Radiance Road Marketing Blog

Welcome back! Please let me know what I can do to make this blog more useful to you. You can call me direct (863) 668-1086 or Send me your feedback

OK, so you decided to start your blog as part of your internet marketing campaign. You’ve installed WordPress, chosen a theme and started blogging away. You are marketing online and ready to increase your profits. Good for you!

How, you want your best prospects to visit your blog on your website, look around, comment on your blog, sign up for your website newsletter and, eventually, become a customer – RIGHT? That’s alot to ask, but not unreasonable. What’s unreasonable is expecting it all to happen right away. And, it requires a systematic approach. First things first.

The BEST thing you can do to your website blog is to PING! Pinging is basically sending a signal to blog directories and other websites to let them know you’ve posted new content on your blog. Sending pings is a great way to get your website blog indexed in search engines and spread the word so that your potential customers can find your content. It’s really the fastest and easiest place to start promoting your blog, your products and services and your small business. Best part about it is that it doesn’t COST you anything to do.

However, you must do this the right way or you can end up hurting your website and blog presence in the ever-growing-and-becoming-much-more-important blogosphere.

WordPress comes with built-in ping features. However, they don’t really work that well as the default and you really need to optimize your blog ping system. The best tool you can get (and one of the few plug-ins I use here) is MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer. It’s easy to install and use and really makes a BIG difference in getting the results you want from your blog. (If you need help with this, just ask me by email or call me direct at (863) 668-1086)

Your pings can get you:

Indexed right away in search engines

Traffic coming immediately to your website

Listed in blog directories so SEEKERS can find your website

Get other blogs to find your blog and mention your posts

Get good links that add to your Google Page Rank and bump you up in the search results

How, once you’ve got it installed and activated, you’ll want to add some ping sites to your list. Here’s the first twenty I have on my list:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://api.moreover.com/ping

Getting your BEST customers to visit your website and Buy your products and services is the goal of an internet marketing campaign. Your Lakeland business can use more customers, right? So what are you waiting for? This is your invitation to maximize your blog by using ping optimizer. It’s easy, fast and no cost other than a few minutes of your precious time. It’s definitely worth your investment!

This is a great start. You can discover more by searching the web or you can just email me and ASK for a list of more ping sites I use. I add new ones all the time and am glad to share them with you!

Sphere: Related Content

New Feature Article on Lakeland Internet Marketing

Search Engine Marketing Helps Generate Traffic

By Jack Duncan, Internet Marketing Consultant, Radiance Road Marketing, Lakeland, FL

If you website is not getting the results you want, there are reasons. Internet marketing is no great mystery. The biggest reason your website is not generating leads is because your prospective customers aren’t seeing your site listing when they use search engines.

Are the Major Search Engines Indexing Your Web Site?

This is easy to check. Simply go to Google, Yahoo or Bing! and search. Start your search with your company name and see if your site pops up. Try putting your company name in quotes (for example, “Radiance Road Marketing”). This would eliminate all the chaff, such as listings where the terms ‘radiance’, ‘road’ and ‘marketing’ might turn up out of context. You can also add your location by… continue reading

Read More Marketing Articles at: http://www.radianceroadmarketing.com/articles.html

Sphere: Related Content

Or FIVE MYTHS About Marketing Online

Lakeland businesses, like small businesses in towns all across the globe today, want to grow and make more money. As a small business owner, the internet provides a great opportunity to get your marketing message to your target market. However, there are some misconceptions about marketing online that may be keeping you from getting the results you want.

1. Build Your Website & They Will Come. If you’ve setup a website expecting visitors to flock to it just because it’s there, you’re probably disappointed in the results. You may have paid a website design company to build a site for you and it looks great. But how do people find it? Are you indexed in the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new BING? Why should they come? These are the major questions facing any small business owner here in Lakeland who wants to generate leads on the web.
2. A Web Site is An Online Brochure. Many owners simply put up a list of what they do and expect a visitor to be impressed. Many Lakeland plumbers, for instance, say that they fix a leak in a faucet or do toilet repair or install septic tanks. But WHY should they choose YOU over every plumber in Polk County that does the dame thing? What makes your plumbing company different? How do you benefit the customers more than any other plumber?
3. If I Submit To Search Engines, Customers Will Find My Business. Getting found by the three major search engines is important. However, it’s where you rank that makes a difference. If you aren’t in the top ten results for the term “Lakeland plumbing company,” prospects won’t be visiting your site. As a matter of fact, you are more likely to get customers if you are one of the top three sites (among other things). Search Engine Marketing is a complex process that requires more than indexing.
4. The Secret to Getting Customers Online Is…. There’s no secret. There is a PROCESS. It’s not easy and it’s not simple and it’s not over-night. Like anything else worthwhile, it takes time and effort and a proven method. First of all, it’s really like any other form of marketing. It requires a marketing plan. You have to use the basics of marketing and apply them first, then add the internet marketing techniques that work. There are a thousand books on internet marketing and all the good ones say the same things as the marketing textbooks: target your market, create a powerful marketing message, deliver the message to your prospects and motivate them to take action. It doesn’t matter if you are a plumber or plastic surgeon or a dentist or an air conditioning repair company – it works the same way. There is no magic software to get you to the top and keep you there.
5. Once You Set It – You Can Forget It. OK, internet marketing is not the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, but you use the same basic techniques as Ron Popeil to market your business. Did Ronco make one commercial and play it once? Hardly. It takes an ongoing effort. Repetition works in marketing. Think of all the hugely successful marketing campaigns. They repeat the same message over different channels consistently over time. Marketing research shows that your customer, on average, needs to hear your message at least seven times for it to even make an impression. The internet, especially, is competitive. You can be at the top of Google one day and not there at all the next.

Don’t get fooled by companies that promise you a magic bullet to make your internet marketing successful. Many companies waste their time and resources by not having a solid internet marketing plan. They fall prey to gimmicks and scams and get-rich-quick schemes. If you don’t know how to market online, get some reliable information and maybe some help from a professional internet marketing company you can trust. Avoid the outrageous claims – like guarantees to get you to the top of Google. The only guarantee is that if you do the right things in marketing, the right way, consistently, you will become a competitor in the online marketplace.

Lakeland Internet Marketing Read More Marketing Articles

Sphere: Related Content

When people are ready to buy something or need a service, like a

plumber, they will generally use a search engine like Google, Yahoo or

Bing to find a company in their local area. Unless your company shows

up in the first page of the results for your industry and city (such as

“Lakeland plumbing” or “air conditioning repair Lakeland”), they don’t

find your website – they find your competition. To land in the top

results, you need to optimize your site for the search engines.

Two types of SEO

The two types of optimization techniques are onsite and off-site. By

on-site optimizing, we mean that your web page has the proper elements

that the engines are seeking to rank you high on the results list. This

involves marketing research to choose certain keywords (like your

industry and city). Then, you make sure that they are included in your

page title, description, tags and page content. Off-site SEO involves

getting links to your website from other web pages. The better the rank

of the referring page, the more weight it carries with the major search

engine. Google, the largest and most-used search engine, relies heavily

on referal page rank.

The Problems with Optimizing Your Website

The first major challenge is knowing what to do with each type of SEO.

On-site optimization requires research, such as using Google Keyword

Tools to find the search terms your clients use and selecting the ones

to prioritize to give you the fastest results. Once you have the

keywords, you must know how to use them in your meta tags, page

description and content. Even search engine experts differ on the proper

formula to use for this aspect. Offsite optimizing requires getting

links on other websites. Where do you want your links? This requires

more careful research because you want “good links” and avoid “bad

links”. And then there’s the question of why the other site would want

to post your link. You can see that the SEO portion of internet

marketing is complicated and this is just pointing out the tip of the

iceberg!

The second major problem, in addition to having the expertise, is the

incredible amount of time it takes to get your page ranked. The effort,

once you have done solid marketing research, to perform the individual

tasks is more than most local business owners can afford to spend

themselves. It’s really a big job that takes many hours of tedious

effort. Small business owners don’t have their own internet marketing

department to handle this. It costs alot of money to have a staff to

handle your marketing.

The Rise of the Search Marketing Company

Because of the expertise and time involved and because the rewards of

effective internet marketing are HUGE, most businesses need a

specialized professional to do their search engine marketing for them.

SEO firms are popping up everywhere. Some companies guarantee to get

you on the first page of Google. Beware of them. They don’t CONTROL the

search engines. Some sell software programs that promise to automate

the process. The right programs can help and experts use them to save

time, but it just isn’t that easy. It still requires knowledge, skill,

ability and time.

What’s the answer?

The best choice for your business depends on your particular situation.

First, get some good advice from an experienced professional in your

local market. Choose someone who is willing to take a look at your

company in-depth and can focus on you. At Radiance Road Marketing, we

provide personalized attention because each situation is different. Not

all companies will profit from online marketing. That’s one reason why

we only work with a few, select local businesses. You want a local

expert that focuses on local companies and asks lots of questions about

your business and customers. Make sure that they have a marketing

background and some solid marketing experience, not a newbie or

career-changer. Most of all, you need someone you can trust. Remember,

if it sounds too good to be true – if it’s not reasonable – forget it.

Good SEO delivers Profits

Search engine optimizing helps drive qualified traffic to your website.

Once they find your website, you need to move them through the sales

process. To get the sale, you not only have to get their attention and

get them to listen to your marketing message, you have to get them to

take action. SEO is one very important part of the online marketing

model. If you can get your best prospects to visit your website, you

still have to get them to buy your products or services.

Sphere: Related Content