Presented by

 

Jennifer Dunphy with Vayu Media

and Dorothy Pritchett with The Legal Goddess Network

 

In this program you will learn:

 

􀁨 How to differentiate yourself from everyone else

􀁨 How to create the perfect elevator speech

􀁨 How to be comfortable with self promotion

􀁨 Where to start if you're new to growing your business

􀁨 How to personalize your message to resonate with different audiences

􀁨 How to connect with your most valuable clients

􀁨 How to create strategic relationships for business growth

􀁨 How to enhance your credibility in a personal and memorable way

 

Date, time & location:

• September 14^th , 2010, 7:30 am - 9:30 am

• 1010 Midtown (Across from the new Loews Hotel), 1080 Peachtree St., Atlanta 30309

4^th Floor Clubroom

• Continental breakfast provided

 

Investment:

$30 per person

 

To register:

Send an email with attendee(s) names, company name and contact details to

JDunphy@VayuMedia.com . An invoice will then be emailed for online payment.

Space is limited to the first 30 people, so register early to guarantee a seat.

 

 

About the presenters:

 

Jennifer Dunphy has provided marketing and public relations expertise to the business community since 2005. She currently manages marketing, public relations and oversees the South American operations of Vayu Media, an interactive marketing agency. Jennifer has extensive experience in public speaking and is often engaged to speak at seminars related to public relations, marketing, social media, SEO, and sales. Prior to joining Vayu Media www.VayuMedia.com  as the VP of Sales & Marketing, she was a corporate sales trainer, and ad account executive for an international publishing company. Jennifer was nominated as one of the Metro Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce Small Business Person of the year in 2009 & again in 2010. She is a Google AdWords authorized professional, as well as a SEMPO-certified Professional.

 

Dorothy (Dotty) M. Pritchett has 15 years of sales experience and more than 7 years of coaching experience. Dotty founded Andrew Grace Associates in 2002, a consulting company that focuses on career development (http://www.andrewgraceassociates.com). Clients appreciate her creative guidance and value her coaching as a positive catalyst for change in their lives.  Her Legal Goddess Network (http://www.legalgoddessnetwork) is a unique community for women lawyers to collaborate in business development. She was the Managing Partner of a division within one of the nation's largest executive search firms.

Dotty graduated with honors from the University of Maryland.  In addition to her membership in the International Coach Federation, Dotty is a member of the Georgia Coaches Association, International Storytelling Network, the Storytelling in Organizations and a coach with ProWin, a professional organization of business women.

 

Google's $4 Million Revenge on a Merchant

What happens when a small business owner gets on Google's bad side? In Ryan Abood's case, the answer is, "your business gets crushed and you spend a year and a half in internet Siberia." Do not trifle with The Google.

Abood kind of had it coming. The proprietor of GourmetGiftBaskets.com had been indirectly buying links to boost his position in Google search results, a big no no in the Google rulebook, he writes in Inc. magazine. But the rulebreaking was inadvertent; Abood said he had paid for ethical search engine optimization only, and one of the two companies (!) he hired to boost his search ranking broke with that policy. The entrepreneur was hardly a Google-gaming pro, in fact he had only thought to dabble in what's known as "SEO" after noticing that his parents' flower shop had done a tidy gift basket business thanks to its organic Google rank.

Crossing Google's guidelines got Abood effectively ejected from search results right before the 2008 holiday season, when he lost close to $2 million in business. He lost another $2 million or so in 2009 and didn't get back atop the search results until June, after Google revamped its search results. Google's Matt Cutts has confirmed the businessman's story via Twitter and added the warning, "our guidelines are clear on this topic." Translation: Let Ryan Abood be a lesson to the rest of you about how Google can bring the pain. Chilling.

There are two different outcomes that many websites or businesses strive for when they market themselves online but which is more important: achieving higher search engine rankings or really building out your business brand in the online space? Both are important and crucial for success online but which do you prefer?

Since the spawn of the search engines many people's mindset has always been to be on page 1. Everything they did online revolved around being on page 1 and we grew with the search engines thinking that the only way a website can succeed is to have high search rankings for their targeted keywords. As a website owner it is important to understand that things have changed, they are changing and they will change even more so it is important to be diverse. For some reason most people are in the mindset of approaching the search engine ranking ranking game with a short term marketing mindset (example: need high rankings by next week). Why is that? Do you plan on keeping your business around for just a short while? Building a brand around your business online will not only help your rankings but it helps you sustain your business well into the future. What is going to happen to your business if you spend all your time simply focused on rankings and all of a sudden Google makes a change where your rankings dip? If you have been simultaneously building your brand online you can weather that storm and keep bringing in new business but if you have been centered on just rankings than you could find yourself knee deep in mud with nowhere to go.

Search engine rankings and brand building should go hand in hand when venturing into the online marketing space. It doesn't matter what your business is building a brand has become even more important than ever before. Things like social media and the recent economic decline have caused businesses to really strengthen their online image. Purchasing behavior has changed and if you have a hard time acknowledging that you might find your business drying up quickly. Don't spend all your time on short term efforts because the long term marketing and branding efforts are just as important.

Well it's official, after months of speculation in the SEO and Internet Marketing world Google Caffeine is now finally here. Unlike the May Day algorithm change Caffeine represents more of a technical indexing adjustment to improve the speed and efficiency with which pages are indexed and served. It a system change at the Google end of the search relationship largely in respect of how data is collected, not what data is collected. As Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land say: "Caffeine itself is not a ranking algorithm change. It's an indexing infrastructure change." She does concede however that: "That doesn't mean that it won't impact rankings."

Perhaps the two main questions raised through the introduction of Caffeine are:

a. What exactly is Caffeine?

b. How can you use the Caffeine update to your advantage?

What is Caffeine?

The internet is far bigger than anyone, even Google, could have predicted. The sheer volume of information and the rate at which new information is now added online is deafening. With the rapid addition of video, images, news, blogs and other forms of quick-fire content the internet is quickly becoming a vast repository of data. All data that needs to be indexed.

In the early days Google would update its index approximately every 4 months. From 2000 this reduced to a 1 month re-indexing.

In 2003 Google switched to an incremental indexing system crawling approximately 10% of the web nightly, indexing it and then and pushing that segment live. Caffeine is the first major change to Google's indexing since then.

Caffeine now analyses small portions of the web on a continuous basis sending it live as soon as it is indexed rather than in batches. A rolling, real-time indexing serving fresh, timely search returns. Matt Cutts draws an analogy where he describes the pre-Caffeine system as the bus that collects you at the airport. The new Caffeine update represents a shiny new limo ready and waiting to which you away to fresh search results. Nice.

According to Google Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than their previous index, so whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now link to fresh, relevant content much quicker than has ever been possible.

Caffeine also massively increases Google's ability to scale up the size of its index. as well as adding more information parameters such as anchor text, meta data, keywords, regional, link information or other signals to help define a page's relevance.

How can you use Caffeine to your advantage?

Google is in a hurry and Caffeine is all about speed. The internet is growing exponentially and to cut through the noise you need to move quickly. Align your offering with Google's ambitions and you will benefit.

Don't waste Google's time with duplicate content. Make it easy by offering your unique content and URLS on a plate through HTML site maps, XML site maps, RSS feeds, Google product feeds. Note the increasing importance of video in modern SEO. Feed the Cafferine index a Video Sitemap with information about your video content. Be sure to flag up video content on your site Google might not otherwise discover. The same applies to Apps. Caffeine makes them visible. A mobile Google Apps search on an Android or iPhone and will quickly and easily return Apps.

The frequency of updating new content is also important. Use social media to keep your content fresh and your site in Google's eye-line. Do yourself a favour too and ensure that your content is original, considered and adds value to the user experience.

Site and hosting speed will also start to factor more as Google looks to scythe through the internet to quickly reach relevant search returns. If you aren't delivering well engineered sites using robust, speedy architecture then expect to lag behind the competition.

Contact Your Atlanta, Georgia SEO Company Vayu Media to develop a strategy taking advantage of these indexing updates.

Himalayan Children's Charities (HCC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing care and education to destitute, orphaned, and abandoned children in Nepal. The charity is based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

The organization was born after a group of Atlanta businessmen visited an orphanage in Kathmandu and decided right then and there that they would each sponsor one of the children as a way of returning the warmth and kindness they had received during their visit to this land called Shangri La. Bruce Keenan, founder of Norcross based ProSys Information Systems is the champion of this cause. Bruce Keenan dedicated many years of his life to grow ProSys from a start up to a $400M company. Now his efforts are fully dedicated to help the less fortunate and provide them with the ability to succeed as well.

HCC works with Nepalese Children's Organization (NCO), a Nepali government entity with six orphanages in various regions throughout the country. The NCO is one of the largest nonprofit child welfare organizations in Nepal, providing at-risk children with shelter, food, clothing, and education.

Jennifer Dunphy, VP of Sales & Marketing of Atlanta SEO Company Vayu Media has joined the effort to build awareness for the charity. "Bruce has been a true supporter of Vayu Media and our company has been dedicated to many charitable activities. We decided to support Himalayan Children's Charities because it reflects the business fabric of Vayu Media. Our company is Atlanta based; however, our employees and partners span the globe. Atlanta is a true international city and it is great to see what kind of impact Atlanta business executives can make" said Jennifer.

The charity currently supports over 40 children. Most of the support comes through the networking of Atlanta entrepreneur and business executive Bruce Keenan. "At these orphanages, we identify children who are most in need and relocate them to English-medium boarding schools in Kathmandu. Here they live in safe environments, are clothed, fed, educated and cared for, have access to modern healthcare, and gain core life values that would typically be taught by parents, such as self-esteem, ethics, integrity, respect, and personal responsibility" explained Bruce Keenan.

Please visit the Himalayan Children's Charities Support Page for more information.

About Vayu Media:

Vayu Media is an Atlanta SEO Company with the expertise to deliver comprehensive SEO services. We offer search engine optimization services that help businesses with a limited or an extensive marketing budget to squeeze out the highest possible return on investment. We develop the right approach based on your budget constraints to maximize your return on investment. Our Atlanta Web Design Company offers search engine friendly web design for Ecommerce, Corporate & 3D web development projects.

Media Contact: Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563 , info (at) vayumedia dot com

The tough economy has put a strain on many marketing budgets in the Atlanta metro area. We all know that the economy will not truly begin to recover until there is a recovery in job creation.  This in turn relies on a solid small to medium size business recovery.  Vayu Media the Atlanta SEO Company may be the answer to a lot of Atlanta metro businesses that are trying to maximize the use of their budgets.  The company is working with businesses that want to get their business growing again by offering free website face lifts or full re-design when the business chooses to use Vayu Media's marketing solutions.  This truly creates a win/win situation to the cash strapped businesses that can avoid investments of $5,000-$15,000 in web design and focus on spending their budget on internet marketing campaigns that will grow their revenue again.

"We are challenging the status quo every day. Our goal has always been to be a partner and not just another vendor to our clients.  The only way we know how to do this is to put ourselves into their shoes and challenge ourselves to find the best solutions for our clients.  This program will help many businesses start growing again in this still challenging business environment" explained Jennifer Dunphy Vayu Media's VP of Sales & Marketing.

If you are a business that is interested in Vayu Media's internet marketing solutions and would like to take advantage of this promotion please contact Jennifer Dunphy:  jdunphy (at) vayumedia(dot)com, (404) 547-0949.

 

About Vayu Media:

Vayu Media is an Atlanta SEO Company with the expertise to deliver comprehensive SEO services. We offer search engine optimization services that help businesses with a limited or an extensive marketing budget to squeeze out the highest possible return on investment. We develop the right approach based on your budget constraints to maximize your return on investment. Our Atlanta Web Design Company offers search engine friendly web design for Ecommerce, Corporate & 3D web development projects.

 

 

Media Contact:

Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563 , info (at) vayumedia dot com

Search Engine Optimization Company is expanding their business development activities in Pennsylvania.

Atlanta, GA January 7th, 2010 - Vayu Media is expanding their sales agent offices responsible for search engine optimization in Pennsylvania. This move is following a strong 2009 top line performance. Vayu Media's 2009 growth has been primarily focused on the South East. Jennifer Dunphy VP of Sales and Marketing has been the force behind the top line revenue growth for the internet marketing company. The company's focus has been to corner the South Eastern US market initially. The strong response from the Atlanta metro area forced the company to accelerate its expansion plans. "We love Atlanta and we moved into the heart of Atlanta to support our growth initiative in the South East. However, our business has been growing nationally and internationally. In 2010 we will be focusing on expanding our foot print across the United States." said Jennifer. To support this strategy the company has accelerated the recruitment of search engine optimization and internet marketing business development specialists. One of the areas where the company has been able get quickly out of the gates is in Pennsylvania.

If you're interested in Vayu Media's Pennsylvania search engine optimization services or if you're a business development professional please visit the company's website at VayuMedia.com or contact the company directly at info (at) vayumedia.com.

About Vayu Media:

VayuMedia.com

Vayu Media is the premier company for internet advertising using search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Vayu Media is taking advantage of the consumer shift from traditional media to internet based marketing. The company's focus is local online business marketing and web design services. The company's strategy to get out into the market place and consult with local businesses face to face has allowed it to make local business owners aware of the opportunity that exists online. In order to stay relevant in today's market every local business must have an online marketing strategy and Vayu Media can help.

Media Contact: Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (404)-547-0949, jdunphy (at) vayumedia dot com

The key thing to understand about how search engines work is that they index pages, not websites. In that regard, every page rises or falls on its own merits. On-page search engine optimization is an important factor for every single page on your website. So too is off-page optimization or link building.

That means that any inbound links you have pointing to a page are going to be considered by the search engine algorithm for the purposes of PageRank and ranking. While inbound links from other websites will carry more overall weight, if they are good links, you can't discount internal links. Those will often be your first inbound links to every page. But the most important inbound link to your website (indeed, to every page on your site) is that first inbound link from elsewhere.

No web page at all will get crawled and indexed without at least one inbound link. If your site is up and ready and has a great internal link structure but no inbound links from anywhere else then you all you have is a great site in a vacuum. It won't get crawled. You need at least one inbound link from somewhere to any page on your site. Then, that page will get crawled and every page on your site linked to from that page will get crawled as well as any pages linked to from those pages.

Once you get that first page indexed then any inbound links from within your site will get crawled and the other pages indexed. That doesn't mean you should build one inbound link from somewhere else then stop. But it does illustrate how critical that first inbound link is to your website.

After that first link, your internal site navigation links are pretty much like any other inbound link. They'll be judged on anchor text, link age, domain age, page age, relevancy, and all the other factors that every other inbound link is judged by. Do they pass PageRank? Yes. Do affect PageRank? Yes. But if you're sitting at PR 0, how's that going to help you?

When it comes to link building, you need to think long term. Build a diverse link portfolio, but don't count out your own website

In the past, business used the Web  primarily for Brochure Web Sites. These are  simple web sites which provide information about the business, its products and services.

Even in those early days of the Web, having your web site found and visited was a significant obstacle due to the number of web sites online. Thus the advent of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Today, the user generated content of Web 2.0 has caused an explosion of content on the Internet, making it even more difficult to "Be Found".

Why Search Engine Optimization
Search, using Search Engines, is still the most popular method to find the products, services and information required by Internet users. Therefore, if your web content is to be discovered by Internet users, obtaining good visibility in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is imperative.

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization is the process of fine tuning web sites, Blogs and other online content to achieve visibility by obtaining rankings in the first three pages of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.

The Black and White of SEO
Search Engines have "Terms of Service" which outline the techniques which are acceptable to improve the visibility of web site content in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Black Hat SEO are the techniques used by unethical companies and consultants to trick the Search Engines into giving web content high visibility in the SERPs, when in actual fact it has not gained the required relevance and authority for inclusion. Black Hat SEO can actually get you unlisted and banned from major search engines like Google.

White Hat SEO are the techniques used by ethical companies and consultants to improve the development and quality of web content so it will obtain high visibility in the SERPs within the guidelines set out by the Search Engine's "Terms of Service".

The Search Engine Algorithm

An Algorithm has been defined by Princeton University as "a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem".

Although the Search Engine Algorithms evaluate numerous On-page (located on the web page itself) and Off-page (not located on the web page itself) elements to determine SERPs placement, the two primary elements of the Algorithm's evaluation are Relevancy and Authority.

Topical Relevance
Search Engines determine Relevance by evaluating the keywords and phrases used in the Search Query and comparing those keywords to web pages indexed in the Search Engine's database.

On completion of an analysis process which evaluates numerous On-page web page elements, the Search Engine delivers the results considered to be most relevant to the searched topic.

Topical Authority
In addition to Relevance Search Engines also factor in how authoritative the web content is perceived to be.

The Search Engine Algorithms evaluate numerous Off-page elements to determine how authoritative an item of web content is. The two primary factors determining authority are the number of links leading to the web content and the age of the Domain Registration.

On-Page Optimization
The purpose of On-page Optimization is to develop web content that is highly relevant to a specific topic through targeted keyword use.

The fundamentals of On-page Optimization are Keyword Research and the integration of keywords into web content in a Search Engine friendly manner. Although you are developing content which is Search Engine friendly, the first consideration must be for the human users.

The principle of On-page Optimization is the development of high quality topic relevant content which captivates the web site visitors' attention.

Off-Page Optimization
The purpose of Off Page Optimization is to increase the Authority of your web content. Increasing the Authority of your content is much more difficult and time consuming than optimizing for Relevancy. The primary technique used to improve Authority is developing a network of inbound links to your web site and content (Backlinks).

Search Engine Algorithms view Backlinks as a vote of confidence in the web site and its content. Similar to an election, the more votes, the more perceived confidence in the candidate, which in this case is the web site. In many cases the content with the most Backlinks has the highest visibility in the SERPs.

Search Optimization - Process Outline

A brief outline of the major considerations of any Search Optimization Program includes:

Web Site Analysis: A review of the web site's development code to ensure web sites are easily accessed and indexed by the Search Engines.

Keyword Research and Analysis: Research into the terms used by Internet users to find products, services and information. A couple of tools you can use for this are WordTracker and Google Insights for Search.

Keyword Research and Analysis also investigates the competitive environment surrounding the keyword or phrase such as:

How many web sites are targeting the keyword and phrase

The strength of the currently ranking web pages

Content Development: Developing well structured, keyword rich, content is a primary function of Organic Search Engine Optimization. The On-page Optimization of your web page with topical well integrated keywords is the most powerful Search Optimization technique you control.

Link Building Program: Link building is one of the most time consuming Search Engine Optimization tasks. However, it is a task you cannot do without. A Link Building Program includes numerous methods to obtain inbound links to your web site:

Giving other web sites a reason to link to you is imperative to the success of your Link Building program.

Web sites link to good content which is relevant and beneficial to their own web site visitors.

Developing high value, highly relevant content in Blogs, Online Press Releases and Article Submissions is the most effective Link Building technique available.

Other Link Building techniques include:

Directory Submissions

Social Bookmarking and Social Recommendation Sites

- Digg
- Stumbleupon
- Delicious

Request links from complimentary but non competitive web sites

Naturally, you want to link your Website to your Blog and your Blog to your Website. In fact, you want to link every element in the Web 2.0 marketing graphic to every other element possible building a spider web of links and cross-links.

Word of Caution: Beware of so called "SEO Experts" that promise you hundreds of links in a short period of time. Although they do exist and can get you short-term increases in the SERPS, "link farms" can get you unlisted and banned from major search engines like Google.

The Search Engine Optimization Program

The Search Optimization process is complex and time consuming. How you approach your business's SEO Program will depend on the human and financial resources available to your company.

Out Sourcing SEO
Out sourcing your Optimization Program to a Search Engine Optimization Consultant is often the most cost efficient and productive method to achieve your desired Online business objectives.

There is no denying Search Optimization is complex and ever changing. SEO Consultants work in the industry on a daily basis, noting the changing search environment and developing the experience and knowledge to recognize the problems and opportunities for business web sites.

It is this experience that only a SEO Professional can offer, the average business owner may have the will to develop, initiate and complete an Optimization Program, but rarely has the insight into the industry to ensure a positive result for the time and resources required.

In House SEO
In many cases the expense of a SEO Consultant may be beyond the budgeting constraints of the business. In these cases completing the SEO program In House or using a Hybrid In-house/ Outsourced combination may be the solution.

Before you initiate an In-house solution consideration must be given to the human and financial resources required. Do you have the expertise? How will working on a SEO Program affect your ability to complete the core business tasks required to keep your business running?

Should your business opt for an In-house solution it is imperative from the outset to identify goals and develop a step by step program to assure all elements are investigated and tasks completed in an organized manner.

The Last Word
Search Engine Optimization is an important aspect of your business's online activities. SEO cannot be overlooked and regardless of your circumstances if your content is going to be viewed by the public some form of Search Engine Optimization is a prerequisite.

Contact today Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563 , info (at) vayumedia dot com to get more information on our full service SEO services.

E-commerce applications for Web sites can take thousands of hours to build, and require patience and determination on the part of the organization awaiting its "new toy." The end result of such a project can be beautiful, much like a custom motorcycle or hot rod may look to an owner once completed.

Unfortunately, these product-shuffling and category-dealing applications can also wreak havoc for automated search engine crawlers out to index sites leveraging these applications. This can lead to less-than optimal performance for the site's pages within search engine results for related queries.

As with large-scale Web site designs and redesigns, putting SEO off until after the fact can be a costly mistake. An internal case study showed an example where a site owner could have saved in excess of $100,000 by incorporating SEO into the interactive design plan instead of going back and making changes to an existing site to implement SEO best practices.

Over the past few months, our SEO team has worked on redesigns of three sites using IBM Websphere Commerce for e-commerce functionality. We've also advised on Microsoft applications being developed for clients, in order for the end product to be "SEO-friendly."

It's important to clearly delineate between "SEO-friendly" and "optimized," because statements of work have to be explicit in describing the final product. Typically, SEO-friendly means that the application will be scalable should a full SEO initiative be launched in the future. Optimized means enterprise-level SEO was performed during the development of the application, and the finished product is more likely to rank within search engines.

Let's look at three high-level topics to consider if you plan to include SEO in business requirements for the development of an e-commerce application: internal process, out-of-the-box functionality, and content equity.

Internal Process

Unique teams from our Java/IBM Practice and our Search Practice work on all three of the Websphere Commerce Projects, with a little overlap at the management/executive level. Naturally, it's difficult to easily transfer learnings and experiences from one team to another in real time, but the common SEO bond has helped speed up some of this sharing. Post-project feedback sessions are crucial to for future efficiencies.

Each of the project teams has slightly different internal communication dynamics, but one common bond is the use of tracking tasks and their corresponding owners.

Some businesses rely on documentation of business requirements clearly explaining the "what" prior to getting to the "how." If there's no smooth system to ensure that issues are being resolved, it could be a nightmare for a project manager to stay on top of things and properly prioritize. Without this order, it would also be difficult to work in the SEO requirements and best practices because developers who don't have the skill set may overlook SEO ramifications.

Out-of-the-Box Functionality

Some e-commerce applications developers actually pause to consider SEO, and they're often rewarded when they find that many systems, including Websphere Commerce, have some additional functionality that they describe as "SEO-friendly." Using these out-of-the-box (OOTB) features can certainly be very helpful when it comes to designing a more search-friendly application. However, they aren't silver bullets. Our technical engineer has openly questioned some of the OOTB recommendations of some applications as being potentially more harmful than helpful.

If you plan to use the OOTB SEO features of any e-commerce application, run the ideas past an engineer with deep and current SEO technical knowledge. Although many features are helpful, some are potentially risky from a Webmaster guidelines standpoint. Websphere Commerce has an OOTB URL rewrite that, if done properly, makes the URLs look much cleaner than most WC sites. However, in terms of a continuum, the OOTB rewrite is still several stages away from the optimal optimized URL.

Content Equity

Content is still king, albeit sometimes ruled by his queen, linking. At the root, many e-commerce applications simply collect and distribute related products onto a dynamically generated page. Often, there is no consideration made for HTML content that describes the particular product other than the database-driven short and possibly long descriptions.

Unfortunately, in many cases this content is essentially "stock," and already has been published on countless pages across the Internet. Taking the time to create unique product descriptions can be very valuable.

At the category level and higher, place additional descriptive content on each page. This should help you gain traction within the search engine results for category-type terms.

Content equity is an idea I use to describe how this content actually ends up on a page. Most would think that every bit of content should be able to be controlled (as in the physical placement of the content on the page) by one system. Although in some cases this is true, there are often multiple areas on the backend that could be used to enter text onto the page.

Without getting into the technical specifics, it's important to understand that not all content is equal, and that it may need to get on to the site through a CMS or be coded into the page through a developer.

There are hundreds of considerations when building an e-commerce application, and SEO should be on that list, if you plan to rely on search engine-referred organic traffic. Ideally, the application should be at least SEO-friendly, if not fully optimized, when it comes off the showroom floor.

About Vayu Media:

 

VayuMedia.com

 

Vayu Media is the premier company for local internet advertising using search engine marketing and local search engine optimization. Vayu Media is taking advantage of the consumer shift from traditional media to internet based marketing.  The company's focus is local online business marketing and web design services. The company's strategy to get out into the market place and consult with local businesses face to face has allowed it to make local business owners aware of the opportunity that exists online.  In order to stay relevant in today's market every local business must have an online marketing strategy and Vayu Media can help.

Media Contact:

Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563 , info (at) vayumedia dot com

 

 

Bankrate's CEO invested in search engine optimization to bolster revenues and profits. Wayne Gattinella, WebMD's CEO and president, values SEO as a key driver of his internet marketing strategy.

There's no question that Bankrate and WebMD live or die by their Internet strategy. What about more traditional companies? Does SEM make a big impact on businesses with a strong brick-and-mortar presence?

Let's look at three companies with varying degrees of digital presence: La-Z-Boy, D&B, and UTI. Each CEO took time during recent earnings calls to discuss their digital strategies with Wall Street analysts.

President and Chief Executive Officer of La-Z-Boy, Kurt Darrow, reviewed his company's initiatives to leverage the Internet during the F3Q08 (Qtr End 01/26/08) earnings call.

As is the case with most savvy companies, Darrow understands that SEM requires continuous improvement. He spelled out his initiatives and backed them with hard data. One measure of his success? Traffic to the site increased by double digits during the past several months. Online registrations also increased dramatically during a two-week period.

"First, we are increasing our traffic to our Web site through improved search engine optimization and paid search marketing. These actions, combined with our new marketing campaign, have increased unique visitors to our site over the last few months by more than 35 percent. Second, we are implementing tools that will encourage our customers online to provide us with their contact information enabling us to regularly send them information on La-Z-Boy products, services, and sales via e-mail.

For example, during our recent armchair quarterback national sales event we had more than 60,000 register online during the two weeks of that promotion. The third piece is to ensure the experience we provide to our consumers on the Web meets their expectations."

Consumers are looking for more than Flash animations and pretty pictures. Online retail consumers want value. They want information on the products they're researching.

"We are working on a strategy to leverage our site with online pricing and sales capabilities. With more and more consumers using the Internet to either look at furniture before purchase or to actually make a purchase, we are excited about the prospects of ecommerce and believe it will not only increase our visibility, but make it easier for the consumer to do business with our company."

Other companies are turning to the Internet for key acquisitions to drive their digital strategy. For example, D&B recently purchased AllBusiness.com after the successful acquisition of Hoover's.

The President and COO of Dun & Bradstreet, Sara Mathew, cited Hoover's as a model acquisition during her Q4 2007 earnings call. The reason she's bullish on the AllBusiness.com buyout has more to do with search marketing than almost any other factor.

Hoover's has proven to be a model acquisition for us and we will apply these lessons to ensure similar positive results from AllBusiness.com, which we acquired last month. As a reminder, AllBusiness is an online media and e-commerce company that operates one of the premier business sites on the Web. It leverages a proprietary publishing platform and a broad range of content to help users run their small businesses better.

And it brings a number of exciting new capabilities to D&B, including expertise and search engine optimization as well as search engine marketing. With the combined power of AllBusiness, Hoover's and First Research, we are confident in our ability to continue to drive strong double-digit revenue growth from our Internet segment in 2008.

The President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Technical Institute, (UTI) Kimberly J. McWaters highlighted SEM during her recent Q1 2008 earnings call. As a business that relies on the Internet, UTI targets a young audience and measures daily unique visitors and site traffic. She stated:

In late December 2007, UTI launched a new Web site, UTI.edu, designed to relate to the critical Gen Y audience and key influencers on a more contemporary level. Early indications are optimistic, as traffic is up 104 percent versus a year ago in terms of visits during the month of January. Unique visitors are up 85 percent. This growth is attributed to a complete Web site redesign supported by a national advertising campaign promoting the URL, UTI.edu.

More important than traffic, though, is how UTI is driving visitors to their flagship site. Again, search engines play the key role. In fact, Ms. McWaters describes "natural search" as a "critical area" of her business strategy.

In the critical areas of natural search, UTI site visitation is up 800 percent versus the same period in the prior year. Given the reliance on premium price lead vendors, the success in obtaining free visitors to the site has the potential of growing into a competitive advantage for UTI. The growth in natural search visitation is attributed to the new SEO strategy employed at UTI.

About Vayu Media:

 

VayuMedia.com

 

Vayu Media is the premier company for local internet advertising using search engine marketing and local search engine optimization. Vayu Media is taking advantage of the consumer shift from traditional media to internet based marketing.  The company's focus is local online business marketing and web design services. The company's strategy to get out into the market place and consult with local businesses face to face has allowed it to make local business owners aware of the opportunity that exists online.  In order to stay relevant in today's market every local business must have an online marketing strategy and Vayu Media can help.

Media Contact:

Jennifer Dunphy, Vayu Media LLC, (800)-456-1563 , info (at) vayumedia dot com

The more I perform search engine optimization tasks for myself and my clients the more I realize just how important keyword research is. It is so important that I wouldn't think of doing anything online until I have performed thorough keyword research and I'm satisfied that after having done this step of the process that I can settle on a particular niche or sub-niche based on my findings. Just to be clear, I wouldn't go any further into the marketing process until I was sure that I had done enough keyword research.

Whether you are going to use your research for search engine optimization or pay per click advertising campaign, it is a vital step in the process. Even if you are conducting social media marketing, keyword research can be helpful. You don't want to leave it out.

Here are some of the things that keyword research can help you make decisions on before you even start your marketing:

-The specific niche you want to serve

-Are there any lucrative sub-niches within your niche?

-What the most powerful and profitable keywords within your niche are

-What keywords your competitors are focusing on

-Keyword trending over periods of time

-You can identify keywords that are not useful to you at all

-Potential negative keywords for use in PPC

-How much you can expect to spend on your marketing efforts with the keywords you are planning to target

-Which keywords can easily be placed into groups for more effective management

As you can see, identifying the right keywords is very important - and, I might add, profitable. This step of the marketing process is so important that I wouldn't even think about marketing online until I've done it to satisfaction.

 

Once you have a web presence, the next thing you have to focus on his how to drive traffic to your site. Whether you are trying to sell products or services directly from your website or if is simply an informational resource, the site won't do your business any good if people don't visit it. To benefit from your website, you'll need to find a way to direct people who have the potential to become customers for your business to your website. There are several inexpensive and free techniques that any website owner can use to attract website visitors.

1. Use the Right Keywords

Make sure that your website content and behind-the-scenes code includes the right keyphrases and key words. To do this, you'll need to find out what types of words and phrases people who are looking for what you have to offer are using when they conduct internet searches. There are several online tools that can help you identify highly searched terms. Overture and Nichebot are two of the most popular keyword research tools.

When you discover the types of things that your customer base is searching for, make sure to incorporate the phrases that they use into the text of your website as well as into the meta tags in your website's code. This will help your site show up higher in the results when people are using search engines to look for information or vendors.

2. Frequent Updates

It's also important to keep your website fresh. Many people make the mistake of thinking that once their website "goes live", it's finished. This is far from the truth. Your website will need to be updated with new content regularly. You need to keep the information on the site current, and it's also a good idea to add new features to the site periodically.

You can do this by including an articles section that contains useful information, as well as adding your newsletter, details about special promotions, upcoming events, etc.  You may even want to add a blog or a forum. This will help search engines evaluate your site more favorably, and encourage people who have visited the site before to return frequently.

3. Link Building

Creating links to your website from other locations is another great way to increase traffic, in terms of direct traffic and boosting how high your site ranks when people search for the types of products and services that your company provides. There are several ways to build links to your site.

Consider spending some time on forums that are frequented by the people that you are trying to reach. Participate in the discussion and include a link to your website in your signature line. You may also want to contact individuals who own websites that reach the same customers you are targeting but who do not directly compete with you and offer to exchange links. These are just a few of the many ways you can build links to your company's website.

The Process of Building Traffic
Traffic building is an ongoing process. It's important to always be focused on finding new ways to attract visitors to your website if you want it to play a role in helping you grow your business.

Article by Mary White (Small Business News)

 

If you want your message to get out to your customers in Atlanta, Google search engine optimization is something you need to work on. Getting at or near the top of Google will bring more free traffic to your site than almost any other form of internet marketing. However, ranking well on Google, or the other major search engines is not an easy task.

While it is possible to do the work on your own to push your site up the Google rankings, for most people that is not something they want to take on. Some people get lucky, and things just seem to fall into place, but that is the exception rather than the rule some other prefer and Atlanta Google Search Engine Optimization company. To consistently get websites to rank well on the different search engines takes a bit of expertise, and unless you study the different search engines and how they rank sites, you will probably not be very effective on your own.

Although from the users perspective the different search engines work the same, under the hood they are operate differently. For users, you just type your search term into the box and the search engine brings you a list of sites. You may have noticed that different search engines bring you different results. The list of sites on Google will be different than the list you get on Yahoo or MSN. That is because each search engine uses different criteria to determine how to rank sites. If you are not aware what the different services are looking for, you will be constantly struggling to see your site near the top.

It takes time to not only learn about the different search engines, but also to actually implement what you have learned. An Atlanta effective search engine optimization is not a 5-minute fix that will bring ongoing results. It requires making changes to the content on your website, and then creating the proper links back to your site so that the search phrases you selected get noticed.

If you want to be found by people searching for restaurants in Atlanta, keyword phrases that will be found by your local customers is critical to your success. Having your site rank well for "new menu design" probably will not bring new customers, and would be a waste of your time and money.

In order to increases the chances of getting your site to the top of Google's listings in the keyword phrase you chose, you probably will need to find someone that is experienced in Atlanta SEO services. They not only have the knowledge to get your site optimized, they have also learned how to put that knowledge into practice.

In order to reach the local audience in and around Atlanta, search engine optimization aimed at your potential customers is a must. If your customers can not find your site, they may end up going to your competitor, and that is not good for your business. Getting your site to the top may be the most effective use of your marketing dollars.

Vayu Media headquartered out of Atlanta is offering online video marketing services to enhance its clients video search engine optimization.

 

 

Atlanta, GA April 12 2009

 

Why should Video Marketing be included in your marketing mix?

Online video marketing strategy is one of the best venues to engage an audience - don't even think about excluding it!  This new medium allows the video creator to communicate a message on multiple levels - via visual imagery, the spoken word, music and visual text. It may sound like a commercial for a Montessori school - but this is the way people learn, and consequently, the way legendary brands are created.  As a case in point, think of traditional internet marketing; when was the last time that a paid search listing or banner ad raised your blood pressure or induced you to forward something to a friend?  Get the point?

 

With online video marketing you can also reach a huge audience for a minimal investment, thus the ROI of online video marketing can be astounding.  Consider that according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau; more than 50% of the US population will watch video online next year.  That's 155.2 million people, and we're just talking the US!  Increasingly, people are watching a lot of video as well.  According to comScore, Americans watched 9 billion online videos just in the month of July.

 

Like everything else, there is no "free lunch" - the video-sharing sites don't charge to host your content, but getting your target audience to watch and forward your video is no easy feat.  That's where we come in.  "Since we are tracking videos across the major video-sharing and social networking sites, we know a thing or two about what works and what doesn't" stated Jennifer Dunphy VP of Sales for Vayu Media.

 

 

Vayu Media's local online marketing products include:

 

- Video Advertising, Flash Video Advertising & Article Press Release management

 

- Local Search Engine Optimization & PPC management

 

- Internet Marketing Products - Blog Development & Management, Social Marketing

 

If you're interested in Vayu Media's  local search engine marketing & web design services  please visit the company's website at VayuMedia.com or contact the company directly at info (at) vayumedia.com.