SEM for a BMX video website

Recently we were asked to give some recommendations for a BMX video website to assist with driving more traffic to the main site. Here’s what we said they should do:

Soulbmx website SEM

Traffic/SEM:

· General SEO

· Back links from industry related websites

· Forum activity

· Video sharing sites

· Live internet tv sites

· Human edited directories

· Image sharing

· Social networking

· Press releases

· Wiki’s/factual articles

· New content

· Newsletters

· PPC campaigns for Adwords, Yahoo and MSN

· Classified internet advert campaign

· Ezines and other online media publications

· Papers, magazines and other advertising

· Adsense advertising

· Blogging

· Google tools, Google sites, Google pages

· Online shop to sell associated products (gives presence on Google product search and Ebay shop)

In no particular order, the following recommendations are proven methods of internet marketing which drive traffic to any website.

General SEO:

Meta tags need tweaking page per page, header tags also need looking at with more site associated titles, sub-titles used. More text content should be added, FAQ’s added and the news section should be added to as often as possible to give Google new content to index each time the site is crawled.

Back Links:

Integral part of search engine marketing to enable page rank and to drive traffic from other sites. Reciprocal link campaigns with bike related websites also worth thinking about.

Forum activity:

Forums are great for back links and also to advertise the main site. Perhaps even add a proper forum to the community pages on the Soulbmx.tv site. Forum posts help with getting back links, to advertise competitions etc and also for the general promotion of any website. There are a lot of bike and BMX or sport related forums out there that can be used to increase internet presence in a big way.

Video sharing sites:

The usual suspects like Youtube.com, Yahoo video and Dailymotion.com are great examples. Videos from the main site can be posted using RSS/API feeds or by hand and they assist hugely with increasing internet presence, driving traffic and obtaining good quality back links. Other potential members can also be sourced by searching for their BMX videos on these sites.

Internet TV sites:

Justin.tv and Sopcast.com are good examples where one can start ones own internet TV channel. Live streams can be started to show latest clips or live bike shows, videos can be posted and groups can be started which all help with the widening of Soulbmx.tv internet presence as well as creating something different for existing and potential new members to take part in.

Human edited directories:

These are a must for improving page rank and back links. Dmoz.org is the best example as Google uses it for its directory. Listings can be added on a regular basis to the highly ranked directories.

Image sharing:

Picasaweb, Flickr and also the social networking sites all have image sharing platforms where images can be posted either by hand or with API/RSS feeds. These are great when used correctly with quality, relevant tags as images associated with the main site are then shown in image searches and you will find that people start to use your images more. Copyright issues and permissions need to be thought out carefully!

Social networking:

Social network accounts are a no-brainer! For your particular industry and the fact that you want more members ALL possible social network accounts must be started and built on day by day. Groups, bulletins, images and videos, Blogs and more can be started and friends can be added so that more traffic is driven on a daily basis to the main site.

Press releases:

These are great ways to get back links to the main site and also to advertise absolutely everything about what is happening on the main site. There are thousands of sites which can be used and as long as new PR is wrote and published regularly, they assist well with SEM

Wiki’s and factual articles:

Listings on Wikipedia.com are a good example of helping with driving traffic to an existing site. As long as the articles are factual and don’t blatantly advertise a product or a service then they are mostly accepted. Existing members can be invited to add to the articles or to post their own on the main site and then these articles can be added to the exterior sites.

New content:

As mentioned above, new content is imperative to assist with achieving and sustaining high placements in search engine listings for any website. Members can be encouraged to post Blogs, image, videos via competitions or prize draws and then this new content can be added across the board on all of the sites/posts that Soulbmx.tv maintains. The news section should be added to on a regular basis and every newsletter sent out can also be posted across the board.

Newsletters:

Newsletters should be sent out at least once a month to existing members. They can also be used for attracting new members to the main site by approaching other organizations associated with bikes and BMX’s (shops, clubs and other websites) and inviting them to join/sign up to the main site. Data can be purchased which lists all these relevant organizations and then emails can be sent, snail-mail outs posted and the newsletter content added to the news section on the main site.

PPC (pay per click) campaigns:

This form of internet marketing can be used to great effect to really kick start the main website. Adverts can be run for a limited period to attract new visitors on Google Adwords, Yahoo and MSN. Paying for adverts on other sites like Facebook.com or highlighted listings on classified sites are also really worth thinking about as they can really start a major influx of new traffic and new members to the main site.

Classified internet adverts:

This is a tried and trusted method of driving traffic and obtaining back links. There are thousands upon thousands of classified sites out there which allow free posting of adverts on them. Most are geographic targeted but new pages can be added to the main site for each country/geographic area with perhaps a contact person/administrator chosen to deal with new enquiries from the adverts.

Ezines and online media publications:

There are a multitude of online publications out there on the net which would definitely be very glad to hear from Soulbmx.tv. Back links can be obtained and a share of their traffic. Sports Ezines and other similar genre related publications can be chosen and then approached with either a newsletter or personally, which would perhaps ensure a better response.

Papers, magazines and other advertising:

A presence in genre related magazines is always good. It is worth contacting all possible BMX and biking magazines to let them know about Soulbmx.tv and perhaps get some stories running in them about the site. It is also worth budgeting for running small adverts in these sorts of publications with references to the website and other online activites.

Adsense:

Adsense can help to generate revenue to pay for advertising like the above or for the PPC campaigns. The more site visitors, the more potential clicks you could get on the Adsense adverts which advertise other websites on your site. It is easy to set up and quite simple to maintain and also can be added to Blogs and other online activities.

Blogging:

Blogging is again, a no-brainer. It simply has to be done! Blogs can be set up both on the main site and on third party hosting sites and content can be posted regularly by the Soulbmx.tv team as well as members who are interested in guest Blog posts. Blogs are always great back links as they are controlled by the writers and they offer a more personal view of what happens behind the scenes of any company which helps with attracting new members.

Google tools:

Google offer a variety of different tools to assist with indexing a given websites content, driving more traffic and increasing internet presence in general. Some of the tools are being used already but they could do with more time being spent on them to optimize their true performance. Google Maps is being used but there should maybe be a maps section for every country where members are from. Administrators can be chosen from new and existing members and their contact details added to Maps to ensure a wider presence.

Other Google tools include:

• Google Analytics
• Google Webmaster tools
• Google sites (was Page Creator)
• Blogger
• Google video
• Adsense and Adwords (as mentioned above)
• Google Maps and local business listings
• Google groups (could be a great addition for your members to post on)
• Orkut (Google’s social network platform)
• Picasa (Photo sharing)
• Google book search partner program (for future paper/online publications from Soulbmx.tv)
• Google Base (for products, reviews, stories and more)

Online shop:

The main site does have a form of a shop at the moment but it’s not very good/user friendly. A new shop should be built, perhaps as a separate entity from the main site which will help with back linking selling product associated with bikes and BMX and also clothing. This could be a fantastic source of revenue and also encourages more traffic as one can obtain a presence on Google product search (Google Base), set up an Ebay store and also advertise individual products with back links to the main site.

Click here to visit IC247 for assistance with your website!

Search Engine Wars

Microsoft + Yahoo versus Google – or are there yet more others out there?????

We’ve all heard the news and have seen how Microsoft have put in an offer to forge some sort of new partnership with Yahoo in a bid to bite into Google’s hold in the online marketing business world but what will it mean for all those whose businesses rely on the world wide web for some or all of their revenue?

Well, IC247 have always maintained that it’s important to try to get a presence on all of the search engines and this is an integral part of any form of internet marketing strategy that we initiate with any contact. It stands to reason that one should look to milk all opportunities to promote and gain more custom right across the board – no matter what your industry or your genre/needs!

As things stand Google is the ultimate leader in most aspects of internet search marketing; their range of tools is outstanding. Whether it’s pay per click with Adwords, advertising your shops products for free  on Google Product Search or if you want to Blog and post videos or photos for the world to see, Google really have taken the reigns and led internet searching into a whole new dimension.

Microsoft/MSN have always been there and they always will because the guys there have the cash and the presence to really get it on. We all know about the need and then the arguments for and against Windows and this proves conclusively that one must never discount the power of Microsoft.

Yahoo were once the big boys: They ruled the world with regards to the internet and everyone had an account with them and everyone strived to climb their rankings but…. they let it go and why was this? Well, a new upstart came on the scene (Google) and started to kick butt with their innovative and economically sound ideas regarding our views and habits with internet searching, surfing and marketing.

The outsider was Ask (or Ask Jeeves, as they once were known) and they slid in on the peripheral boundaries of search engine marketing providing us all with results that were….hmm, OK. They have themselves embarked on a recent promotional campaign featuring their version of a new and enhanced search experience and it’s a nice idea but is it enough to carve a slice into the search engine industry? Maybe it is but hell, they sure must have spent some money making all those UK TV adverts for someone to search online… Enough said!

OK, let’s not forget about our beautiful friend Wikipedia; the provider of factual information for you, me, our kids with their homework and also another powerful internet big boy flexing their muscles recently with their Wikia search. Google’s Matt Cutts recently wished them well with their foray into the internet search engine industry and this, we feel, is where the buck stops – the reason for so much volcanic movement amongst the big players.

It’s widely known that Wikipedia are the encyclopaedic Bible for factual information with their better than 98% truth rate on factual information. If those guys want to start a search engine then it makes us happy here at IC247 as they are one of the forerunners in the future of the internet. Call it Web 2.0, call it us using the machine or call it what you want – factual information rules.

With the emergence of the Mobile internet industry there is a new battlefield for all of these search engines but it’s all about the content shown on any website, on any search engine, which brings me to my most important point:

ANY search engine will always look for relevant information, topical, well presented and text that is in tandem with your genre and as long as you can provide this then you have a fantastic starting point. If you couple this together with a well compiled web page that has its coding optimised so that all these different search engines can access it and index it properly then you will be winning before you know it!

Once you have got to grips with the above then IC247 recommend looking at all the different tools available from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Wikia to help you to further promote your well written content and increase visitors and clicks on your informative web pages – no matter what happens with search engines coming together, fighting or starting new ideas!

Contact IC247 for an informal chat about how we can help you improve your internet commerce.

IC247 January Newsletter Promotion

Internet Promotion January Newsletter

IC247
IC247 Inter Communication – One World, more information to share with one another
IC247’s services include

Free website evaluation with a concise breakdown of what your website needs for better presence on organic search engine results

SEM (search engine marketing) including:

* Back link sourcing campaigns
* Internet advert campaigns
* Directory listing
* Web 2.0 social networking campaigns (Youtube, Picasa, WordPress, Blogger etc)
* Press release, E-zine and online articles
* Google tools (Base, Product Search, Local Business etc)

Keyword rich text copy-write including:

* Blogs
* Internet articles
* Website content
* Adverts and PR

Website design and build including:

* E-commerce websites
* Informative websites
* Database driven websites
* XML based CMS (content management system) websites

PPC (pay per click) campaign management:

* Complete pay per click management
* Optimised and efficient campaigns with streamlined budgets and keyword analysis

Hosting, Network and server management:

* Small Business Server installation
* Windows Server 2003
* ISA Server
* Gigabit Network installation and management
* Website hosting with sharepoint and SQL databases

Direct marketing including:

* Data supply (company information targeted for geographic area and industry)
* Telesales and telemarketing (national or international multi-lingual)
* Newsletter emails and “snail mail” outs

Why not take advantage of our New Year special offer:

* 50 internet directory listings (website URL, contact information and company description where applicable)
* 50 internet adverts on highly ranked classified advert sites (website URL, description of product or service, contact details and logo where applicable)

ALL for the introductory offer of £150.00
A great way to kick-start your internet promotion for 2008!

Feel free to contact one of the IC247 team here for an informal discussion about how we can assist you in increasing your internet presence, generate potential clients and improve your search engine positioning.

Directory listings: IC247’s views on the subject

Listings on Directories

How it helps gain more online presence:

There are a lot of benefits to adding your own listings to highly ranked directories, no doubt about it. First and foremost, it’s about choosing the real good directories that will help you with good quality back links and give you a good platform where a large amount of people will see what you are offering. Some of them will enable you to add an in depth desription of your business or service as well as back links to your own website whereas others will just let you add a brief description of what you do.
At the end of the day these sites help you promote yourself better across the board and will, once you have added your listing, assist you in obtaining more traffic via shares of their own website visitors. You know how IC247 go on and on about back links and Web 2.0? Well. this is a part of what we carry on about and as much as you think it all takes too much time, it’s really worth the effort.
You see, if you have a website (which is great) then you need to encourage others to be able to access your website and the things that you offer. Adding your site or your company description to a directory will help you to do this. IC247 strongly advise all of our contacts and customers to take the time to physically look on the different search engines, determine the best directories and then add sites/services/listings to these websites. Promotion of any aspect (as long as it’s legal and won’t get you penalised by the search engines is good, come on…..)
The way the WWW (world wide web) is evolving means that we all as users are now able to add or share content as we wish. This was the initial idea for the Internet; a democratic information source where we as individuals are able to access information at the click of a fingertip…. OK, so we all know we can get the information we look for – the natural progression is to be able to add the information we want for others to view it. There are many steps to do this and directory listings help!
Human edited directories such as dmoz are excellent ways to get yourself a great presence and get your site added to Google’s directories. You can also add your URL (as you well know) to Google, MSN or Yahoo driven directories.
OK, let’s look at the negative aspects of adding your listings to directories; erm… there really isn’t a great deal, maybe some spam which one can deal with using the usual filters and anti viral protection, but this is extreme stuff and if you choose the right sites it aint never gonna happen. You need to be clicking on the right sites at the beginning to make sure that you get you know funny business..
So, IC247 recommend directory listings and also we think its good to add your services and businesses to classified advert sites. Get a bigger presence; use the tools, sites and mediums available to you and get people viewing your adverts and listings!

Click here for more information from IC247

Online videos: IC247’s ideas about it

Online Videos: The Benefits and thoughts about posting them from IC247

Everybody’s heard of You Tube (now owned by Google), Google Video or Yahoo Video and we have all watched some of the really funny and amusing videos that get posted on these websites daily. The different types of videos are absolutely astounding with diverse ranges such as the ramblings of weird and wonderful charactors right through to commercially astute product demonstrations and advice on different brands.

Web 2.0 (The IC247 way!) encourages one to be able to post information using many different mediums via many different hosting websites. Visual information transmitted on all these different hosting sites is obviously a great way to do this (from your website via RSS feeds if you want) and enables you to show either potential customers or a wider audience a visual aid to help you get your message out there.

Nowadays everyone looks at Youtube to see videos about their hobby or about films and books they are interested in and also to help them with assignments for school and college. The millions upon millions of people that visit video hosting sites benefit from all the information there from different videos that these sites hold and host.

You don’t have to post a video that’s serious and designed to get you money one way or another. It can be fun too. You can post those holiday videos that gave you so much pleasure; those moments that were so golden and you can share such good times with the rest of the world and help the internet evolve. From a commercial point of view it’s also “golden” because if your posted videos take off, are interesting and well thought out then you will get people looking at them and therefore potentially get more visitors to your main site (via links from your videos) to see your products and services.

As with everything there has to be a darker side and there are videos out there that show a different side of life that the most of us don’t really want to see. Just recently in the British press there were the “Happy slapping” videos which weren’t fun or enjoyable at all. We just have to understand that the internet is a huge world which takes all sorts – good and bad to make it. We don’t have to watch those tasteless, indiscriminate videos because we have a choice. If you see these sort of videos then flag them so that the hosting sites are aware of them and go on and surf to find the videos you want to see.

What we at IC247 want to encourage is the idea of providing more information that others can share and learn from on a wider scale and we want to help you to do this to by helping you learn how to host and post videos, write and post Blogs, write articles and really open up the Internet world to you with simple explanations and training that will assist you to get the most out of any online activity. It’s all about Web 2.0!!!

Come and talk to us about it! Look at the contact details here with this posting and just get in touch – it’s easy and we’ll be happy to share our knowledge with you.

Here’s a great video about what we love – Web 2.0, click on this link and check it out.

For more information: IC247 Web 2.0

Blogging and why it’s good

Let’s talk about how Blogging can help you gain more depth with your internet promotion. IC247 tell it like it is!

A Blog means a weblog: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page.

That’s what it means from a dictionary’s point of view but what does it mean for you and your business point of view or even from a personal side?

OK, put yourself in the position of a potential customer; you have the choice of a multitude of different companies offering you the same product and each company offers you
pretty much the same product for pretty much the same price. Every business owner knows that any possible positive addition to their repertoire to assist in atttracting customers to buy their product will be worth looking at. Blogging certainly does help in providing your business with both an air of professional knowledge (if you post Blogs that are open and on the line about your services) as well as showing them a personal side to what you do.

As we mentioned earlier. Blogs are a like a diary. You set up your template; taking the time, care, attention and adding all those personal touches to make it all look cool and feel nice and you sit down and you write. You add all the cool photos, maybe some logos and definately links where you want your Blog visitors to browse to after they’ve finished with reading your Blog. So, the next question is…. what do you write?

Well, you write about all the things that have made you and your business tick! You get everything down that makes you proud about the way you operate and how you have overcome all those day to day obstacles that give us all a headache. Come on, be happy about what you do and be positive. Positivity in any form, whether it’s in daily face to face life or jumping out at you off a page on a website all amounts to the same thing – it all makes us as a reader or browser feel good too! As a potential buyer of your goods or services it would be good to hear about difficulties that you have overcome recently or to be able to get more of an idea about you and your company operate in comparison to another company offering the same or similar types of goods who do NOT post Blogs.

Naturally, there is another positive issue in that by posting regular Blogs you create a bigger online presence and more relevant text content for the search engines to index. This gets you more potential online visitors,especially if you have the Blogs hosted on other websites via RSS feeds or pings etc. This sort of content sharing is how we all use the world wide web now and don’t you think it a cool thought that someone else on the other side of the world may be reading the Blog you just posted?

On a more personal side Blog writing can be good for you; it can be almost therapeutic in the whole act of the sitting down at your PC, Mac or laptop thinking about a given subject, choosing your words and then posting it for others to see. We at IC247 read Blogs as well as post them and we feel it all to be a great part of sharing new information, feelings, experiences and also hopes and needs from a personal basis.

They say at least one new Blog is posted every second and by writing Blogs and posted them we are helping each other to learn and develop new skills, hear about other peoples personal views and thoughts and maybe even to improve ourselves!

Contact us for help and advice about setting up your Blog templates, where to Blog and for some advice about the technical side of things!

Technorati.com
Blogger.com
Wikipedia Blog article
My Space Blogs

IC247 Promotion Packages

IC247: Helping You To Get Seen!

We have got 3 excellent new packages available for mass promotion acros the board! Take a look at the packages below and contact us for more information on pricing, timings and about initiating these proven mediums of mass promotion and marketing of you and you services/products!

Bronze package

Free website evaluation including full breakdown of build, needs and competition evaluation

Basic Website SEO (Meta tags, Keywords, content description for each website page)

If no website basic website design and build x 3 pages (Fully optimised)

URL added to search engines for indexing (Google, MSN and Yahoo)

Google tools

Analytics installed (for in depth click monitoring)

Google Maps business listing updated (Google Local Business)

100 products from E Commerce shop added to Google Product Search

If no E-Commerce shop then contact details, logo, pictures and 5 products added with selling leads to 2 x highly ranked International B2B Business websites

Directory listings x 10: Business details added to top directories including back links (where applicable), Logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

Classified Adverts x 10: Special offers/ services added to top internet advertising websites including back links (where applicable), logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

Silver Package:

Free Website evaluation including full breakdown of build, needs and competition evaluation

Full SEO (including Meta tags, Keywords, content descriptions, keyword rich text compiled and added for each page by sourcing highly ranked competitional websites in customers genre, analysing content and preparing content for our customer)

If no website then Fully SE optimised website build x 5 pages or Online shop designed and built with 100 products.

100 products added to Google Product Search or customers business added to 3 x Highly ranked B2B International trading websites (includes 5 x products/services, logos and contact details)

Google Local Business listing updated (Google Maps)

Google Analytics installed on each page (for in depth click monitoring)

5 Page Google Page mini website built using customer’s Logos, corporate colours with back links to all other online content. Hosted free of charge on Google.

5 Forums sourced in customer’s genre for customer to participate and promote business

Google group started for customer

MSN Group started for customer

5 Internet groups sourced in customer’s genre for them to participate and promote their business

25 potential customers sourced for customer

Listing added to 10 highly ranked directories including back links (where applicable), Logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

15 adverts posted on highly ranked classifieds websites including back links (where applicable), logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

Blog template designed and built with links to and from customer website

10 Back links sourced for customer to link to (informative sites including videos, Blogs and websites)

Gold Package:

Free website evaluation including full breakdown of build, needs and competition evaluation

Full SEO (including Meta tags, Keywords, content descriptions, keyword rich text compiled and added for each page by sourcing highly ranked competitional websites in customers genre, analysing content and preparing content for our customer)

ALL products from customer added to Google Product search

Customers business added to 3 x highly ranked B2B International trading websites (includes 5 x products/services, logos and contact details)

Google Analytics installed on each page (for in depth click monitoring)

Google Local Business listing updated (Google Maps)

Google webmaster tools added

5 Page Google Page mini website built using customer’s Logos, corporate colours with back links to all other online content. Hosted free of charge on Google.

Online catalogue/brochure designed and built using customers text, logos and corporate colours

10 Forums sourced in customer’s genre for customer to participate and promote business

Google group started for customer

MSN Group started for customer

20 Internet groups sourced in customer’s genre for them to participate and promote their business

At least 25 potential new customers sourced AND contacted by IC247 each month acting as customer using email out, cold call and brochure response

Factual and scientific articles sourced for customer

IC247 assist customer to add their own content to above articles with back links to other online work

Blog template designed and built with first Blog posting completed by IC247.

Customer’s basic profile added to Google Orkut, Facebook and MySpace

1 x online video for customer posted on 3 different highly ranked video sites with back links

In depth competitional analysis undertaken of customers competitors including website analysis, pricing analysis, standards of service

Directory listings x 10 including back links (where applicable), Logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

Online adverts x 20 including back links (where applicable), logos and pictures (where applicable), company description and contact details

The packages are designed to streamline your marketing capabilities and to get you results and all the stages are tried and tested!

Contact us here for more information!

General Marketing

Strategic Marketing Campaigns

Nowadays the first port of call for business information is the internet and everyone is aware of the importance placed on achieving high volumes of traffic to a well built website. Most campaigns are based upon the long term organic aspects of getting these results via Google, Yahoo, MSN Live and other search engines and this will always be the ultimate aim; to have an ever evolving website with as much relevant information available as possible with good quality, highly ranked back links that is managed regularly.

The major search engines take some amount of time to index new information but pay per click (PPC) services are available (Google Adwords is the best example) which can send you visitors depending on the amount of money you spend per click and the keywords you choose to use within your targeted adverts.

Depending on your budget, such pay per click campaigns can be expensive and over a longer period of time are economical burdens on most marketing budgets. One must look to utilise other tools and arenas that are both already available on the internet and reachable by as large a target audience as possible (Newsletters, E-zines, Social Networking websites, online forums, Wikis and directories) as well as older and more traditional marketing practices (Telesales and marketing, personal appointments and to a degree other media advertising like TV or radio) to market or sell your service or products.

Gaining back links and a presence on other highly ranked websites are really important. Not only do you get seen by their own visitors but you also get recognised by the major search engines by having a link from the given website to your own.

The telesales and newsletters (per email or normal post – although normal post is les important due to environmental issues etc) tools are also great assistance when one is building ones marketing range and increasing ones audience as long as you have obtained the correct and up to date data. You need decision makers contact details of your target customer and you also need to have the ability to decipher and recognise the type of character at the end of your telephone immediately. Politeness and also in depth knowledge of your product or service are major requirements of any sort of telesales campaign and a thick skin is needed!

Strategic marketing and tactical nous go well together. Each campaign or project must be aligned correctly so that the best results are garnered in the easiest and quickest way. Your search engine optimization (SEO) project needs to be well thought out and implimented by knowledgeable team members or agencies who study all aspects of the website optimization, from code, back links and keywords to how your competition perform and then this SEO work needs to be complimented by your designs that catch the eye of the potential customer, your sales staff politely approaching clients on the telephone with follow up newsletter emails from the contact information you have because of the time taken to source the perfect lead and once you have this well oiled machine up and running then the foundations for success are lodged firmly so that you can simply add content to your website that becomes optimized and freely available to new and existing customers generated by your free flowing marketing campaigns.

Contact IC247 here for a friendly chat with one of our team about best practice, modern day, one stop, strategic marketing