photo credit: thomaswanhoff

Online marketing will continue to evolve in 2012 – that is the one thing that all commentators can agree on. The sector is still busily growing, and such a technology-driven sector cannot help but change pretty fast, considering the ongoing innovations in IT and media.

While the general thrust of marketing strategies remains the same as it ever has, internet marketing is different because it marries tried and tested attitudes to marketing and advertising with the frantic world of online technology, and all the constant upgrades and developments that it entails.

This means that next year will inevitably see new online marketing techniques emerge and a new focus on existing methods.

One such technique which has already mushroomed in importance in 2011 is mobile optimised merchandising, thanks to the vast increase in the number of consumers with smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. This trend is only set to continue and accelerate next year, and so the online marketing team that ensure their company’s or clients’ websites are optimised for use by these devices will be able to hit the ground running on New Year’s Day. Another wise move by any online marketing enterprise wishing to take advantage of the mobile devices revolution is to sell clients subscription services where appropriate, whereby customers can subscribe to a regular newsletter, special offers, vouchers – or whatever best suits their business.

We all know that regularly updated site content – especially on blogs – is essential when it comes to maintaining your position in the search rankings, but fewer companies are yet aware of the vast potential for consumer interest in the field of video content, although online marketing experts have been pushing video content for several years now. Next year video content is set to greatly increase its internet marketing potential, as more and more people watch online videos via their tablets or smartphones. When videos combine product information with genuine entertainment, then their power to attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones is incalculable. With social media sites such as Facebook and Google+ making it easier to embed video than ever before, 2012 will really be the year that video goes viral!

No one will ever dispute the fact that search engine optimization is paramount in obtaining excellent traffic numbers, especially organically.  Once the potential customer arrives at your site, however, you have to be prepared to win them over with well-written content, offers that don’t seem pushy and a smooth navigation around your website.  Having said this, we’ll concentrate on keeping content current and fresh today, a facet that is perhaps more important that what you are selling as if your writings are of little interest, chances are your products will not get many looks either.  Concentration on solid website content is an absolute must if you wish to convert your readers into subscribers or product purchasers.

Keeping your website current with trends that are happening in your niche is perhaps the first key that needs to be addressed in your content.  Are you writing for today and tomorrow, or are you rehashing things already covered yesterday? People get tired of whimsically racing around websites attempting to stay in-step with current news; providing well-researched content is important for your organic search rankings and in doing so, you’ll draw a larger interest from a wider spectrum of readers as you’ll be well ahead of the written curve in your niche, and customers bank on this to make informed decisions such as purchases.  Watch local news, read authoritative newspapers or even browse through magazines to generate your content in your own personal, professional opinion based on how your niche is trending at the moment.

Grammatically correct content is also a huge key to having a successful readership; people want to read articles that are of sound native tongue and flow naturally when reading.  Using difficult jargon to express an opinion or feeling is not going to help your viewing audience; you should always write at the internationally accepted reading level of 8-9 grade, making it easy to understand across the board.  Your content should insult a college professor or make the uneducated feel uncomfortable; therefore, write at a grade level appeasing to the masses and understood by the same.

Finally, avoid writing 1000 word posts as often as you can; should you wish to captivate an audience with any points and close the article out with a call to action, it is important to be as thorough as possible within 600 words.  You can make opening arguments, explain your position, and any final thoughts well within that word count while entertaining your audience enough to take an action of purchasing or contacting you.  The goal is to keep your visitors on as many pages as possible for hours, if possible.  You’ll lose interest fast if there is 10 useless paragraphs sandwiched in between three great ones; condense your content to open strong and finish stronger, assuring the reader you have the answers to any open questions or can leave their commentary on your content.  Allowing this open dialogue can add to your content, which is all the better reason to make your opinion count in as short of space as possible, considering dialogue will grow if the subject is interesting enough to sound off on.

Greg Henderson, a California-based businessman with over 11 years in SEO/SEM, provided this piece based on personal endeavors and education in search engine optimization with a concentration on content optimization for the social media future. His current projects include a background checks website Easy Background Checks as well as a marriage records website Genealinks.

With the launch of Google’s social networking site; Google+ critics have started to compare it with Facebook. Comparison between both these websites is usual, because Google plus has evolved a lot of excitement in its initial stage.

Now, many people are seeing Google plus as a big threat to Facebook, which can snatch the social networking crown from Facebook. On the opposite side, some people think that it’s not going to be easy for Google plus to beat Facebook. In this regard, we will try finding answers to some of the questions that would help us solve this myth:

Can Google+ attract the masses from Facebook?

Most of the Google+ critiques are of the opinion that it is practically a straight replica of Facebook. On the discovery side, it seems an impressive effort. But, it appears just a little too difficult for Google plus to attract users from Facebook, because they are relatively happy with the ongoing services. Many of the Facebook users have concerns regarding privacy. If Google plus manages to cover the missing pieces, then for sure, it can attract users from Facebook too.

Are the Google circles better than the Facebook groups? 

On Facebook, if you would like to be friends with anyone, you just need to send them a friend request and it’s up to them to accept or reject. People are quite used to it. On the other hand, in your Google+ account, anyone can add you into their circles without even taking permission from you. This is something very odd and annoying. That’s the area where Google+ needs to improve. And, if it does improve, it would definitely be a step ahead of Facebook.

Google+ Hangouts are better or Facebook group Video Chat?

Facebook’s video chat only lets you to have one-to-one calls, whereas, Google+ Hangouts allow you to have video chats with maximum 10 people at once. Although, Google plus has a plus point over here, but yet, it doesn’t mean that all users will leave Facebook and have their hands on with Google+ accounts for the sake of video conference calling only.

The vast majority of chat is one-to-one nowadays. Just think about how many times you make phone calls in a week. Now, think about how many times you have conference calls in one week. You have the answer with you.

Can Google+ plus really beat Facebook?

It seems difficult, but not impossible. In 2006, nobody actually thought of Facebook as knocking out MySpace. So, ruling out Google plus as being contender for the next big social networking blockbuster would be useless. However, Google+ really has to come up with solutions that some of other social networks have failed to offer.

Facebook has already received the flair for social networking, while Google+ is just striving for it. Since the beginning, Facebook has it roots in social networking. Google is already into many other things like search, advertising, music, mobile phones, and many others. Google plus could merely be another addition to that list. What do you think about it?

An article is written by Frederick Kingsmann who likes social media, android applications, remove malware programs, different software, pc antivirus and networking.

The optimization of a website for the social networks is an important process now, a process that deserves a special section on the internet-marketing forum. Until some time ago, face book and Twitter were considered only as great sites to spend time and to meet with friends. However, now those social networks are considered some of the most powerful internet marketing tools, and their importance grows as the time passes. Recently, Google announced that the number of hits and likes affects the relevance of a site in search engines, changing the strategies of the webmasters about optimization completely.

However, there is also a trap of social networking optimization. While this is maybe the best method to get visitors on your site, it is also dangerous. SMO (Social Media Optimization) could also help spreading rumors about your website that are not founded. Those rumors are launched by your competitors, and even if they are not true, they will be spread with the speed of light. A “tweet” about the bad quality of your products will be posted on the walls of millions of users, and even if you post proofs about those rumors being untrue will be neglected by the users because of the “sensational” factor. A rumor about a bad product will have an instant rate of hits, while the news about discounts and promotions will create an effect slower. If you want to prevent the bad posts of the competition about your products, you should follow the advices given by the experienced webmasters on the internet-marketing forum.

The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize the site, and to make it friendly to the social networks. You will find different tools like the Face book like button or the Twitter “tweet”, and adding them to your site is mandatory. Improve the chances of your site to be referred trough links. There are many static sites, and if yours is one of them, you should change this right now. Add a blog, place some research documents, dynamic content and also aggregators. Those elements will surely increase the chances of your site to be referred by other webmasters and to be social bookmarked.

Ease the process of tagging and bookmarking – add some buttons to your page, but make sure it does not have that annoying crowded aspect, and make sure that all the posts and articles have the corresponding tagging elements.

Of course, you will have to reward those webmasters by placing links to their websites on your page. In fact, we can talk about a market of exchanging links, a market that is now available for you through the internet marketing forum. There are also automated options that you can set with the help of specialized software that sends a link back to every site that refers to your page. Of course, using those programs too often might be considered spam, therefore penalized by the major search engines. The right balance of links between effectiveness and spam can be assessed with the help of the internet-marketing forum.

About the Author:

Marie Elizabeth is the moderator of a webmasters forum , where users from all over the world discuss ideas about online marketing .Marie Elizabeth also recommend anyone who want to gain knowledge on online marketing to start taking part actively on internet marketing forums .

When someone is overwhelmed in the web marketing realm it is recommended to read every day about marketing and business. Thus, you can keep your mind in good shape in your professional field and also you will have the opportunity to an internet marketing forum is an amazing source for business knowledge. The most important value you can find in an internet marketing forum is that you can gather different ideas from people living in different markets around the globe. In fact, you can find wonderful internet marketing forums where skilled professionals are sharing their knowledge and receiving the feedback of people like you and me.  Definitely, if you want to get the most out of latest internet marketing news and trends you cannot be member of the first web marketing forum that you find. Try to sign up to internet marketing forums with a good reputation and where you can learn from skilled guys. I would like to show the most relevant things you can do to evaluate a good internet marketing forum and the main tips you should have in mind when you are willing be part of one  them.

• Number of members: When you get access into an internet marketing forum it is necessary that you evaluate the number of members and visitors of this forum. If you see a forum with dozens of members it is not a well-ranked site. Top internet marketing forums can have up to 100,000 users and even 50,000 active users. So, a well-ranked internet marketing forum has a crowd of people sharing information, learning from others and making business online.

• Relevant content: Another important aspect is the quality of content. If you access to an internet marketing forum with content taken from other sites and with fake members –one people with multiple accounts—it is not a place good for you. The most recommended is that you can have access to forums with relevant content where people can share interesting information, talk about marketing trends and hot internet marketing news.

• Good page rank: In addition, if you want to know if an internet marketing forum is a good place to visit, you only have to use a page rank tool to determine the ranking of this URL. If you see its rank is under PR3 it could work but is not the best. The top internet marketing forums has a rank superior to PR6.

• Capable to promote knowledge: One of the main purposes of an internet marketing forum is to share and promote knowledge. We are living in information and knowledge society and the more you know the more you gain. In fact, it is good participate of a forum which is capable to promote knowledge, technology and the well understanding of relevant and new internet marketing practices.

• Interesting topics: Finally, a good internet marketing forum has the capacity to help you in finding new and interesting topics and you see a lot of threads and post on each single category.

About the Author:

Marie Elizabeth is the moderator of a webmasters forum , where users from all over the world discuss ideas about online marketing .Marie Elizabeth also recommend anyone who want to gain knowledge on online marketing to start taking part actively on internet marketing forums .

photo credit: steve p2008

Retail analysts have identified a terrific online marketing opportunity during this year’s Christmas period – a massive internet spending spree by UK consumers over the next 14 days.

Forecasters at IMRG said that Britons are gearing up to spend an incredible £186.4 million online on Christmas Day alone, a 12 per cent increase compared to the same day last year. Consumers will also spend nearly double what they spent in 2010 on Boxing Day, IMRG added, with a predicted haul of £367.8 million.

Part of this is down to a huge online marketing push by many retailers, who have been heavily promoting sales and special offers and letting customers know that pre-Christmas stocks are running out fast in their internet advertising campaigns, making sure that pre-orders and sales come in earlier than the previous year.

The company’s chief marketing and communications officer David Smith said: “Although shopping on Christmas Day might not appear to quite be in the Christmas spirit, it is worth considering that many of these sales could actually be associated with popular gifts people have received, such as downloadable content for MP3 players and Kindles.”

Mr Smith noted that last Christmas Day had already seen a 26 per cent increase in online spending, making the idea of a 12 per cent increase this year even more impressive.

The IMRG report underlines the importance of having an effective online marketing strategy in place that takes into account not only the run-up to Christmas, but the Christmas holidays themselves. At this time, new gifts – especially technology such as media players and computers – often create their own demand for accessories, software, peripherals, DVDs and CDs.

Portable devices such as smartphones and iPads are going to be very popular gift choices this Christmas, only adding to the importance of these mobile devices in the world of online marketing. Recently, search giant Google published research which showed that more mobile devices were being used to make Christmas gift enquiries than ever before, with the technology being used for more than half of all searches for store locations, special offers and last-minute gift ideas, compared to desktops and traditional laptop computers.

Given this growing trend, it is imperative that online marketing professionals make it a priority to emphasise mobile devices in their campaigns, especially those hoping to capitalise on this year’s Christmas season.