Blog Tips: 8 Tactics to Make Readers Engage!
Source: Andertoons
Blogs are all about information. We write to entertain, to educate, to share news and get the conversation started. This could purely be for distribution of useful, unique information, or something more direct, a sales related and affiliate marketing centric blog.
The truth is – not many blogs make it to the top 100 – as seen in Seth Godin’s Top 1,000 things you should know 
There is so much information floating around. What are the tactics to make folks read your blog?
Here are some great tips to get you started — starting with your planning:
Source: Purdue
1.) Plan Ahead
So, if you don’t know where you’re going with your writing, then your readers don’t stand a chance. Before you sit down and … read more …
Top Firms Expected To Spend More On Internet Marketing in 2009
A new study finds that Internet marketing in the business world is becoming more prevalent.
CMO’s (Chief Marketing Officers) of large corporations are beginning to recognize the importance of Internet marketing and are adjusting their budgets accordingly, reports UK-based Epiphany Solutions.
More than half of the largest corporations in the US and the UK are planning on making online medium spending the biggest part of their ad spend budget in 2009. According to a recent survey conducted by TNS Media Intelligence, while traditional US ad spending may be declining, online advertising spending is steadily increasing—8% more than last year.
Dean DeBlase of TNS told Epiphany that “it appears marketers are placing an emphasis upon enhanced efficiencies for their brands and the ability to engage with well-defined audiences to ensure even greater return on investment.”
If Google Recommends Using Sitemaps – Should You?
Before we begin – What is a Sitemap?
Google first introduced Sitemaps in June 2005 so web publishers could publish lists of links from their sites. Shortly afterward, MSN and Yahoo announced joint support for the Sitemaps protocol along with Google. Sitemaps are now everywhere on the net, not just on the corporate business site.
So, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists all the URLs of your website with additional metadata about each URL. It is useful for every site (or blog) to have a sitemap because it is an easy way to keep the search engines informed on when a page was last updated, how often it is updated, and how important it is in relation to the other URLs of your site.
What are the Benefits of a Sitemap?
1. Sitemaps make your site more search engine friendly.
The more friendly your site is to the search engines, the more visible your site becomes. When you create new content, the search engine crawlers (also known as “spiders”) can discover that content more rapidly through the use of a sitemap.
2. Sitemaps help make your bandwidth usage more efficient.
When new content is created, search engines can find it more rapidly with a Sitemap and avoid having to crawl unchanged pages. This is especially useful for large sites with dynamic content. Search engine spiders will be able to quickly discover what is new and what hasn’t changed without scanning thousands of pages.
3. Help index large sites.
For sites that have a large archive or a database of resources, it is sometimes very difficult to return quality search results for deep pages. If your pages are not well linked to one another, or your site uses AJAX or Flash that is not visible to the search engines, a Sitemap will help the search engines find the content.
4. Find new sites sooner.
If your site is new and has few links to it, submitting a Sitemap will help the search engines discover it faster.
Please note that submitting and/or using a Sitemap does not guarantee inclusion in any search engine, it is just a way to help the web crawlers find all your site pages.
But – this is only the beginning. What types of tools, process can you use – if you decide to utilize these options?
How Effective Can Social Media Marketing Tactics Really Be?
Sites like isitdoneyet.gov which provide
consumers with proper meat cooking temperatures and tips are
becoming more prevalent as government officials have begun to
realize just how effective social media marketing tactics can
be.
“When you begin to work with government people on the
client side, you learn just how passionately they care about the
issues, and the limitations that they have.” Brian Herder,
president and executive creative director of Russell Herder, a
Minneapolis based firm specializing in government to public
marketing for state and local government agencies told
DMNews.com.
Some of the biggest obstacles to any government sponsored
commercial marketing campaigns include accountability and ROI,
both of which can be measured more easily when they are
Internet-based. While traditional commercial marketing
campaigns, which are television and ad-based, have been proven
to be effective, the role of the Internet in the lives of the
American public means that online advertising reaches a greater
audience than most traditional types.
Alan Minton, VP at Track Marketing, an Alexandria, VA based firm
specializing in work with federal agencies including the EPA,
the SSA, or Social Security Administration and The Department of
Justice, believes that direct marketing within these campaigns
is the key to their success.
“It’s not enough to say `we put out 20,000 brochures’
anymore,” says Minton. “The OMB (Office of
Management and Budget) requires measurements and agencies are
forced to show real outcomes.”
In addition to isitdoneyet.com, other successful government
sponsored campaigns to emply social media tactics include the
Minnesota Department of Health Teen Education Campaign, and the
Healthy Eating Campaign sponsored by the CDC.
Government to Monitor access to Internet?
A bill that would require the government to monitor who does and
does not have access to the Internet was approved today by
Congress.
This legislation represents the feelings of many policymakers,
like Senate sponsor Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who feel that the
federal government has a responsibility to ensure that Americans
can access the Internet.
Under the terms of the bill, the FCC will be required to conduct
consumer use surveys of broadband use in urban, suburban, and
rural areas, as well as in large and small business markets. The
Census bureau will also be required to include questions about
Internet use on its surveys.
Supporters of the bill hope that it will help to explain why the
United States is behind many other developed countries in terms
of widespread Internet usage.
