarrassing for CNN, but both parties certainly gained more followers. How are some pros and cons of both Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook
+ Rapidly growing number of users
+ Potential to use third party applications for advertising
+ Some report using Facebook messaging more than email to connect with real friends
- Takes time to learn how to navigate
- Requires testing and research to realize long term benefits
- Numerous applications and features could clutter your message

Twitter
+ Easy to use, navigate and use to promote or share anything
+ Cost advantageous in comparison to Facebook (for the time being)
+ More people can be exposed to your message without any formal confirmation or even logging in
- Limited to 140 character for each update
- Potential for abuse by spammers
- Too early to tell how effective it is in advertising

Have you ever found yourself fascinated by a fun flash game or an interesting video clip? These may have been part of an online viral marketing campaign. Through using online buzz marketing and word-of-mouth on social networking sites, marketers work hard to use clever techniques to capture online attention and increase brand awareness of a company. A notable marketing campaign is Blendtec’s Will It Blend? channel on YouTube. The company demonstrates their product’s strong blending abilities by testing different objects ranging from golf balls to the Apple iPhone in an infomercial type series of videos.

By using unique approaches, marketers can capture more attention than when using a more traditional marketing method. YouTube videos are particularly popular because they are embeddable and easy for users to pass along via links or on their blog. You don’t have to always use outrageous techniques or videos, but it can certainly help when it comes to attracting potential customers.

A focus on web design marketing can be just as crucial in attracting visitors to your site. Your website should always accurately represent your company. It should also display a consistent message that is easy for your clients to understand. Not only should your website be eye-catching, but also easy to navigate. In order to gain favorable traffic, it is also important for your site to be search engine friendly.

So, whether you want to try to build momentum by creating an innovative video clip or adapting a new web design, there are countless different options that you can look into. Remember to do your research and keep in mind that these options are not mutually exclusive. You can mix and match the different methods that work best for you and your company.

Your internet browser is probably full of bookmarks that you’ve never really gotten around to using. Every minute, there are so many new and interesting things that you can find online. Accumulating so many sites can quickly lead to a cluttered bookmark list. Did you know that social bookmarking can help you organize your favorite sites and make them easier to find? By using a social bookmarking site such as Delicious, you can organize and save links that you want to remember or share with others. As opposed to traditional bookmarking on your browser, this type of bookmarking is considered social because you can share it with the public, other users in your networks or specific users.

Social bookmarking is becoming more widely used in social media advertising. So how can you use this as a marketing tool? Utilizing these methods allows your website to gain exposure from Internet users allover the world. By using tags, your site is categorized to the keywords that are relevant to your business. A great advantage is that if others find your site useful, they may bookmark it and share it with other users on their network. Sharing your helpful website with others will improve your online reputation and help your business gain online recognition.

However, many people may have the misconception that bookmarking your site a few times will instantly boost your website traffic. This isn’t the case as you constantly need to update and maintain your social bookmarks. Your website won’t be successful in the online marketing environment if you are not actively networking with others. If you are unfamiliar with social bookmarking and other forms of social media advertising, it may be helpful to consult with an internet marketing firm. An experienced firm will help you with all your social media needs and keep up to date with the rapidly changing nature of internet marketing.

• 45-54 year olds are amongst the top users
• 85.3% of all Twitter users update less than once day
• 53% of females and 47% of males make up all of Twitter users
• Twitter is most active on Tuesday – Wednesday and Friday follow
• Marketers are using Twitter. 15% of users who follow more than 2,000 people identify as social media marketers

So, why is it important to keep up with Twitter? An article on BusinessWeek, argues that Twitter lacks the ability to retain consumer attention and that it will take time before it is widely used as a broadcast medium, rather than a social networking utility. Whether it is a fad or here to stay, Twitter is growing everyday. From 2008 to 2009, there were over 20 million unique visitors to the site. By using Twitter, companies are able to keep consumers updated in real time. Dedicated fans or potential consumers will especially appreciate frequent and up to date Tweets. Also, the good thing about Twitter is that it does not hurt your business. When it comes to social media sites, early Twitter adapters can benefit from gaining experience while competitors may not fully understand its use. By being more connected and accessible to your consumers, you may also learn more than you would through using traditional methods of marketing.