Monday 10 November 2014

10 Tips to a Powerful Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing is thriving thanks in large part to the channel’s familiarity, flexibility, and universality. A whole new generation of mobile smartphone and tablet users are also driving anywhere, anytime email usage. Indeed, when you dig into the data, any assertion that email is “dying” with consumers is laughable. Evolving—yes. Dying, absolutely not.

Listed below are what we believe to be the top ten tips to a powerful email marketing strategy. It starts with building a list, continues with data management, and ends at revenue generation.

1. Build an acquisition strategy
If you’ve prioritized audience growth, begin by analyzing the places where customers are already engaging with your brand. Then, determine how to enhance those experiences and drive interactive engagement with new tools and techniques. For example, always optimize acquisition forms for mobile. If a customer is on a tablet or smartphone and can’t fill out your form quickly and easily, you’re sure to lose the opt-in. For information about which audience growth strategies are working for marketers -- and which ones aren't -- check out The Audience Growth Survey.

2. Optimizing for mobile is extremely important
For brands that do not optimize email for mobile, the penalty is stiff. Return Path points out that 63% of US consumers delete emails immediately if they are not optimized for mobile. Offer an elegant mobile experience from the start. If your initial welcome email is perfectly optimized for mobile, subscribers will know they’re in for a pleasant mobile experience for the duration of their time spent with your brand.

3. Your data should always be relevant
Assess your current data to make sure you’re sending targeted communications, not “batch and blast” messages. Using simple data points like gender and location can dramatically improve the subscriber experience. Similarly, on social media, use Facebook’s geo-targeting features with status updates. Strive to never regurgitate the same promotional messages on social media that you are using in email, as customers are looking for different information in each of those channels.

4. Personalize email whenever possible
Your website visitors, email, and mobile subscribers, and those who have connected with you on social media will appreciate your messages even more if they’re personalized. Inject personalized recommendations into marketing emails for the ultimate in one-to-one communications. For example, you can create a unique email containing personalized recommendations based on each subscriber’s browsing behavior on your website. Adding personalized recommendations into marketing emails can increase sales conversion rates by 15-25%, and click-through rates by 25-35%.

5. Email drives accessibility across-channels
The ability to easily archive and access messages at a later time influences consumer channel preferences. While smartphones and tablets replicate much of the desktop messaging experience, many consumers purposely “park” messages to take later action from their computers (which may have faster internet access, larger screens, full keyboards, etc.). Email marketing remains a powerful channel for its ability to bridge the three-device environment of smartphone, tablet, and PC.

6. Get their permission to use it
Thanks to the good work of Seth Godin, the email channel is permanently linked with the concept of “permission marketing”—namely, that brands should first seek permission before sending customers email marketing messages. Once you receive permission the next step is personalization and building of data around the consumer.

7. Email drives deals
If you’re not making deals available via email, you are ignoring the largest, direct audience for this content. According to the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, people prefer email to Facebook for deals because it’s harder to miss deals in the inbox than it is in the waterfall of posts that is the News Feed. Use social networks to spread the word about your offers, and push consumers to your website for email subscription. At present, other approaches leave money on the table.

8. Sharing isn’t just for social networks
If your brand is emphasizing only that consumers share via social networks, you’re reaching just the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface are the introverted, the private, and the cautious consumers who share content off your radar via email and word of mouth. These private sharers don’t get as much press as the “likers” and “retweeters” precisely because their activities cannot be seen publicly and they are difficult, if not impossible, to track. Private communications, however, are extremely valuable to brands, as a friend’s thoughtful personal endorsement will often realize a better response than one broadcast to thousands.

9. Did they abandon before they bought?
Tailor the frequency and number of abandoned cart emails to the purchase at hand, and that item’s typical purchase window. For example, some expensive purchases require more time to justify the spend, so the purchase window is larger. Conversely, an abandoned cart email about a heating or cooling system should be sent quickly to be helpful, as people with dysfunctional furnaces or air conditioning will likely want a quick solution. Pay attention to your industry’s typical purchase window, and send abandoned cart emails accordingly.

10. Automate your post-purchase messages
Automate a re-engagement campaign for a week, a month, and 90 days post-purchase. Determine the point when subscribers typically purchase from your brand again (or disengage), and start from there to personalize the send dates even further.

Email, in combination with a strong website and customer experience, forms a stable foundation for interactive marketing. Remember that your audience is made up of both smartphone owners and non-smartphone owners, so make sure your strategy accommodates both segments. Rather than relying on single sign-on products to gather opt-ins, build your own consumer database by gaining consumers’ permission through your website. Email’s ability to deliver targeted and exclusive content continues to make it a sound investment of your brand’s marketing energy to reach your audiences where they anticipate hearing from you.

Source : http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/email-marketing-strategy-tips/

Tags : email marketing, email marketing service, email marketing singapore, mass email, email list, bulk email, email database

6 Big Myths About SEO

Your understanding of the way Google works is probably three or four years out of date--and that's an eternity in Web time.

Don't get stuck with old ideas about search engine optimization.
In the world of online marketing, misinformation abounds--and it gets compounded exponentially by an incredibly dynamic and rapidly evolving world. Most of the things you think you know (but don't) about search-engine optimization, or SEO, may have been true a few years ago but have changed; one of the following was always a myth.

Here are some of the myths you need to move beyond to get smarter about SEO.

Myth 1: Metatag Descriptions Help Your Rankings

Not anymore; in fact, metatags are no longer even indexed by Google and Bing. But don't ignore them altogether: Your metatags form the text that is displayed along with your link in the search results--and a more compelling description will compel more users to click on your listing instead of on others.

Here's example of ours; the metatag is everything below the URL.

seo malaysia, search engine optimization, malaysia seo company, seo company malaysia, seo services

Myth 2: The More Inbound Links, the Better

False. In all the recent updates to Google's algorithm, the search giant has made it a core priority to have quality trump quantity. Gone are the days of having thousands of superlow-quality links driving up rankings; in fact, creating those links can look spammy and get your site penalized.

Focus on obtaining links from sites that are relevant to your products, services, or industry--and on having those links be surrounded by relevant text. A blog review about your "blue widget" that links to your site is far more valuable than a rogue link for "blue widget" stuck in the footer or sidebar of some site--even a highly ranked one.

Myth 3: PageRank Still Matters

Google's infamous PageRank (named after Google co-founder and now-CEO Larry Page, mind you) is a 1-to-10 ranking of the overall authority of every website; the bigger the number, the higher the rank. In years past, this seemingly all-powerful number dominated the attention of SEO experts.

But today, Google's algorithm has evolved well beyond any single indicator. The PageRank still exists, and if all things are equal, a higher PageRank trumps a lower one--but factors such as relevance and context matter, too.

As with inbound links: If you run a dental practice in Los Angeles, it's better to have a link from a site that reviews doctors and dentists in L.A., even if it has a PageRank of 4, than to have a paid link with no context in a huge site with a higher PageRank of 7. 

Myth 4: Google Prefers Keyword-Rich Domains

In years past, Google seemed to put a disproportionate amount of emphasis on keywords in the domain name (what you may think of as the URL). For example, vinylhousesiding.com would almost certainly be ranked first in a search for vinyl house siding.

Not anymore, says Google. If vinylhousesiding.com is in fact the more relevant, authoritative site on the topic, it will probably still rank first--but not because of its domain name alone.

Myth 5: Websites Must Be 'Submitted' to Search Engines

In 2001, yes, this was the case--indeed, this was the first service that my company, Wpromote, ever provided. But in 2012? Not at all. At this point, if there is any connection from any site to yours, your site will be quickly discovered by Google.

Note that being indexed is a far cry from achieving high rankings--but that initial step of submission is no longer needed or helpful.

Myth 6: Good SEO Is Basically About Trickery

False, false, false. Although there are still some SEO experts out there who go about their business trying to "trick Google," this is absolutely not the way to provide good, lasting SEO.

Good SEO is about creating a relevant, informative website, with unique content and great user experience, and encouraging the sharing and distribution of great content to drive organic publicity and links back to your site.

In the end, this is exactly what Google explicitly wants to reward with high rankings--so it is anything but "tricking" the search engines.

Source : http://www.inc.com/michael-mothner/seo-marketing-myths.html

Tags : seo malaysia, search engine optimization, malaysia seo company, seo company malaysia, seo services

I’ve Got 99 Reasons…

Email continues to rock and this week special guest contributor Jay Jhun provides some reasons why email is as powerful as ever - maybe even better than ever.

Email marketing can sometimes live in its staid corner of the digital universe. Jay Jhun of BrightWave has a great knack for taking email out of this zone and displaying his passion while also helping email marketers be more remarkable, so I asked Jay to share with me some of his thoughts.


Unlike the well-known hip-hop hit that talks about problems, I believe that marketers should understand there are at least 99 reasons why email marketing has a bright and bold future (and social media ain't one!).

As I embarked on my professional journey with a focus on email marketing, much of what I felt was missing was a swagger among email marketers. The complexity, the measurability, the artistry, the technology, the permission-based nature - all make email marketing a powerful channel. I had a boss at my last digital agency accuse me of thinking that email was the center of the digital marketing universe. Without flinching, I asked, "Isn't it??"

Some of us probably face a deep existential question whenever we go home when our family members ask, "So what is it that you do again?" It's not like we're the only esoteric professional craft in existence, but for being a channel that drives so much business for so many brands, we're overdue for a reality check on being able to clearly articulate what we do, what we love about it, and why our friends and family should sit up and pay attention.

On August 20, the 2014 Litmus Email Design Conference will be wrapping up with a closing session titled "99 Reasons Why Email Rocks" and I'll have the unique privilege and opportunity to rally 400 of the world's brightest digital marketing professionals around all that is great about email marketing.

Did you catch that?

The truth about email marketing practitioners is that we are, first and foremost, digital marketers. In fact, I'd venture to say that we are digital marketers who often or eventually choose to focus on email.

I have yet to meet an email marketer who didn't have a clear grasp of other digital marketing areas like websites, search, display, mobile, or social media. I don't know that the same can be said in the reverse. And frankly, that's a huge problem that needs to be addressed and an even larger opportunity that is now front-and-center with the onset of marketing cloud warfare.
Consider that the arms race in the marketing cloud only reached a fever pitch when email marketing software companies like Eloqua, Responsys, Silverpop, Neolane, and ExactTarget were being acquired over the last two years to the tune of almost $6 billion. While all that SaaS goodness was categorized as cross-channel, multi-channel, or marketing automation platforms, the truth of the matter is that they all have email marketers as their power users and they are at the core of all the measurable return on investment (ROI) for outbound campaigns. Not SMS, not social. Every brand-new responsive website is nothing but a field of dreams that nobody will visit without email and search. Any e-commerce business would attest (albeit anonymously) that email marketing drives a significant portion of their revenues.

Here are just a few additional reasons why I am certain email will be rocking and rolling well into the future:

  • People use email more than they use Facebook on their smartphones
  • Email has the power to monetize every mobile app
  • Everyone loves their inbox on their birthdays
  • Email marketing is one of just a few real-time media that consumers will tolerate

Friday 7 November 2014

What Are Good Open and Click-through Rates for Email Marketing Campaigns?

email marketing malaysia
We get this question all the time. The answer is: It depends. It’s like asking, “What’s a good price for a car?” So many factors go into what drives open and click-through rates. Here we list examples of benchmark statistics for these metrics. Plus, we suggest some areas in your email marketing program to focus on to help optimize your open and click-through rates.

Examples of Average Open and Click-through Rates

The following recent email marketing studies show some of the wide variations in email open and click-through rates based on different industries and types of email campaigns sent:

  • According to the 2012 Silverpop Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study, open rates in the United States averaged 19.9%. Out of 20 industries studied, computer software was a top email open rate performer at 24.7%, while education emails demonstrated the lowest open rates at 15%. Click-through rates averaged 5.4% in this study, with media and publishing at 8.9% and travel and leisure at 2.3%.
  • MailChimp tracked 65,536 email campaigns with nearly 6.7 million email sends and compared open and click-through stats by industry: Average unique open rates ranged from 21.6% (games industry) to 48.6% (religion industry), while click-through rates ranged from 1.3% (gambling industry) to 5.5% (photo and video industry).
  • In the fourth quarter of 2012, Epsilon’s quarterly analysis of 7.3 billion emails sent across multiple industries showed an overall open rate of 27.4% and click rate of 4.5%. Open rates for triggered emails averaged 46.7%, however, which was 70.5% higher than “business as usual” (BAU) emails. Plus, click rates for triggered emails were more than double the rate for BAU emails.
Email List Quality Has a Major Impact on Open and Click-through Rates

Even when we can pull data that compares similar email blasts across an industry, there are still many other factors that influence both open and click-through rates. These include:

  • The quality of your email list
  • How proactively you manage your email list for inactive subscribers
  • The extent to which new, high-quality subscribers are added to your list.
  • Whether you refine your email blast targeting by segmenting your email list.


Improve Your Own Open and Click-through Rates by Testing and Optimizing

The bottom line is that you should focus on improving your own open and click-through trends by continually testing and optimizing such factors as:

  • Subject lines and from lines
  • Copy, including headlines, incentives and offers
  • Calls to action
  • Design, including preview pane, layout, and graphics
  • Day/time sent
Source: http://www.fulcrumtech.net/resources/email-open-rate-and-ctr-benchmarks/

5 Top-Notch Email Marketing Articles to Check Out Now

If you’re looking for some top-notch email marketing articles, you’ve come to the right place. Check out the five articles below and get ready to increase your email marketing we love email marketing prowess!
email marketing

5 Reasons Why Content Marketing Should Elevate Your Email Program

When you’re an email marketer, and you know email boasts the highest ROI of all marketing channels, it can be easy to let your content strategy slip out of mind. In reality, though, content is an important element in any strong marketing mix, and is an excellent compliment to a robust email program. This article is here to remind you that content is not only a solid stand alone marketing tactic, but can be used to bolster your email program, as well.


How To Turn Prospect Priorities Into Email Sales Ammunition

Email, whether directed at prospects, new customers, or brand evangelists, should be all about the customer. This notion is why we here at WhatCounts are shouting from the rooftops to adopt a lifecycle framework in terms of not only your emails, but your marketing strategy as a whole.
This article promotes conducting research and then prioritizing how you present information to readers. Reading this article and incorporating it’s suggestions into a lifecycle approach could easily be a recipe for email marketing success.

Should You Listen to Your Customers’ Needs or Do They Even Know What They Really Want? 

Product development success can be found when you deeply understand your customers. The key is to strike the balance between being a leader in your industry, while also respecting what your customers want. After all, they will be the ones who determine the success of your product and company. This article from KISSmetrics will help you navigate the occasionally choppy waters of pleasing your customers while still remaining a step ahead.

How to Innovate Your Email Marketing: Unlock the Fourth Type of Campaign

In the modern era of marketing, fostering an on-going conversation with customers is crucial. This isn’t restricted to your social or content marketing strategy; it applies to your email as well. In order to keep customers engaged with your brand, you should be constantly prepping them for their next action as customers. Get the scoop on why it is so important to be continuously initiating fresh conversations with your customers, and how to do so with the right focus.

Does Your Email Marketing Measure Up?

Smart marketers know that email marketing is the digital glue that holds all other forms of communication together. As noted in this article, for every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on an email marketing investment. Numbers like that speak for themselves.

I’d venture to say nearly all successful companies in existence today are using email communication, but is it being used correctly? That is a completely different question. Check out this article to hear all about the metrics, methods, and objectives you need to be considering.

Source : http://www.whatcounts.com/2014/10/top-notch-email-marketing/

SEO TIPS AND TRICKS FOR 2014

Search Engine Optimization in 2014 is too complex for beginners so they must need to follow some Best SEO Tips and Tricks that will boost their Website ranking better in modern Search Engines.

So here we are going to see some Basic and Intermediate SEO Tips and Tricks that helps to improve your 3 important website ranking and also in Search Engine Results Page.

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Below SEO tips and techniques are provided as per Google Best Practices and this cover most of the onpage factors.

Tips and Techniques for Keyword Analysis

The Below list will help to improve the Keyword Analysis better.
  1. Use this Google Keyword Planner for Keyword research
  2. Find Less Competitive Keywords with high search Volume
  3. Choose Key phrases
  4. List out Relative Keywords by relevance
Google Keyword Planner - Google Keyword Planner is the free SEO tool that is provided by Google and it helps to find out the Keywords search volume and relative Keyword ideas for you. Useful tool compare with other keyword analysis tool because Google is the top Search Engine used by people so it's worth to use this tool. Also use this 8 Free Google SEO Tools that help to Optimize your website

Less Competitive Keyword with high Search Volume - Finding this one is crucial part of SEO because if you find out this Keyword then you can get high search visitors. More competitor's means ranking high is also too much tough. So find out less completive Keywords.

Choose Key Phrases - Rather than selecting a single Keyword it's better chance to ranking more than one keyword if you chosen Key Phrases. So select Key phrases that works better compare to keywords.

List out Relative Keywords by relevance - List the relevant Searches and Keywords and use the words or phrase in the article going to publish in the blog for the selected keyword. This is going to help get ranking in more phrases than you targeted.

Excellent SEO Tips to improve On-Page optimization
  1. Interesting and Descriptive to read
  2. Quality of the Content
  3. Short and Sweet Title
  4. Relative Meta Description
  5. Use this Optimal Keyword Density Ratio in content
  6. SEO Friendly Url
  7. Keywords in First Paragraph
  8. Use of Headings
  9. Focusing Keywords
  10. Image Optimization
Interesting and Descriptive article - No one is going to like boring long articles so write your content interest to read and descriptive content that will clear all things about the article title.

Quality of the Content - Don't copy Paste whole content from the other website that never going to bring you traffic. Google has very good eye to find out the Duplicate contents. Avoid Keyword stuffing and other Black-hat SEO tricks.

Shot and Sweet Title - Title must be relative and the Key phrase Keywords must be present in the Title. And in length is better to keep it between 40 to 65 Characters. To make website title tag to more search engine friendly read this Tips to optimize the title tag .

Relative Meta Description - Writ a short and sweet 156 Characters that will explain your whole story of the article will help to know better in Search Engines Results Page.

Optimal Keyword Density Ratio - Maintain your Keyword Density in the Safe manner to not getting Google Algorithm Penalties.

SEO Friendly URL - Url of the content must be meaning full to the content. Then search Engine highlight the Url Keywords also it's a boosting signal for the SEO.

Keyword in First Paragraph - Use the Keywords in First Paragraph so search Engines know this is the content really explains about the Title.

Use of Headings - Use prober headings tags h1, h2, etc... It will make readability easier and Nice Chapter wise content.

Focusing Keywords - Highlighting the Keyword with strong or em tag will increase the visibility of the point you are really want to reader by people also it's add some weight in SEO.

Image Optimization - One Image can explain everything better than long story content so add an image and Optimize image using proper Alt Tags.

Tips to improve Off-Page SEO
  1. Use of Social Media
  2. Quality Link Building
Use of Social Media - Use of Social Media not going to build follow back links but it's a powerful source to deliver traffic to the website. Traffic signal is also important factor in SEO so use the social media to get traffic.

Quality Link Building - Don't build your Link too much faster. Quantity of Back links that's not matter Quality will Matter. So write your articles good and interesting then the Back link will flow automatically to your content.

Useful SEO Tricks for 2014
  1. Find LSI Keywords
  2. Use LSI Keywords more
  3. SEO Check Up
Find LSI Keywords - Find the Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords related to your keywords using different methods available in the internet.

Use LSI Keywords more - Rather than Keyword stuffing the new idea use mixes it up LSI Keywords with Keywords as Keyword Stuffing. Use it in all important On-Page SEO Factors.

SEO Check Up - Take SEO Check Up and using different tools available in the Internet and improve the SEO Score by fixing by the tips then you can get a better rank in SERP.

Add a Bookmark of this Page above Tricks will be updated in regular manner to maintain the Quality of the Article.

Necessaries of SEO Tips and Tricks in 2014

Competitive world everything will have some Guidelines and rules that must we need to follow. So we need to follow this techniques to survive our ranking in search Engines.

Always one thing we need to remember in SEO that is if we write Unique and Good Articles that is interest to read for a user not for search engines this is the one rule always survives you in SERP.

Hope this SEO Tips and Tricks will helps to boost your rank in Google in 2014.

Source : http://www.bestseoideas.com/best-practices/seo-tips-and-tricks

Thursday 6 November 2014

9 Killer SEO Tips and Tricks Worth $1K or More

The world’s best online businesses do two things really well:

First, they put huge amounts of time and effort into dominating search engine results.

Second, they offer unique, convincing sales pitches to their new visitors.

But you’re probably thinking:

“How do I dominate search engine results?”

If you’re a small fish in a big pond, it can seem impossible – but don’t despair.

I’m going to share with you the 9 SEO tips and tricks our experts use every day to rank small businesses at the top of their industries. And I’m also going to include the estimated lifetime value of these tweaks.

Hint: you might be surprised how much money you can make from a small change.

1. Get a Google Plus page.

Estimated Lifetime Worth: $20,000 [Whoa - why is that number so big?]

Google+ isn’t a very popular social network in comparison to Facebook – but that doesn’t matter.

It has incredible SEO value – and for just one reason:

When you connect your Google+ page to your website, your face is shown next to all of your search engine results.

33% of people click on the top result of Google. Why? Because it’s the easiest to click on. It shows up first, and likely has a catchy enough headline to be interesting. Why not give it a click?

2. Get a Google Places page.

Estimated Lifetime Worth: $10,000

If you’ve read a little bit about SEO, you’ve probably heard one word over and over:

Local, local, local.

Google is moving more and more towards local search, and most people don’t know how local SEO works: that means you have a huge opportunity.

And the best part is: this SEO trick will work even if your main business site ranks terribly in search engines.

Local results show above most regular results – regardless of how good the actual website is.

So how do your improve your Google Places ranking? It’s actually pretty simple:

1. Make sure you have more positive reviews than your competitors do

Any time you have a chance at a testimonial, make sure it gets posted to your page. Most businesses have no idea about this, and have NO reviews. Even 5-6 good-star reviews may be enough to secure a top spot

2. Make sure your address is posted on your website, and on as many social media sites as possible

Each time Google can pair your business name with your business address, it means you’re more likely to be located at that address (these are called “citations”).

The best way to get more citations is to sign up for social media accounts like Yelp, Angie’s List, and any other site that will allow you to list your address. It’s that simple!

Pretty easy, right?

And since the Google+ page is unrelated to how your site is ranked – you can get top rankings fast, even if your site isn’t doing so well.

QUICK PIT STOP: How are we getting these estimated value numbers?

We’re guesstimating, a bit – but these are very close to profit numbers we see for all of the businesses we work with. How?

A well-performing SEO page can bring in several new customers each week. Doesn’t sound like much, right? When you add it all up, it’s pretty impressive.

With a $100 product, if a page brings you 1 sale a week, that’s $5,200 a year. When you start crafting several pages at a time, you’ve got an impressive income stream on your hands. That’s the power of search, and that’s why SEO tips and tricks like these can be so valuable.

3. Check your internal link structure.

Estimated Lifetime Worth: $10,000

Backlinks from other websites are a big part of any SEO strategy – but that’s not the only type of link that makes a difference.

Links on your own pages make a difference, too – and a small shift can do wonders for improving your rankings.

1. Choose a poorly performing page on your site
2. Drive more links to it on your other pages

Also, Google rewards pages that are what they say they are. Each page’s content should match its title and keywords as well as possible.

4. Make sure you’re speaking Google’s language

Here’s a quick checklist to make sure all of your pages are Google-friendly.

1. Are your main headings in <H1> tags?
2. Are your subheadings in <H2> and <H3> tags?
3. Does the title of your page contain your keywords?
4. Does the main heading on the page contain your keywords?

5. Do competitive research, and don’t be afraid to steal.

Est. Lifetime Value: $15,000+

Most business owners make one huge SEO mistake when they’re first starting out:

They try to do everything from scratch.

But why reinvent the wheel when you have an excellent model for how to rank highly in your niche: your top competitors.

I’m going to show you how to profitably spy on their SEO habits, and you won’t believe how easy it can be.

Note: this is only for websites that are ranking poorly in search engines.

Step #1:

Do me a favor. Type in a popular keyword phrase for your niche, and see who the top three or four results are.

Click on one of their websites, and look at it closely.

Take note of the structure of the page. What does their headline say? How long is their text? Do they have lots of links in the text of the page?

Now comes the important part: we copy what they’re doing. Not the text of their site, of course, but the structure.

Make sure your page has approximately the same word count (preferably longer), contains the same keywords, has a very similar heading, and a similar title tag, too.

Important: Do NOT steal the text/content from their pages. Google knows all and will penalize your site!

Find the most successful of your competitors, and take notes on everything. What is their text like? What is the tone like? How about their layout? Title tags? What makes the site good? What about their color scheme?

Don’t be afraid to copy. Some of the biggest websites you see are probably there because someone knew how to copy someone else.

By the time you are starting to see some more traffic, you should have a better idea of how to really make it yours.

Within a few weeks, you should see an improvement in your rankings. It’s not a permanent strategy, but it’s a great way to launch your site and start getting real traffic.

5. Make a few videos and put them on YouTube.

Est Lifetime Value: $1,000

Google loves to rank Youtube videos highly.

In fact, videos are 50x more likely to show up on the 1st page of Google vs. traditional text pages.

Even if your website isn’t hitting the front page, your YouTube video just might.

So how do you get your video to rank on the first page of Google?

1. The more views, comments and likes the better
2. A video title that matches the keywords you’re looking to rank for
3. A reasonably long video (usually 5 minutes or longer)

Make something entertaining, interesting, or really useful – something sharable.

6. Write ‘definitive guides’ to things.

Estimated lifetime value: $5k per effective guide (that is not an exaggeration, either)

Want to know a secret that SEO professionals discovered a long time ago?

The secret to getting a lot of backlinks to your site is: Make your site irresistibly informative.

And almost nothing is as informative as a how-to guide. Especially one that’s authoritative, and easy to use as a reference.

If you can manage to write something truly useful, people will share your guide. Write a “Bible to…” something, or “The Encyclopedia of…”. Make it sound authoritative.

If you can manage to offer something that’s not found anywhere else, then your chances are even better of getting some shares and thus traffic.

7. Claim your free backlinks.

Estimated lifetime value: $1,000

Some SEO tips and tricks are tough to wrap your head around, this one’s a no-brainer.

SoundCloud and various other web platforms allow you to link to your website from a profile, and yes, these do count toward you backlinks.

Not as much as, say, a link from Harvard or Sony, but any little bit counts. Sometimes a few little backlinks like that can push you up a page on Google’s search results.

8. Steal backlinks from your competitors.

Estimated lifetime value: $2,000

Open Site Explorer will be really helpful, because you can check where your competitors are getting their backlinks, among other things.

It’s not a bad idea to try to get to know the owners of those websites linking to your competitors.

Sometimes a little interest in what someone else is doing can go a long way. Introduce yourself to website owners.

Tell them how much you like their new articles about selecting a lawnmower or about how Facebook is ruining civilization as we know it, or whatever. A little praise can go a long way. Then ask for a link.

You might hear no or nothing at all a few times before you hear yes, but don’t get discouraged.

9. Connect with bloggers in your niche on social media.

Estimated lifetime value: $1k per successful relationship

Building on the last tip, reach out to bloggers who would find you relevant. Introduce yourself.

Give them some commentary on what they do. Once again, show interest.

If you can manage to get some people writing about you, it can be a huge asset to your business.

The catch is that this is probably the most time-consuming and difficult step. It can take weeks or months to get some bloggers to care. Reserve this one for after you’ve done the other 8.

Wrapping up…

Ranking highly in search engines equals more money for you. The sooner you employ these tips, the sooner you’ll see rewards.

Source: http://platowebdesign.com/articles/seo-tips-and-tricks-worth-1k-or-more/