With over 3 million global users, companies now have a very convenient way to contact current customers and gain new customers to ensure further growth potential. The exact ways these businesses are doing just that depends heavily upon the business itself. One of the best tactics to take is a very direct approach and to deal with current and possible customers on a very personal basis. Two companies, Comcast and Southwest Airlines, achieve great results by using Twitter to reach out to customers.

Comcast

High-speed internet, cable, and phone service provider Comcast jumped onto the social media wagon quickly and with a purpose in mind. The company uses Twitter to give their customers another avenue for support.

Frank Eliason, Senior Director of National Customer Service Operations for Comcast, manages the Digital Care Team that assists Comcast customers all throughout the Web. His Twitter account, ComcastCares, is active daily and is full of personal responses to customers with issues and concerns. Along with him, there are nine other Twitter users whose sole purpose is to provide customer support.

A perfect example of how well this use of Twitter has panned out for Comcast occurred in April of 2008. Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, expressed his major dissatisfaction with the cable company when traditional support measures were not having the effect he desired. ComcastCares picked up on the messages being left on Twitter regarding this fiasco and called Michael personally to attend to his issues.

Because of this well-thought out plan of support through social media and its exemplary execution, Comcast has lead the way for other businesses to follow suit.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines uses Twitter as a way to personally connect with customers. The company not only talks one-on-one with Twitter users but it also uses the service to inform their customers of upcoming deals and bargains. Some users have even reported of the company’s Twitter account contacting them directly to let them know how to save even more money on airline tickets.

March, 2008 David Armano had wrapped up a flight with Southwest and, in passing, mentioned the convenience and ease of using the two-button check-in offered by the airline at the airport. The Southwest Twitter account picked up on this and sent Mr. Armano a personal thank you.

Taking the time to become more personable to current and future customers is one way for a business to excel using Twitter. Southwest Airlines clearly has this down pat.

Final Thoughts

Twitter can be a very powerful tool if used correctly in creating and managing an online reputation. There are many ways of going about this and the preceding two examples show how a very direct and hands-on approach can establish the kind of reputation every company desires. One that is proactive, supportive and reactive when the need arises.

It is also important to point out that the Internet is more competitive than ever, so if you want to remain relevant in today’s business, you must remain diligent when it comes to your Internet marketing strategies. In other words, don’t ever become complacent when it comes to Internet marketing; otherwise, your competition will quickly pass you up.

Make a commitment this year to improving your Internet marketing and watch your business growth exceed your expectations.

Here is our list of tips to remember as you weave your way through the process of Internet marketing:

Concentrate on a Few Instead of Diversifying on Many – What this means is that instead of spreading yourself think across a number of sites, concentrate on a few, valuable sites and focus your energy and attention on them. Spreading yourself too thin just doesn’t produce results, and the information on those sites will not be of great quality.

Stop Micromanaging – Instead of killing yourself to complete all the work on your plate, considering outsourcing some of your work. This is a great way to give more attention to the more important matters, while still addressing all aspects of your Internet marketing campaign. In other words, focus your attention on the activities that yield the biggest return on your investment and consider outsourcing the rest.

Don’t Delay Building your Credibility – The Internet is a highly competitive arena, and that holds true for independent publishers. Those involved in the field longer are capable of accumulating higher quality links and a greater branding image than those who recently entered the field. What does this mean? Don’t wait any longer to get out there and begin building your brand. Remember: your business is counting on a quality website and quality Internet marketing to bring customers to it!
Consider Buying Used Instead of Building New – Now here’s a strategy for breaking into that highly competitive Internet marketing field: consider purchasing an established site instead of starting up a new one. Choose a site with good traffic and positive cash flow and you may be afforded the opportunity to begin pocketing profits (and therefore growing your business faster) than you ever thought. There are a number of sources for purchasing existing websites; you can even find them on eBay!

Remain Competitive and Aggressive when it comes to Internet Marketing Strategies – Don’t forget that the most important basis for generating business is through competitive marketing strategies. Also, don’t forget to include social media sites, votes, contents, promotions and link bait articles to your repertoire. Remember: a great contest or promotion can do plenty to increase your site’s traffic.

Oil & gas investing is seeing a jump in the number of interested investors. Why? Because of new drilling techniques that allow for more efficient and greater crude oil extraction, as well as methods of liquidating natural gas for easier extraction and transport. Natural gas looks to play an important role in transportation fuels in the future. And with the expertise at CBO Energy they have the technology to “secure the future of this nation by drilling for and producing clean, domestic, and abundant natural gas.”

It is with this goal that CBO Energy has partnered with SEO Advisory to aid their online efforts and help them become a leading choice for oil & gas investing clients. With the expertise at SEO Advisory, CBO Energy hopes to improve branding across other Texas oil investment companies, improve content that will get noticed by prominent search engines, and generally improve the development of a positive online reputation.

And just who is the target audience for CBO Energy? People like you who are reading this, for one. CBO Energy recognizes the increasing demand for cleaner burning energy resources. And by creating strategic partnerships with Texas oil investment companies and oil & gas investing individuals, CBO has thus far been successful in their exploration and acquisition of natural gas properties. And CBO Energy hasn’t limited themselves to Texas oil & natural gas exploration. Their efforts have taken them overseas where their international natural gas exploration will help other countries as well as the U.S.

Both investors and anyone interested in producing cleaner domestic resources are likely to be the target audience. With new oil & gas investing clients and partners CBO Energy has the opportunity to expand their efforts, and become a leader in natural gas extraction and delivery.

Your website’s landing page, or the page where your visitors first “land” upon reaching your website, is where you make your first impression. It can be your home page, or it can simply be any page onto which a back link may send them. One thing’s for certain: your landing page must be able to capture the interest of your customers in a matter of seconds because that’s all the time they are going to give you to make your first impression.

Your landing page may be your home page, or you may create specific landing pages for different purposes. For example, sponsored searches or pay-per-click marketing efforts through search engines typically have different landing pages as part of the program. This is a great way to gauge the success of any marketing strategy.

Your landing page will, of course, look different than other agent’s landing pages, but all landing pages should accomplish the same goals. In other words, all comprehensive landing pages will have common traits:

• A dramatic, eye-catching headline. Your headline should identify your audience and the topic of the website, using clear, concise language. Don’t get bogged down by excessive information in the headline or you might lose your audience before you even begin explaining yourself.

• An introductory statement that reinforces the abovementioned headline and further explains the purpose of the web page. The introductory statement should have a call-to-action hyperlink attached to it.

• An eye-catching virtual cover that draws the visitor in and adds to the overall image of the landing page. Nicely designed virtual covers have been shown to increase conversion rates. You can think of it on common sense terms: aren’t you more likely to look at something that is pretty over a plain page with text?

• The key points in the landing page are accentuated with bullet points. This allows visitors to easily read the text located on the landing page.

• Multiple call-to-action hyperlinks that afford visitors several opportunities to click through. A large call-to-action hyperlink is often a successful way to achieve more successful conversion rates.

• Keyword-rich copy within the text will help increase search engine visibility. Don’t ever underestimate the power of keyword-rich copy, as this will make the difference between good website traffic and excellent website traffic.

• The call-to-action hyperlinks can accomplish several things. They can: (1) include a form that requests the visitor’s contact information; (2) take you to a specific thank-you form; and (3) they can provide an opportunity for the visitor to contact you or ask for additional information.

The bottom line of a great landing page is that it must attract visitors and offer enough important information to keep them reading.

Do you know how to build your back link portfolio? Better yet, do you even know what a back link portfolio is?

If you’re like most website owners, the term “back link portfolio” may be foreign to you. Before I explain what a back link portfolio is, let me start by saying that a well-rounded back link portfolio is essential for obtaining long-term website traffic.

Back links are essentially links to your website through the web. How you get acquire back links depends on the strategy you decide to use. The bottom line is that you must explore a number of back links through which users can find you, and you must vary the keywords and anchor text you use in these back links to achieve the greatest traffic to your website.

If you’re looking for ways to build that all-important back link portfolio, there are several tactics you may want to start exploring:

• Article Marketing – There is simply no better way to build your brand awareness than through article marketing. Start writing comprehensive, interesting content that people enjoy reading, and fill it with high-quality back links back to your site and you’re well on your way to increasing the number of visitors to your website. In addition, a quality article, combined with your bio – and even your photo! – can further introduce yourself and your website to readers and get them back to your site.

• Directory Sites – Although it certainly can’t be said enough that quality article marketing should be your first strategy when building your back link portfolio, you shouldn’t ignore other avenues, either. One of your other strategies should be to use directories. Simply submitting your website to web directories can help increase traffic to your website.

• Local Sites – Don’t forget about your local sites, including Yahoo Local, Google Local and Bing Local to increase your credibility. These local listings are sure to help you within these search engines. In other words, it will help establish you as a legitimate business or website.

• Do your homework – Check out other websites, blogs and forums where you notice a presence from your competitors. A thorough back link analysis is a great way to obtain the same links your competitors are using. Your ability to compete in your particular industry largely depends on paying close attention to other companies and websites and how and where they are using their back links.

• Blogs, Blogs, Blogs – Blogs are now a great way to obtain powerful back links. Check out blogs relating to your industry (there are literally dozens popping up on a daily basis) and request links on them. Consider guest blogging on a related blog, as well. This is a great way for other blogs to build their content while you build excellent back links.

Within quality content, embedded keywords and inbound links are what will aid in moving a web site to the top rankings of most leading search engines.

Keywords

A keyword, or key phrase, are those words, and combination of words, that one might include in a search engine query. If a web surfer types in “coffee” or “coffee maker,” web sites with the desired word or words placed within their content will be returned first and foremost.

The first step in content optimization is determining what potential customers will use as keywords or key phrases in conjunction with locating your specific product or services. Do not attempt to guess or assume on keywords as not everyone thinks the same way when searching. Keyword research tools are an inexpensive solution to attempting to research on your own.

KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker, and WordZe all offer keyword researching for $70.00 a month and lower. These tools match the content of your web site with keywords that are relevant to the content. No matter which service is used, the result is a list of keywords and phrases that are optimal for your web site.

Placing the keywords and phrases throughout your web site is the next step. It is crucial to remember that, while ensuring keywords are placed often in the content, density is crucial. If the keywords are found too often, search engines will see this as “stuffing” and the ranking of the web site will fall or, in some cases, entirely disappear.

Density is the number of times a keyword or key phrase appears in comparison to the total number of words on the web page. The proper keyword density depends on the overall length of the web page. Lengthy pages should employ a 5% density while extremely short pages should stick to a 2% to 3% keyword density. The main point to remember here is the placement of the keywords should not impede the readability of the web page.

Linking Keywords

It is a common practice to hyperlink keywords found in the content of an article or webpage. While this is acceptable, and often beneficial, keep these tips in mind.

The maximum number of outbound links in any given article should be less than three.
When linking within your website, do not always link to the same page. Link to sub-pages as well as the home page to help build traffic and rankings to the site as a whole.
To help add value to any web page or article it is always advisable to link to an authoritative website.

Putting Content to Work For You

The old saying “build it and they will come” does not apply to web sites. It takes careful consideration of one’s web site content, keywords and key phrases, and quality links to get the word out about a web site and to place it higher up in the search engine rankings.

Google

The big gun search engine Google offers a couple of solutions when it comes to free promotional tools.

The first option is to sign up with Google Local. This handy service is great for web surfers looking for businesses and companies local to them. After entering in the company name, address, phone number and web site, a little patience is required as it takes a few weeks for Google to go through submissions. Generally, this takes about two weeks.

Google coupons is another fantastic way to grab new customers and even keep current customers coming back again and again. The search engine offers a tool that allows you to create and place the coupon on relevant and local searches.

For those offering products, Google has a Merchant Center in place that allows businesses to upload product feeds and make them easier to be found on a product search. If not offering actual products, the alternative is Google Base. It has the same premise except it is geared toward non-product offerings.

Yahoo

Yahoo Local is similar to the Google Local service. Users sign up for free and register their company or business. After a short waiting period for it to be reviewed, business owners can be assured of their services or products being displayed on a map for anyone searching for local businesses.

Another promotional venue on Yahoo is the process of obtaining reviews. Businesses with established and happy customers should request a review on the Yahoo Local site. The more good reviews received, the more the business will be preferentially listed.

Blog Promos

For those businesses either thinking of, or already having established a blog, some great web sites on the Internet will list the blog free of charge. Heavy hitters such as Technorati have massive blog listings and even show ratings by popularity. Just be careful to not get sucked into some of the less than desirable blog listing web sites available. Many of those cater to spam and are not the place for reputable businesses to be listed.

Tell the press

While many press release web sites charge for their services, sites such as openPR, i-Newswire, and PRLeap will submit a business’ press release completely free of charge.

Social Media

With social media becoming more and more popular, companies are quickly discovering their value when it comes to getting the word out about a new service or product. Twitter is one example of reputation building and social media. Companies such as Dell and Starbucks use Twitter heavily to discuss current promotions and specials. The best part? It is completely free as well.

Taking the First Steps to Free Promotion

Promoting a new company or business need not be an expensive proposition. There are plenty of readily available tools and solutions one can find on the Internet that will help get the word out and not cost a single penny.

The very best web websites available may not be offering anything new or different. Where they distinguish themselves is in the overall presentation and usability. People like to come back to places where they feel comfortable.

Bells and Whistles

While having nifty animations, videos, and graphics may look great on a web page, attempts to load that web page will become burdensome, and depending upon the connection and/or the server they are housed upon, nearly impossible.

You do not need to apply a completely minimalist approach to the design of web pages. However, it is a good practice to limit the number of large graphics and bandwidth hogging videos and audio presentations.

Not all web users are going to have the latest in internet connection speeds. There are still some that use a dial-up connection as opposed to the high-speed cable and wireless connections many others have at their disposal. A slower connection is going to mean much slower loading pages. The main thing to present is the information the user is there to read.

Accessibility

Two large portions of the general surfing population are completely dismissed with some web site designs – those with visual impairments and those using a portable device such as a cell phone or PDA to access the Internet. When a site is designed without these groups in mind, hundreds, if not thousands, of potential sales are thrown by the wayside. It is critical to ensure the entire web site is built with all possible viewers in mind.

Images should have proper alt coding and titling. Flash, while very exciting and, well, flashy, does not work well for those with visual impairments and not at all for many cell phone users. PDF files should have an alternative Word document file as a backup for those unable to download or view PDF files on the fly.

Listen to Your Audience

Quite often web designs come close to perfection but may miss a few small elements. By listening to user feedback, one can improve the overall design and possibly garner more customers.

While those who have made it a practice to keep coming back to a web site obviously are comfortable with the current design, it is still prudent to ask for feedback from both established customers and new ones.

One practice is to have a feedback form at the ready on the front page of the web site. Another is to send out e-mails occasionally to existing customers asking for their honest opinions and how they feel the web site could be improved.

Web Design Equation

Making a web site attractive is only part of the web design equation. Minimizing bells and whistles, making it completely accessible, and gathering customer feedback are all integral parts of the equation as well. Combining all four parts will ensure one’s web site is more than just a pretty face.

1. Be Different

You need to be different if you want to become an authority. Provide your users with your back story to help people see themselves in you. This will also help you be original because all of us have unique back stories of our own. However, the idea is not to convey how miserable you were but to show them how you managed to raise against the odds.

2. Don’t Sell

Provide resourceful content to people and don’t try to sell in all your posts. Use your blog to create trust and this will make people automatically invest in what you have to offer. You cannot become an authority blogger if you are preoccupied with selling your products. Useful content will certainly increase your conversion rates and in addition, it will also bring you the most desired back links for your website which will increase your ranking in the search engines and in turn get more visitors. People will certainly appreciate if they can get quality content free of cost.
3. The About Page

Make sure to have an About page in your blog and use it to give information to your visitors on how they can benefit from your blog and how they can engage in business with you. If you wish, you can even create a video for your visitors to personalize your About page.

4. Blog Post Titles Do Matter

Spend time in coming up with the right titles for your blogs. Well thought out titles are crowd pullers. The only way to get the attention of the crowd is through having killer titles. You will have to concentrate on this factor even after you become an authority blog, only then you will be able to remain an authority blog.

5. Build Friendly Network

You can never ignore the social networking aspect of blogging. Today people use every platform online to build friendly networks. So you must make use of your blog too as a platform for building friendly network. Get others to comment about your posts and their genuine comments will get the attention of the other visitors and you will be on your way to becoming an authority blog. Try to use other platforms including Twitter, Reddit Digg, Stumbleupon. By making friends in such social networking sites, you will be able to propagate your text. This is the best way to get your blog go viral.

6. Build an opt-in list

You must try to establish contact with your blog subscribers outside your blog as well. You must build opt-in lists which will allow you to get in touch with them through email. You can provide them with further useful information that will make them treat you and your blog as an authority. This will increase the traffic to your website. As long as you are providing your website visitors with good content, they would not mind becoming part of your opt-in list.

7. Optimize Your Blog

When you provide good content in your blog, you would need visitors to benefit from your blog. There is no use spending a lot of time in coming up with original content without getting good visitor traffic. So make sure to optimize your website. Make your posts search engine friendly and keep them keyword rich without compromising on the readability of your blog. Make use of Google AdWords keyword tool to find the keywords that people are using lately in your niche to look for products and services. You can make use of All in One SEO Pack plugin if you are using Wordpress.

8. Use Search Engine Friendly Platform

Wordpress is one of the most search engine friendly platforms and it is free. You should only make use of themes and templates from trusted sources.

9. It pays to invest in good blog themes

Poor coding can kill your blog. It certainly pays to invest in good quality blog themes. By using professionally coded themes you will be able to impress your visitors as well as the search engines.

10. Cater To the Needs of Your Blog Subscribers

Cater to the needs of your blog subscribers. When you become an authority blog, peoples’ expectations increase dramatically. So never let them down.

It has become really essential to monitor and manage what is being said about you and you’re your company online. Any typical online reputation management services are expensive and not exactly free. In fact the big companies that totally takes control over your company’s online reputation can bill you hundreds and thousands.

So if you run a small business what are your options? Well there are plenty actually. If you are an average Joe or a company with limited resources, there are some techniques that you can apply to manage and monitor your online reputation without spending thousands of dollars.

Most of the methods discussed in this article are absolutely free and it will get you started with the online reputation management:

1. You should make effective use of free tools like Google Webmaster Central & Technorati to find out who are linking to your website. Sometimes when someone is talking about you via their blog or website, in most cases they will point to your site with a hyperlink. These free tools are very good at picking up that hyperlink and from there you can easily backtrack and go to the original discussion.

2. You should make it your habit to Regularly Google your own name and business name and keep track of the first 50 results. You will often be surprised to see what may show up there.

3. If you want Google to alert you periodically when someone mentions your name, your brand or certain keywords, then the easiest thing to do is to set up a Google Alert. This is a very nifty tool that notifies you when you or your organization has been mentioned in a blog, by the media or in an online forum.

4. The best way to secure the top 50 results for your brand name is to create a profile of for your business in all big social networks and bookmarking sites like – facebook, LinkedIn, delicious, Digg, Twitter and so on. You can also contribute to online forums, write an article for a user-generated knowledge base such as Squidoo, Google Knol or create an Amazon.com product review to demonstrate that you’re somewhat of an authority on a particular topic. You can also create free blogs on Blogger & Wordpress and put some content there about yourself and your business and cross link each other.

5. Do a search for yourself and your brand in the social media sites like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and see what others are saying about you. If someone has anything positive or negative to say about business, jump right in to the conversation.

6. Use Free and Subscription based online reputation tool like Whoistalkin.com and Trackur.com to get more advanced insight about how you and your company is represented to the public.

7. Be aware of all the online content you’ve created or that has been created about you over the years. You definitely don’t want anything embarrassing showing up in your search results page. If there is content that you wouldn’t paste it onto a highway billboard, then don’t post it on Facebook, twitter or any other social networking sites.