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The long and short on Longtail keywords (no pun intended!)

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 at 10:21 PM  
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If you’ve never understood what long tail keywords are and how they are important to your local business, then this article is for you.

What are longtail keywords?

A longtail keyword is simply a keyword that has many words. The more words a keyword has, the longer it is. In comparison a short tail keyword has one or two words only. Let’s look at a practical example of how this works.
E.g. credit cards- short tail keyword
credit cards for students- longtail keyword
credit cards for students in medical school- an even longer longtail keyword

What are the different types of longtail keywords?

There are two main types of longtail keywords.
Longtail derivative keywords- these are keywords that contain the original phrase found in the short tail keyword.
Here’s an example that will make this clear:
If the short tail keyword is Basketball shoes, then some longtail derivatives would be – ‘Nike basketball shoes’ or ‘Adidas basketball shoes’ or ‘basketball shoes for women’. As you can see the word basketball shoes remains the same

Semantic longtail keywords- these are keywords that do not contain the original phrase found in the short tail keyword, but rather use a phrase similar in meaning to it. Using the above example for basketball shoes, some semantic longtail keywords would be ‘Nike basketball sneakers’ or ‘Air Jordan sneakers’. Sneakers have a similar meaning as basketball shoes.

Why are longtail keywords important to your local business?

Higher rankings: Longtail keywords have less competition as fewer people use them so you have greater chance to rank for them. For example it would be easier for a medical practice to rank for the longtail keyword “cosmetic surgery for third degree skin burn” rather than “cosmetic surgery”
Wider Net: there are many more longtail keywords than short tail ones, meaning that you have a wider variety of keywords to use in your website content. This will help your website capture a greater share of traffic in niche market.

How to Get Started on Twitter as a Business

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 10:15 PM  
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Getting started on Twitter is often a scary proposition for most businesses but it really isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Like most social media platforms, Twitter often appears a confusing and difficult concept to newcomers, but once understood, people wonder why they took so long to jump on board.

Here is a 3 step process to get started on Twitter.

1. First open an email account that will be specifically for your Twitter account. This is because, you will receive a notification of every activity that takes place in your Twitter account such as when someone follows you, sends you a direct message or retweets your tweets and so forth. Obviously, these notifications will pile up as your Twitter account gets more and more active and they will crowd your regular email account. Keeping a separate email account just for your Twitter account will help keep things organized. In addition, having a separate Twitter account is useful for your online privacy and security.

2. Register at Twitter.com. You will need to fill in your names or business names and your email account, and then you need to choose a Twitter username. Your username can only be up to 15 letters long and be made up of alphanumeric characters. No symbols are allowed except the underscore and the full stop symbols. Capital letters are allowed though. Most businesses and marketers use targeted keywords in their usernames because it helps to get found by other Twitter users in searches and also can contribute to their SEO. After choosing your Twitter username, you also need to choose a password for your account.

3. After completing your registration, Twitter will send you a confirmation link to your email address. Click on it to confirm and activate your Twitter account. Now you’re ready to start tweeting!

Minding Your Email Manners: Tips to Avoid Offending Your Subscribers

Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 10:21 PM  
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Email marketing is a very direct way to market your local business but it is also a very direct way to offend your subscribers if you go about it the wrong way. Here are a few tips to keeping your business in your client’s good graces and out of their spam box.

Always send a confirmation email when people sign up through your squeeze page or opt-in page. This will ensure that someone else didn’t sign them up to your list.
Always keep the door open for anyone on your list to unsubscribe. Provide them a link to do so in a simple and quick manner and send a confirmation message to verify they are the ones who opted out of your list.
Send information that you had originally promised. If you were meant to provide a newsletter on dog training, don’t try and promote real estate.
Be prompt in dealing with questions and complaints. Email is a fast method of communication so don’t dilly dally in responding to your list. You will have no excuse for doing so.
Don’t bombard your list with a flood of messages on a daily basis. Its best to keep to the frequency stated on the sign-up page. The converse is also true- if your customer expects a monthly newsletter, you will be a distant memory if you send it after six months. its always best to just sign up to an auto responder service to help you send out regular emails
To avoid your emails ending up in the spam box, ask your customers to add your email address to their address book to allow your emails through to their inbox. You can also regularly remind them to check their spam box if they haven’t heard from you in a while as your emails might have mistakenly been sent there.
Give your list a way to reply back to you by always including the email address you would like them to use for replies.
Do not sell your subscribers email address to another company without their permission. It is a breach of privacy and offensive to many people, giving them all the more reason to unsubscribe.

Best Ways To Relate With Your Twitter Followers

Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 10:12 PM  
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Here are some tips on how to relate to your Twitter follows to build positive interactions:

1. Don’t hard sell to your followers- one of things Twitter users detest the most is being subjected to constant sales pitches on the site. What you need to understand as a business owner is that your Twitter account is a way to reach out and socially connect to potential clients and provide them valuable content and a way for them to interact with you outside the normal business arena. Most businesses make the mistake of trying to sell to their Twitter followers while on the site, instead of funneling them into an email list or onto their website where they can make a more direct sales pitch. While on Twitter, always try to just relate with your followers and build trust with them and this will reward you in the long run. It is important to have a long-term approach to your Twitter marketing rather than a short-term approach. The long-term approach is pegged on ‘soft-selling’.
2. Reply to your followers- this means that you need to always check your Twitter account several times a day for direct messages, mentions, questions, new followers, compliments and posts that have been retweeted by others. This is so that you can personally reply to the people concerned. Not only is it polite to do so, but it is a clever strategy to boost your business’s Twitter image and reputation.
3. Give lots of free and valuable content- this is one of the best ways to get a ton of followers who will be excited to read about your tweets. Almost everyone likes free content so use your Twitter account to give free reports, books, exclusive offers etc. The more you give valuable content free of charge, the more you will see your followers engaging with you and responding to your Twitter presence.

Master Keywords that Unlock Your Local Business

Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 10:21 PM  
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Keywords are the lifeblood of marketing your local business online and this article will show you certain keywords that will drive the right traffic to your site and also trigger the desired response from them

Must have keywords- always use these keywords in your copy. They trigger emotional responses from people.Amazing, Anniversary, Basic, Best, Big, Bonus, Discover, Exclusive, Extra, Extraordinary, Fast First, Free, Guarantee, Health, Help, Hot, Hot Special, How to, Improve, Immediately, Learn, Latest, Love, Know, Money, More New, Now, Plus!, Powerful, Premiere, Protect, Proven, Quick Results, Safety, Save, Safe, Today, Ultimate, Win, Worst, You

Buying keywords-these are keywords that attract a ready buyer and should be used liberally in your sales pages
Buy, Purchase, Order, Discount, Sale, Coupon, Code, Store, Shop, Preorder,
In Stock, Free Shipping, Overnight Shipping, Price, Cost, Color (black, red etc.), Size (small, large, medium etc.), Product Name (Nike, Apple, Nokia etc.), Where To Buy, Bestselling
Call to action keywords- these words get your prospect to take action exactly as you want

Here’s What I Want You To Do; Click Here; Buy Now; Order Now; Sign Up here

Keep reading keywords- these words keep your reader hooked to read your copy till the end
Listen; For Example; Not only that; But wait there’s more; Check this out; In fact; I can tell you this; It gets even better; What’s more; Up next; And that means; One more thing; I’m not through yet, Who, What, Where, When, Why

These words are either the ones most commonly used by people when they are looking for something on search engines or the ones that appeal to the human psyche and increase your local business open rates and click through rates. These same words are used by the leading copywriters and internet marketers to promote their highly successful campaigns and are therefore tried and tested winners.

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