How business owners can use SEO to drive traffic.

Over the last 15 years, internet marketing has exploded exponentially. Every year, tens of thousands of people jump into it. As these people learn more and more, it doesn’t take long before they learn about SEO. It’s by far the most popular free method to drive traffic.

The problem with SEO is that roughly 95% of search engine traffic comes from Google. So when Google changes its algorithms around, tens of thousands of websites fall into oblivion overnight.
Lucky for you- I’ve figured out how to prevent that from happening. Whether you’re just getting started with SEO or have been doing it for years- this article can help you out.

Why do SEO?

 

From Flexpoint Digital Marketing Consulting

There’s a reason why SEO is by far the most popular free traffic method online. In fact, there are several reasons.
For one thing- it can create HUGE passive income streams. Once you have a website ranking at #1 for its keywords, it will make money day in and day out- whether you work on it or not.
Now this isn’t to say that you should never touch it again. It’s just saying that it won’t constantly need your attention like paid traffic campaigns do.
Another reason that people like SEO is its CHEAP. You don’t need a huge budget to get started. In fact, all you really need is a few bucks for your domain name and hosting.
Building backlinks, writing articles, creating videos- these take a bit of time, but no money (unless you outsource them). And since most marketers have more time than money, this is a good way for them to drive traffic.

Finally, search engine traffic is EXTREMELY targeted! These days, people go to Google when they have a problem. Weight loss, divorce, money, heart disease, misbehaving kids- Google has the answer to everything! You just plug in your question, hit the Enter key, and Google helps you out.
And guess what- if your website is at the top of the listings, YOU are the one who has the chance to help that Google user. That sounds like a business opportunity to me. But here’s the thing- the online world changes daily. This includes search engines, and how business owners can use SEO to drive traffic. To prove that, let’s take a look at how SEO has changed over the years.

How SEO Used to be Done

When Google first came out, it was EXTREMELY easy to rank a website for certain keywords. This was based on both onsite optimization and offsite optimization.
Old School Onsite Optimization
It used to be that all you had to do was stuff your site full of the keywords you were targeting, and you’d get traffic. For example, let’s say you were targeting the keywords “how to lose weight.” If you typed that into Google, it was fairly common to come across sites that looked like this (no, I’m NOT kidding):

How to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight how to lose weight ….pretty ridiculous, right?

Well it didn’t take Google too long to figure out that a VERY high keyword density doesn’t deliver quality content to the reader. So they lowered what is considered the “optimal” keyword density to 1% to 3% (depending on who you talked to- everyone recommended something different).
As for internal linking- that just wasn’t very important. You could link to stuff on your own site to keep the visitor there longer, but it wasn’t required by any means. Your website didn’t need to be clean. You could have images all over the place, ugly colors, high bounce rates (meaning visitors didn’t stay long), tons of extra code, and a lot of other nasty stuff.


Hopefully you get the point- onsite stuff used to be easy. Over the years some of it got cleaned up, but only in the last few years has it really started making a difference.
Now let’s talk about backlinks

Old School Backlinking

It used to be that all backlinks were treated the same. The website with the most backlinks would win- despite what the website’s onsite optimization was like. It didn’t matter if your backlinks came from forums, article directories, authority blogs, .edu sites, or anything else.
Even though this seemed fair at first, it got abused. Automated software made it VERY easy to spam backlinks all over the internet. Today you can purchase thousands and thousands of backlinks to your website every day for less than $100 a month.
And that stuff used to work PERFECTLY. There were stories of marketers who would launch a site, throw thousands of backlinks to it all over the place, and have it ranking #1 in just days- if not hours.
Over time though, Google realized that this wasn’t delivering quality content to its readers. People would stop using Google because the results would sometimes be extremely spammy- not good.
So what happened next? Google decided to fight back with pandas and penguins.

Google Pandas and Penguins

From Panda and Penguin 2016 Updates

There have been 2 main types of updates over the last 2 years that rocked tens of thousands of websites. The first type is called Google Panda, and the second (more recent) type is Penguin

Beware the Panda

Google’s Panda update was aimed at one thing- improving the experience of Google search engine users. Because Google had figured out that visitors hated going to small, spammy looking websites with poor quality content, they decided to target sites that had these characteristics:

• Lots of low Page Rank (PR) backlinks
• Uneven backlink velocity (they came too fast or slow)
 • Too many/not enough keywords
 • High bounce rates
 • Too many links from the same sites
 • Poor onsite optimization (no internal linking)
• No or very few outbound links There were other factors as well, but these are a few of the biggest ones.

Even though Google had been moving in this direction for a while, this solidified the fact that automated, spammy stuff didn’t work anymore. Marketers who had been using SE Nuke, Xrumer, Article Marketing Robot, Scrapebox, and dozens of other software the gives automated backlinks lost their entire businesses overnight. Meanwhile, other websites that had been built up “the right way” shot up in rankings.
While some marketers were crying their eyes out, others were jumping with joy. But this wasn’t quite enough. Even though the Panda updates (which kept coming for a few years) had caused some huge waves, Google wasn’t done yet.

Enter the Penguin

Even though the Panda updates were huge, Google’s Penguin updates really shook things up.
According to Matt Cutts- Google’s spokesperson when it comes to SEO- the websites with a giant bulls-eye for getting crushed were those that were “over optimized”.
What did this mean? Well besides the factors mentioned above, probably the biggest change was concerning incoming backlinks’ anchor text. In other words- if 97% of a website’s backlinks all had the anchor text of “how to lose 10 pounds in a week” or whatever- Google thought that looked fishy. And it kind of does, when you think about it. How many people are going to link to an article they found with anchor text like that? Instead, a more realistic anchor text profile would include lots of other keywords, like how to lose weight, lose weight fast, lose 10 pounds, how this guy lost 10 pounds, this article, etc.

Something else that Google looked at was this- where is most of this website’s traffic coming from? Is it ALL coming from my search engine? Or is it also coming from guest posts, Facebook, articles, videos, press releases, and lots of other places across the internet?
Again, this makes sense. A popular website will get traffic from TONS of different places- not just Google’s search engine. Meanwhile, a website that has been overoptimized may be receiving tons of traffic from Google, but none from other places. The Penguin didn’t like this, so these websites got CRUSHED.

The Aftermath

Tens of thousands of websites have been hurt by the Panda and Penguin- but some actually prospered. Now that we’re done with the history lesson, let’s get into the REAL meat of this report- how to build a rock solid SEO foundation.

If you spend a lot of time researching SEO, you’ll find little tidbits of this information spread out all over the place.
For example, you’ll find clichés like “quality before quantity”, and “don’t build your business on the sand of SEO”.

While those are both true, they really aren’t that helpful. Instead, businesses using SEO need to have everything laid out to help them build rock-solid websites that only go up in the SERPS- never down. To help you do that, I’ve broken this down into 2 different sections- how to recover from these updates, and how to build new websites with these updates in mind.

How to Recover Your Website from Oblivion
If these updates have killed your current websites, there are a few things you should do: 1. Start driving traffic from other places- i.e. YouTube, document sharing sites, press releases, **REAL** blog comments, guest posts, and article syndication. Paid traffic can’t hurt either (it doesn’t have to be hundreds of clicks per day)

1. Remember that Google likes popular, high quality websites. If your site is getting visitors from all over the internet, that looks a lot better to Google. And before you start thinking that “Google can’t see everything”, remember that Google owns YouTube. It sees when people click from YouTube to your site… or, when they don’t.

2. Look at your site’s bounce rates. Are they extremely high? If so, add some videos for visitors to watch. Make your articles longer and more engaging. Put tools on there for them to play with.

The key here is to do everything you can to make your visitors stay longer. The longer they’re reading your site/watching your videos, the more Google will think “oh, people do like the stuff on this site”. Go for high quality content, not just quantity.

3. If possible, change the anchor text of your incoming backlinks. Since this usually isn’t possible, greatly vary the anchor text coming in from here on out. Use similar keywords, but don’t keep using your main keyword every single time. As mentioned earlier, this just looks more natural. If a bunch of bloggers are linking to something on your site, what are the chances that they’re all going to use your main keyword as their anchor text? Extremely low, a.k.a. it doesn’t look natural, a.k.a. don’t do it.
4. From now on- diversify, diversify, diversify. You want to drive traffic through quality backlinks from multiple sources with varying anchor texts. That’s the name of the game with SEO from here on out. And you know that? This kind of SEO is going to be rock solid for a long, long time. As the internet changes, it will constantly be battling spam. You don’t want to be a spammy looking, over-optimized website. Instead you want to look like a solid, helpful site that visitors LOVE, keep coming back to, and sharing with their friends and family.

5. To keep visitors on your site a lot longer, do plenty of internal linking between pages and posts. Wikipedia does this, and it makes it MUCH easier to find what you’re looking for at times. So for example, let’s say that you have an article talking about how to train a German Sheperd how to sit. Well if you also wrote an article explaining how to train your German Sheperd to fetch, you should link to that! The person may be interested in reading that, too.

6. Hop on the social networking bandwagon. Facebook and Twitter are the big ones, but you can use reddit, Stumbleupon, Digg, Pinterest and more. Since the internet keeps moving towards the social aspect, go with the trend!

How to Build a New Site This is very similar to recovering a new website from oblivion.

The advantage with a new site is that it isn’t tainted yet! So even though you may be competing with older sites that have more backlinks, if those backlinks are spammy or all have the same anchor texts- you might beat it in the SERPs. So when you build new sites, here’s what I recommend:

1. Build a site with a brand-able, easy-to-remember name. People probably won’t remember something like “howtotrainyourGermanSheperd.com” as easily as they’d remember “TrainYourShep.com” or something like that. Remember that you want to build a solid business- not just a search engine optimized site. You’re going to be driving traffic from EVERYWHERE- and telling people to go to “HowtoTrainYourGermanSheperd.com” just doesn’t look as good.

2. Drive traffic through your backlinks. The old school method of backlinking was to find websites that Google knew about it people didn’t necessarily look at very much. Forum profiles, Ezinearticles, etc. Those just don’t work as well as they used to. Instead, you have to put backlinks where people are hanging out. Write guest blog posts on authority niches then link back to your website. Put up some good videos and create a YouTube channel- again, linking to your site. Write quality articles and get them syndicated across the web. Google doesn’t want to just see that you have quality backlinks. They also want to see traffic coming through those links. That makes your site look popular, so they rank it higher in the SERPs.

3. Vary your anchor text. Since you’re just starting out, this will be very easy to do.  Use keywords that are similar to the main one you’re going for, but not the exact same. At least, not all the time. So if you’re targeting the keyword “how to get your boyfriend back”, you can use keywords like get your boyfriend back, how to get your man back, get your boyfriend back fast, win back your boyfriend, win your boyfriend back, etc. By doing this, you don’t look nearly as spammy to Google. You’re still saying the same thing (so people will click through to your site), but you are doing it in a more natural, legit way.

 4. Build links with increasing velocities. By that I mean that you start slow- a few links a day- and quickly increase it. A lot of the SEO pros swear more by link velocity than quantity or quality. They say that as long as you are following what looks like a natural pattern, Google will love you for it. So for example, maybe for the first week you put up 3-5 links a day. The next week, you put up 5-7. The next week it can be 7-13 per day. Then you just keep increasing it, until the point that you are building dozens or even hundreds per day. **Note that this doesn’t work as well for older sites with tons of backlinks already. Google has already seen your link velocities bounce all over the place, so it’ll be harder to get this to work quite right.

5. Use social networking sites from the get-go. Facebook, Pinterest, reddit, Twitter- all of these things build solid backlinks to your website. You can drive traffic through them and it makes your site appear as an authority. Plus if you get some loyal fans, it is VERY easy for them to share your site of fan page on Facebook and Twitter! Meet them where they’re at- that’s the name of the game.
Conclusion Driving traffic through SEO doesn’t have to be difficult. People make it difficult because they are focusing solely on SEO, but that doesn’t make for a well-rounded internet business.

The key to SEO today and for the future is this- create quality content and drive traffic through backlinks from various websites using varying anchor texts. If you simply do that, your business will grow! You’re building multiple traffic streams, making your business more brand-able, and will ultimately increase your SERP rankings at the same time. So what are you waiting for? Go build some rocksolid SEO for your website!

How to Choose Link Providers

From Flexpoint Digital Marketing Consulting

 

 

• Look for the little "extras" some link building providers offer. Things such as pinging, submitting RSS feeds, or bonuses. Sometimes, pinging the links and submitting RSS feeds (if done properly) can lead to your links being indexed quicker. Factor these into your decision whether or not to purchase.

• Many times when outsourcing backlinks, people will skip a service offered by people from countries such as Russia or Latvia. Some of the best providers I've hired, come from countries typically frowned upon by many people who do a lot of outsourcing. Link building is a lot different from outsourcing things like graphics, article writing, or web design. Unless you want something very specific done, there's not much communication going on. Most providers simply need to know two things.  1) The URL of your site . 2) The anchor text you would like to use.

• Stay away from people offering services to submit your site to WHOIS directories. It is a complete waste of money and you can do it for free.

• Get personal with the provider. After placing an order, send an email to confirm everything along with a message stating that you look forward to working with them. This simple message get your work prioritized since they know they're dealing with a real person.

• Stay organized. Document the start/end dates of the project, the website address where you made the purchase, and the URL and anchor text of the links created. Keep all the reports you get back from the providers in a folder.

• Skip the VA's (virtual assistant). This is my own personal opinion, but you can get things done a lot cheaper and faster by using multiple individuals and services versus the same person.

• Take care of your provider. A couple extra bucks goes a long way if you find a provider you feel comfortable dealing with. This could again mean your project gets prioritized. Leave them feedback after a job well done and thank them. Treat good providers like gold.

• Don't be paranoid. Outsourcing at first may seem like a scary proposition. If you've never outsourced links before you can get very paranoid about any adverse effects the links may have on your site/rankings. Stop. If it was that easy to ban/harm sites using links, everyone would use them on their competitors.

• Ask about turnaround time. Not always, but if it looks like the provider is too busy taking care of other people's projects to meet the specified turnaround time, ask first before placing an order to avoid disappointment. This is especially true of new services being offered on forums. Sometimes the provider will get a large initial surge of orders they weren't prepared for. It doesn't mean the service is bad, but there's only so many hours in a day.

• Be consistent and get links built monthly to your sites. You can use a variety of different anchor text, but it's important that inbound links
keep getting built. This is less true of local SEO, but if you are competing in a general niche, you will want the links to keep coming. There's no problem with using different providers each month.

• You can't control link indexing. Getting the backlinks built is one thing, getting them indexed is a whole other issue. Sometimes it may take Google some time to "find" the links no matter how much pinging or other tricks you use. Some backlinks are easier to get indexed than others. Be patient.
 
• Ask for reports. Most providers state that you will be provided with a report after the work is complete. Go through the report, and double check some of the links. If there are a small amount of links being built, all of them should be publically visible (meaning you don't have to login anywhere to see them) and you can check each one to make sure they're all there. If you get a blast of 10,000 links being built, not all of them will be correct. Don't worry about it, when you're dealing with that sort of volume and different site, it's not going to be perfect.

• Test before you go monthly. Never commit to a monthly expense before seeing the quality of work being offered. Ask the provider if they offer a smaller package or test run.

• If you're unhappy, move on. There's no sense getting into a pissing match with a provider. If you're not happy, move onto someone else. Make sure to note the username of the person, their website address, and PayPal address to avoid purchasing from this person again.

• SEO is opinion. That's pretty stupid of me to say since I'm positioning myself as knowing a thing or two about the search engines, but at the end of the day, the only people who truly know Google's algorithm are the people that work at Google. Everyone else is just offering their opinion based on personal experience or testing. Things can always
change, look for multiple opinions instead of just listening to one person.

• Other ranking factors. Backlinks are not the only determining factor in search engine positioning. There are a lot of other variables including on-page SEO that when mixed with backlinks can dramatically improve your ranking. Before purchase links, make sure your site is setup to benefit from them. Read up on solid on-page SEO techniques.

• Connect in other ways. Sometimes emails get lost, sent to the spam box, or never replied to. Many providers will offer these ways of additional communication. If a person offers you their Skype, MSN, or Yahoo messager id, use it.

• Look for a detailed description of the service. This is true whenever you are looking for outsourcers, the more vague a person is about what they're doing, the better the chance you're not going to be happy with the results.

• If you can avoid it, never directly send a person money. Always look for a "buy now" button. This will help protect you from fraudulent service providers since you can later file some type of grievance if you're not happy.

Internet Marketing Service

Mobile and Apps Marketing

Have you ever felt like you were the last one to make it to a party and everybody knows what's going on except you? Everyone's talking about a subject that you know nothing about and you listen intently just to try to catch up... but never do?! If you don't know about Mobile Marketing and how significant it is to the success of your business then I'd say welcome to the party and pay attention!
It's time to start answering your questions and getting your business right where it should be, which is taking it from the old style way of promoting your business to the new, more practical and efficient way to sell online. Mobile Marketing is quite simply marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smartphone. It is one of the most effective ways to engage customers, drive sales and increase customer satisfaction.

There are a number of mobile marketing strategies and we will find the one that works best for you based upon your industry, target audience and budget. Mobile site links makes it easy for mobile users to jump to specific pages of your site without wandering around.

We will create a cloud-based mobile marketing program where your company, with the use of SMS and Push Messaging channels, will increase traffic to your website. Your customers will receive relevant communication announcing sales, promotions and can provide coupons on the spot for online or store purchases according to your business needs.

Your business will benefit from the increase in store traffic as you will have a direct line to your customers. You can send frequent and relevant communication that keep your customers engaged with news, updates and reward/loyalty points that your business may offer. You will see an improvement in your customer satisfaction as you lighten the load on customer service and call centers that you currently are using.

As you can see, there are a number of advantages in bringing your business into the most up to date, technological era and Mobile Marketing and the other strategies that our services offer can do that for you.

SMS Text Marketing

In this world where the early bird really does get the worm don't let your business lag behind your competition. You need to have the most updated, integrated web presence that is on the market today. FlexPoint Marketing can create for you a strategic management and marketing strategy that can specify your organizations vision and goals for the future.
With SMS technology you will be able to communicate with your organization more effectively, specifying what your vision is and establishing goals and opportunities for maximizing your online presence.

SMS has unique characteristics that make it a very effective marketing channel. It is faster than opening up your email and it can take your customers straight to your home webpage. You may get in touch with your customers behaviors such as what are the most favored pages, how long did they stay, what did they purchase and did they find the smooth, user friendly experience that makes your organization the most viewed site in your market?

Customer service and satisfaction is the first golden rule to a successful business. Coming in a close second is the ease in which a customer can get the product or information they are seeking. You want your website to be viewed as an easy and convenient experience from start to finish by the novice and the expert in online shopping. We will listen to your needs and preferences and will work accordingly to making your online presence something you can not only be proud of but will increase your sales and exposure well ahead of your competition.

Reputation Management

In today's fast paced world your reputation can take a hit in almost no time and it can take an extensive amount of time to repair that reputation. Because it is so easy to lose your reputation it is critical to constantly take measures to manage your reputation online.
One of the first critical steps to maintain your businesses reputation online is to maintain a consistent social media presence.

This includes sites like Twitter and Facebook. Normally, these sites are an excellent way to present your product to the public, but they are also an excellent way to respond to consumer questions quickly and publicly. Having one person in your business who has the job of maintaining the companies social media presence will do wonders for your business. When customers present complaints about your company on social media you will be able to reply right away and rectify they issue. If you do not have a social media presence, then you are leaving your reputation online in the hands of other people on social media. While this may end up alright eventually you will run into problems and without a social media presence you will be unable to maintain your reputation.

Another critical step to maintaining your reputation is to make sure all staff that could interact with the customer knows that they have to be professional and friendly. With the dawn of the internet and social media, employees are interacting with customers and potential customers in several different ways. One way the customers interact in person is when they come into your store front and purchase your product. Training your employees to handle sales in a way that is efficient and friendly is an extremely critical step to ensuring that you maintain your businesses reputation. It is also important that any employee that may interact with a potential customer through e-mail or social media knows that they have to be professional and friendly in their contacts with the customer.

One slip up by an employee could devastate your companies reputation for years to come as the slip will end up everywhere and will be internet searchable.
Maintaining your businesses reputation online is critical if your business is going to be successful. Always remember to be friendly and professional and maintain your social media presence so as to maintain your companies reputation.

Community and Membership Sites

The high cost of commodities nowadays prompts people to look for other sources of income apart from their daily jobs. One of the most common answers to this problem is to make use of the internet to make money. Although there are many ways to do this, many people are not well-versed with all of them. One of the simplest ways to use the internet to make money is through the creation of community and membership sites.

What are Membership Sites?
Membership sites are websites that provide exclusive content to only their members. These websites often require their members to have a monthly subscription fee in order to view their content. Similar websites do not have a monthly subscription fee but will have restricted content based on a person's membership status. Essentially, these websites earn money by having numerous members at any given time. This is one of the easiest ways of earning through the internet because the creators of the website need only to create at least one content per day or per week. An even easier way to do this is through the creation of videos.

Our Community and Membership Sites Service
We provide a community and membership sites service to all of our clients who are interested. Our services include the creation of the website as well as its connection to a payment processor. We would also handle the different design elements that our clients require. We will also provide the database which our clients will use to list all of their members. Basically, all that our client needs to do is to create the content for the different pages of the site. After our work is done, we will also provide technical support and assistance to our clients whenever they have a problem with their website.

Video Production

We offer professional video production services that will greatly strengthen your online marketing campaigns. These days the best way to attract web surfers' attention is through video content. According to a study by Cisco's Visual Networking Index, videos will make up nearly 70% of total consumer Internet traffic by 2017. Video sharing site YouTube receives over a billion unique visitors every month – more than any other web channel save Facebook. Video has become the fastest growing type of content on the Internet. Thus, small businesses who fail to integrate video content into their online marketing strategies will find themselves unable to stand out in an increasingly competitive market. Our video production services will work with you to create attention-getting videos that will capture users' interest immediately.

Research has shown that the average casual web surfer will spend less than a minute browsing through a website. Having lots of useful text on your homepage, or even images, are no longer enough to convince them not to navigate to another site. Hence, it is important that you have content on your homepage that will grab their attention so that you can immediately communicate your message. Videos can serve that purpose by providing content that is easy for users to digest, to ensure that they'll stay long enough that you can get your message across. We provide affordable video production services for local small and medium businesses. Our production team uses the latest multimedia technology to produce outstanding videos at competitive prices. We will work with you to create video content that will greatly enhance your professional credibility while still fitting within your marketing budget. Feel free to contact so that we can discuss how to create video content for your business that will help you establish a strong online presence and bring in customers.

PPC Management

Our PPC management services will help drive traffic to your site.
PPC or pay-per-click is one of the most popular methods of generating traffic to websites. It involves placing ads on sites that are relevant to your market niche, and then paying the partner site when the ad is clicked and the website user visits the advertiser's site. When used appropriately, it is one of the best ways to draw engaged web surfers to your site that you can convert to paying customers.
Our PPC management services will manage your online advertising campaign.
A good PPC campaign involves a lot of processes, including keyword research to find the right keywords and phrases to bid on, creating the ad itself and creating striking and relevant landing pages that will ensure high conversion rates. We will work with you throughout the entire phase of the campaign to ensure you get the results that you want.

Apart from ad creation, we will test the ads to ensure that they generate clicks as well as providing you with a monthly report that you can evaluate. We will also work with you to adjust the campaign as results come in. If you have any concerns, you can discuss them with the PPC strategist who is managing your account. In addition, you can log in to your account at any time so that you can see how we are working on your behalf.

Our PPC management services are affordable.
Contrary to what you may have heard, PPC does not have to be expensive. We offer a wide variety of PPC services that are suitable for small to medium businesses of all budget levels. Please feel free to contact so that one of our AdWords professionals can evaluate your needs and suggest a package that best meets your needs as well as your advertising resources.

Online Display Advertising

What Is Online Display Advertising and what are Its Advantages?
Marketing is the heart of very business – without it, the business is as good as dead. This means that every business owner must strive to market his or her business in one way or another. Marketing technologies have popped up with the advent of the digital era. One such technology is online display advertising.

Online display advertising works by selling products and services through visually appealing graphics, videos, animations and text. Using this strategy on a site, which is already receiving wide patronage, can be a great way to personalize your offering. Here are some other incredible benefits you'll get from online display advertising:

Completes your advertising sphere

To market your products and services effectively, you should utilize as many advertising platforms as possible. This will include tri-media advertising – radio, TV and print, and now online display advertising. You should never underestimate the value of online advertising considering that there are huge numbers of internet users across the world. It could actually turn around your business.

They are less expensive
Other forms of advertising are quite costly. The deal becomes worse if you're forced to sign long-term advertising contracts when you only need short-term exposure, for instance when promoting an upcoming sale or event. When it comes to online display advertising, you only use and pay for the services as you deem necessary. This gives you control over your campaign, and you can make changes based on the impact of the ads.

The advantage of geo-targeting
Unlike other forms of advertising, online display advertising gives you a chance to creatively personalize your online ads so as to efficiently capture a specific market by geographical location. For instance, if you deliver pizza in your neighborhood, let the local people know by including a banner ad with a telephone number to make orders.

Feedback
The ability to track responses or feedback from your ads is one of the great benefits you get from display advertising, which is not possible with radio, TV and print advertising. You can get feedback from display ads on a weekly basis or even daily. This will help you to track the success of your marketing effort, and make improvements where necessary.
You place ads on relevant sites
Advertising is meant to reach your target market. It can be quite frustrating to spend on a campaign ad and yield zero conversion. The advantage of online display advertising is that you have the option of choosing the site to place your ads. Your banner ads can be featured in sites that contain relevant content – of your products or services.

Video Marketing

Attracting the Right Customers
Reading articles, to some, is not a very interesting to do. Some people learn more and are more interested in visual stimulation, such as watching videos. This characteristic is what video marketing takes advantage of.

Article marketing through video is a new way of marketing and advertising over the internet. The online business creates a short video, about 2 to 5minutes long, tackling specific topics or product. The video is based on the content of written articles and texts. The finished video is then uploaded to video sharing websites such as YouTube, where the video is better exposed and widely distributed.
Articles can be converted into videos in various methods. The simplest and most traditional is through the creation of PowerPoint presentations of a certain topic or product. The article or text source is made into animated slideshows for easy viewing. For more effective video marketing, the slides are made more attractive and attention grabbing. Relevant pictures are added. Sometimes, background music is also added to make it more striking. Some PowerPoint presentations provide a voice over that narrates what the slides contain. The entire presentation is recorded via screen capture software, such as Camtasia, which turns the PowerPoint presentation into a video. This video can then be uploaded on video sharing websites.

Video marketing is an alternative method to article marketing. Videos are easy to share in social network sites, video sharing sites and other websites. It is able to reach a wider audience over a shorter period, with only a few effort on the part of the business that made the video. Also, turning articles into videos reduces the need to spend time reading articles. Most people are not even that interested in reading articles, especially ones that are long or too technical. Videos can hold a person's attention longer than articles do. For advice on how and what videos to make, experts are available and very much willing to help.