Blogs

Once you start blogging, do not give up, be consistent in writing and write well with good keywords and attract traffic for the site you write for. Gradually develop an interest in something you are keen on and have a good flair of words in. One really needs to work on the layout and the design for a blog to attract viewers. It’s said, “first impression is what gives a person the impact to read it” and this will show the effort you have put in the research to write such an article. Another trick is to create blogger links, enable permalinks, create tags, blog ping services etc.

Once you are into this business, you gradually need to be part of bloggers websites and start contests, search engines, be the first to break the news in form of blogs, create links and track backs, and answer comments, contact the friends. It’s the new way to connect to the audience and respond them with the comments they want to add to the thought they agree.

The point is – online businesses can drive more traffic by emphasizing upon better user experiences and this can even help them to retain interest of new site visitors or potential customers. For this, some of the amicable options can include search engines, banner ads, and email marketing.

From Timesofindia.indiatimes.com:

Players like eBay have given a slightly different twist to the kiosk strategy. They are tapping internet cafes around India.

“We have partnered with Reliance Web World in 100 Web Worlds in 16 cities with plans of scaling up this quarter to 140 Web Worlds in 24 cities,” says Rathin Lahiri, CMO, eBay India.

It works almost similar to the kiosks, the only difference being that the consumer goes to an internet cafe instead, where the cafe owner handholds her though the entire process of buying online.

There is no denying the fact that even today, the most widely used window to the internet is still cyber cafes. According to IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) 24% of India’s 50 million-odd internet users still accesses the net via pay-and-surf cyber cafes. So it makes superb business sense to have these cafe owners bring in newbies to your website. The strategy has worked for eBay India at least.

“Reliance Web Worlds were among our top three new user acquisition channels for the year,” says Lahiri.

It is worthwhile to note that a modern-day business just cannot neglect its presence, offline as well as online and offline marketing is what’s helping businesses boost their online sales.

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN have different criterions for awarding rank to a website. The most important of all is link building; it has been apparently proved that the more and better links you have the better ranking you will receive from the search engines. This is where site promotion via web directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory, and others come into the picture.

Before we read about web directories, let us first understand meaning of a web directory and usefulness of these “guides” to online businesses striving for visibility and profits.

A web directory can easily be classified as a directory on the World Wide Web that links to other sites and categorizes these links on the basis of some predefined standards. Now let us move our focus to benefits of web directories. One-way links from trustworthy sites command a great respect from search engine spiders and algorithms. It is important to note here that web directories can do the trick for your site in this regard. Since most of them are human edited directories and have some standards, every site occupying a link on these sites (directories) is better positioned to enjoy good rankings.

Let us understand this all with the help of an example. Suppose, you are running a business named Wilson Brothers Inc. and have a website with the name www.wilsonbrothers.com. There is one more similar business with the name Jefferson Inc. with its site name as www.jefferson.com. Both sites were launched on the same date and have a similar site appearance and cater to the same audience. However, your site finds great admiration among web directories after some time due to its relevance and uniqueness while the other site is nowhere on the directory maps. Your site would be able to absorb organic traffic from directories leading to enhanced levels of visibility, recognition, awareness, credibility, and search engines would offer high ranking to your site and the counterpart would be clueless about why visitors are not coming to his site. Moreover, your site would be able to generate qualified leads and create demand & awareness about the offered products and services and this obviously means improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and enhanced sales and profits.

Now ask yourself, are these benefits attained via web directories not the same (if not more than) what you expected when you first launched your site? You’re right, you have got more than what you have expected courtesy links on quality web directories.

This is because search engines pick up what they pick up and there is more than one reason for them when they judge a website. There may be times when your website may be ranked 1 or 2 in the search engine results but vanish in a month’s time to appear at page 100 or 130. This may be possibly because the search engines might have changed their ranking formulas over a period of time and your business might have been left unaware.  This is the reason why more and more businesses are taking every possible effort to guarantee their positions in keyword searches these days by buying them.

Many search engines such as Google and FindWhat.com permit advertisers to place their bids for ad placement tied to possibly rewarding keywords. However, these bids are not restricted and accessible to an elite few.

Even a small business can open an account for almost less than $5-$40; the bids usually start at 5-10 cents per click. The credit card of an advertiser is charged only for that amount which reflects clicks on his listings. In short, the more an advertiser pays, the more ad viewers click through to his website. This is a short-term promotional strategy that can have immediate benefits.

In addition to that, it is best for an advertiser to identify and select popular and narrowly targeted keywords apart from writing compelling ad listings. Once that has been done, an advertiser (online business) must test these factors time and again.

In this regard, online presence can help a business to get traffic from the search engines, paid search advertisements, former visitors, newsletter advertising, banner ads, and affiliate programs to name a few. These benefits elude the offline businesses that are vulnerable of losing even their loyal existing customers to their online counterparts. Along with that, an effective web presence can also help a small business to think and act beyond the box & create a niche for itself in the competitive market.

Since small businesses do not need to have an expensive and complex website to stay close to the Internet goldmine, more and more small business entrepreneurs are making every possible effort to ensure that they have an effective online presence.

Recent trends have also revealed that many small businesses such as chiropractor, insurance agent, real estate agent, mortgage broker, maid service, florist, limousine service provider, and movers are amongst many who have adopted online marketing to give a new meaning to their market presence and prospects.

All in all, an online presence can keep a business secure from its competition besides offering new avenues and opportunities for ensuring consistent and profitable business solutions.

If you are an individual or an entrepreneur or even a marketing executive and think that creating a blog was all what can take your blogging or corporate site to new heights, it is time for you to think again. This is simply because blog sites, whether personal or corporate, need to be updated on a regular basis before any results can be expected from them. This means that if you have created a single blog or worked for two months creating 20-odd blogs and think that you are done with blogging and results will just be coming your way, you are very much wrong.

It is important for you to understand and realize that search engines decide page rankings of any site and blog sites are no exceptions. Now these engines give good rankings to those sites (usually after a period of 4-6 months) that are updated on a regular basis with fresh, unique, and interesting content. In addition to that, sites that go “dormant” are deprived of their earlier good rankings. This means that if you are an active blogger or run an inactive blog site, your site or blog account does not attain the results that were expected of it and the fact that it did boast of unique and interesting content at one time does not matter unless the site is kept active and interesting at all times.

In short, there is no use of creating a blog site or writing blogs unless that cannot be done on a regular basis.