Are all of these components necessary? Nope. Some are better  suited to targeting certain markets than others. There is no one-size-fits-all  Internet marketing solution. Read on to learn more about nine of the top  Internet marketing tools and how your business can make the most of them.

1. Article Marketing

Article marketing entails writing and  publishing articles of journalistic quality for the purpose of driving  qualified traffic back to your website. Like press releases, well written,  useful articles can establish you as an authority in your field, build  credibility in your company, and promote top-of-mind awareness in your target  market.

Will it work for your business? When properly done, article marketing can successfully expand the Internet footprint of almost any business.

2. Company Blog

It is no secret that Google and other top  search engines reward fresh content. Adding a keyword optimized blog to your  company’s website can help boost your position in the search engine rankings. Also,  regular blog posts give people a reason to visit your site more frequently and can help strengthen your company’s reputation as an expert in your industry.

Will it work for your business? Most businesses can benefit from a blog. The key  is to keep the blog updated regularly with new content. If you don’t have the  time, entrust the task to someone else within the organization or engage the services of a professional writer.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing is an affordable marketing  tool that can help you increase sales, drive website traffic, and build enduring  relationships with customers. Unlike direct mail, email marketing allows you to  send highly targeted messages to subscribers, increasing the likelihood of  conversion.  What’s more, email marketing  is one of the few channels that offer reliable tracking information you can use  to make your campaigns more successful.

Will  it work for your business? Since email marketing is quick, easy, and affordable, the best way to find out whether email marketing is right for your business is to try it.

4. Landing Pages

If you participate in pay per click (PPC) marketing, run email marketing campaigns, or use QR codes, landing pages are critical to your success.  A good landing page is carefully designed to  have a laser focus. Its sole mission in life is to get your visitor to take  action. Because of this, campaigns that utilize landing pages typically have much higher conversion rates.

Will  it work for your business? If your campaign includes QR codes, eblasts, or PPC, you definitely want to consider landing pages.

5. Pay Per Click  Marketing

Internet marketers who think that pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a scary, risky, and expensive way of promoting their  businesses simply aren’t doing it right. When executed correctly, PPC marketing  can deliver immediate results. Because search engines don’t charge a fee to  place or run a PPC ad, the initial investment is relatively small. A PPC marketer only pays for the users that click thru on his or her ad.

Will  it work for your business? The main question to ask yourself is whether people are searching for what you’re promoting online.

6. Press Releases

A press release, also known as a news  release, is a news story prepared for distribution by the media.  Professionally written press releases can help shape your public image, establish  your company as an authority in your industry, build credibility in your
products and services, and drive traffic to your website. Furthermore, they promote top-of-mind awareness: the more a consumer sees your company’s name mentioned in a positive context, the more likely they will remember it the next time they are in need of your products and/or services.

Will  it work for your business? A press release is a news item and is best utilized when a) you have something newsworthy to report about your company or  b)you can tie your marketing campaign to a current news topic or debate.  Newsworthy stories might include launching a new product or service, winning an award, opening a new office, or giving the company website a facelift.

7. QR Codes

A quick response code, (QR code for short)  is a special type of barcode containing data that can be read by a  smartphone.  A QR code can provide users  with key details, contact information, or a link to a website. By including a  QR code on posters, flyers, business cards, and other promotional materials,  you give your target audience an easy, fun way to interact with your business.

Will  it work for your business? The ideal audience for QR codes is smartphone savvy. They should also know what a QR code is and how to use one.

8. Search Engine Optimization

Essentially, search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of techniques that work to guide search engines to your site when a user types in a search query. A long-term SEO strategy is designed to position your site higher in the results pages, making it more likely that a potential customer will click on the link to your site when typing in a search query that is related to your business.

Will it work for your business? Unless you don’t like the idea of attracting new web traffic to your site, SEO is a must-have Internet marketing tool these days.

9. Social Media Marketing

With more and more businesses taking  advantage of social networking every day, competing in today’s digital economy  often means having a strong social media presence.  Through participating in social networking  communities, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, your company can build lasting relationships with clients and engage potential consumers.

Will it work for your business? Does your business benefits from constant contact with your customers? If so, then social media marketing may be a good fit.

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Know Your Goals

All too often, business owners start hammering nails without taking the time to create the blueprints. By clearly defining what you want to accomplish, you can provide your Web developer with the information he or she needs to help you reach your objectives and establish clear benchmarks against which to evaluate your progress.

Understand Your Target Audience

You have incomparable insight into what products or services your target market wants and needs, but do you understand the way your audience consumes information? Do they prefer reading content or viewing videos? What motivates them to take action? By understanding your target audience’s preferences and tailoring your website accordingly, you can increase your conversion rate and keep your audience coming back for more.

Develop Search Engine Friendly Content

“If you build it, they will come” may have worked in Field of Dreams, but sadly the Internet doesn’t operate that way. Your site is competing against dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other sites on the Web. You can help your target audience find your site by researching what terms they are using to search for content and carefully incorporating these key terms into your site.

Be Consistent

Think of your brand as a promise between you and your customers. By maintaining consistent branding throughout all of your marketing materials, you are sending a message to your customers that you intend to keep your promise. When designing your website, be sure to incorporate visuals and verbiage that support the rest of your marketing materials.

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Why Website Security is So Important

If you are an e-commerce merchant, you probably already realize the importance of having a secure website. E-commerce transactions on your website often involve the transfer of credit card information and personal details, and keeping this data secure is essential to earning and maintaining your customers’ trust. If your security is compromised, you may lose customers.

But what if your business doesn’t participate in e-commerce? Do you need to concern yourself with website security? The answer is a resounding “YES.” Your website is the virtual face of your organization. Hackers can compromise your business image by taking your site down or altering its appearance. They can even affect your search engine rankings by injecting your site with malware and hurting its reputation with Google.

How to Protect Your Website

Now that you know that website security is a serious issue for every business with an online presence, what can you do to protect your website?

Use Secure Passwords

This might sound like a no-brainer. After all, no one could possibly guess the combination of your pet’s name and your spouse’s birthday, right? Wrong. Hackers use a variety of cracking programs that can process tens of thousands of possible combinations of words, phrases, and numbers per second.

So, how can you make your passwords as strong as possible?

• Use long passwords. The longer your password, the harder it will be for hackers to guess it. Many security experts recommend using a password that contains at least 14 characters.
• Make them complex. You can make your passwords stronger by using a mix of lowercase letters, capital letters, numbers, and symbols.
• Don’t use real words. Hackers can unleash a weapon in their arsenal called a “dictionary attack,” a password cracking program that uses a dictionary to try and guess your password.

Having trouble coming up with a password that meets all of these criteria? A free service like Strong Password Generator can create a secure password for you and even give you a handy mnemonic to help you remember it.

Update Your Open Source

If your website is using open source technology – WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, for example – one of the simplest ways to beef up your site’s security is to be sure that you are using the latest version. Also consider installing security plug-ins and modules to provide an extra layer of protection.

Although open source content management systems (CMS) are generally cost-effective, easy to use, and flexible, their inherently “open” nature may put them at a higher risk for hacking. The ready availability of open source code gives hackers an advantage when figuring out its vulnerabilities. A custom built dynamic website, when properly done, can prove more secure because hackers are unfamiliar with its structure. Financial institutions, government organizations, and other groups whose websites contain sensitive data should consider having their sites developed using a custom CMS.

Check Your File Permissions

File permissions tell your server who is allowed to read, access, or modify your pages. For instance, a file with permissions set at 777 can be modified by anyone with access to your server. It’s practically an invitation to hackers. Security experts generally recommend setting directory permissions to 755 and file permissions to 644 unless a specific program requires them to be set at something different. To find the correct permission settings for your website, contact your hosting provider or engage the services of an experienced Web security expert.

Use a Secure Host

Not all Web hosts are created equal. Make sure that your host takes the security of your website seriously. Since Web security is ever-evolving, hosting companies need to keep up with the changes by keeping their servers updated with the latest software and patches. If your host isn’t constantly updating their security software, it’s time to find a new host.

Consider Dedicated Hosting

Although shared hosting is usually the most budget-friendly way to host your website, it presents more security risks than dedicated hosting or virtual dedicated hosting. On a shared server, all it takes is one person to have a bad piece of software or give their password to the wrong person to open up the entire server to a hacker. A dedicated server, however, is yours and yours alone. The boogie man can only get in if you are lax with your own security.

Add SSL

Whether you’re hosting your site on a shared server, a dedicated server, or a virtual dedicated server, using an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) can add another level of protection between your website and hackers. Designed to encrypt sensitive information during online transactions, this step is especially essential for e-commerce merchants, since most shoppers won’t enter personal information without seeing that a site has an SSL certificate.

Ask an Expert

The information and recommendations we’ve provided here are just general guidelines. Think of this article as a beginner’s course. To make sure your website has all of the security measures in place that it needs, we recommend contacting a website security expert.

Mirror Mirror on the Web

In Season 2, Episode 33 of Star Trek, Captain Kirk and crew wind up in a parallel world after trying to “beam up” during an ion storm. Imagine their shock and dismay when they encounter brutish counterparts of themselves in a hideously skewed alternate reality!

When researching your products or services on the Web, is your target audience seeing an accurate representation of your company, or is your transporter (website) experiencing a malfunction? Unfortunately, many company marketers and CEOs overlook the central component of a good online marketing strategy: a beautiful, professional-looking custom Web site design that reinforces customer interest. When developing your company’s website, take time to make sure that the design and content accurately reflects the key characteristics that make your company great.

Doing Business in a Virtual World

More and more of us are spending a growing percentage of our time in the virtual world of social media, and it is becoming more and more important part of a solid online marketing strategy for businesses to have a strong social media presence. Social media marketing can be a great way to keep current customers interested in your services and entice prospective clients to want to learn more about you. But don’t step through the social media Stargate unprepared. First, ask yourself a few simple questions. Who is my audience? What does my audience want from my company online? What kind of online image do I want my company to have? By forming a clear picture of how you want your company represented, to whom you are representing it, and what your audience is interested in, you have taken the first step toward developing a virtual counterpart for your business that is destined for real-world success.

Content Cultivation

Careful content cultivation is of vital importance to ranking well on Google, Bing, and other search engines. Update your site frequently and add new content on a regular basis. An easy way to incorporate new content into your website is through a blog. By writing and posting about topics that are near and dear to your target audience, you can earn the trust of your readers and establish a reputation as a leading expert in your field.

Social Buzz

By now you should be aware of what social media marketing is and some of the many reasons why your business should participate. But did you know that integrating social media into your website is a great way to build a following? The key to seamless social media integration is to catch the attention of your viewers without distracting them from on-site content. Social media links should serve as call to actions for readers who want to learn more about the valuable services and resources you provide.

Monitor Your Website’s Health

To ensure the continued health and growth of your website, you should run some basic tests on a regular basis:

• Test the speed at which your pages are loading.
• Check to see whether there any broken links or forms in your website.
• Make sure your website is compatible with the latest browser updates.
• Set up a free Google Analytics account and link it to your site to learn which pages your visitors are most interested in, how many people are  returning to your site, and how long they are staying on your website, among many other indicators of website success.

Test in Multiple Email Clients

Making sure that your design displays correctly in a variety of email clients is one of the fundamental challenges of email marketing. This is because not all clients render HTML the same way. Test your email in multiple email clients to ensure that your design will maintain the desired look whether it is viewed in Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, Lotus Notes, or one of the countless other email readers. To streamline this process, many email marketing platforms now offer the option to preview your email in many if not all of the major email clients.

Check Your Links

The goal of your email campaign should be to get your reader to act. Action often involves clicking a link that leads to a landing page or website. No matter how strong your call to action is, a broken link is like a broken promise. To avoid disappointing your reader, be sure to check each individual link before you send your email.

Proofread Everything

You don’t have to employ a full-time copy editor to protect yourself from grammar gaffes. Avoid spelling errors by writing your email content in a program equipped with spell check, and familiarize yourself with the most common grammar mistakes. Also, consider having another set of eyes proofread your content.

Be Subject-ive

A good subject line grabs a reader’s attention and makes him or her want to open your email. Keep in mind, though, that creativity is not the only consideration when it comes to crafting effective subject lines. If your subject line doesn’t reflect your email content, readers’ interest may turn to mistrust. Also, steer clear of words or phrases that could trigger spam filters.

Get Ready to Measure Performance

How do you know whether your email marketing efforts are working or not? By choosing an email platform that allows you to track your open rates, click rates, bouncebacks, and opt-outs, you can test your campaigns, experiment, and ultimately improve your performance.

Why Participate in Social Media Marketing?

Although it is still in its formative years when compared with traditional marketing tools, social media marketing is a ball that clever marketing strategists everywhere are picking up and running with – and using to score big for their companies. Why do they think social media is such a useful marketing tool? Let’s take a look at a few reasons:

1. People prefer to do business with companies they know. Social media provides a unique way for businesses to engage their target markets, cultivate interactions, and develop associations into business relationships.

2. It helps companies keep an ear to the ground. By monitoring what prospects are saying, social media marketers can gain valuable insight into how their companies, products, and services are perceived and use this information to further their marketing, sales, and product development objectives.

3. Social media isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, the use of social media for marketing is on the rise. According to SEMPO’s State of Search Marketing Report 2011, 84 percent of queried companies are using Facebook for marketing, up 11 percent from last year. The take-home message here is that companies that are not engaging in social media marketing might be left behind by their competitors.

Getting Started With Social Media Marketing

Like any marketing tool, social media should be used with a clearly defined strategy in mind. Jumping into social media without having a game plan may set a company up for failure. By developing solid strategies with achievable objectives, marketers can make social media a successful part of their companies’ marketing efforts.

What’s a QR Code?

QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that were originally designed for automotive manufacturers to track parts during production. Although the technology has been around for over a decade, QR codes have only recently become popular because of our growing addiction to smartphones and tablet computers. To read them, you must have a phone or other device that has a QR code reader app. Just hold your phone’s camera over a QR code to access the information hidden within.

How Are They Used?

QR codes provide a unique channel through which you can engage and connect with your market. When scanned, a QR code can take you to a website, Twitter profile, Facebook page, YouTube video, or a variety of other digital destinations. They can even make a phone call or generate a SMS message.

Why Use QR Codes?

In a world with a 3.5 second attention span, QR codes give people a reason to stop and take a minute to interact with a business’ marketing collateral. And people are stopping: during the month of June alone, 14 million people scanned one or more QR codes, according to data released by comScore, Inc.  Another explanation for QR codes’ rising popularity is the element of surprise. Scanning a QR code can be like opening a Cracker Jack box – you never know what’s inside!

#1 Your Web Site Speaks Volumes about Your Business

Did you know that launching a website without proper research and planning could actually hurt your company’s marketing efforts? Creating a successful Web site design that showcases your company, services, and products requires design savvy, technical knowledge, and marketing know-how to engage, inform, and convert prospects.

#2 Put Function before Cost

Most of us are bargain hunters at heart, always scouting for the best deal. And many of us find out the hard way that sometimes the best deal isn’t always the cheapest price. When researching Internet marketing and website design firms, it is crucial to find out all that you can about the capabilities of each company in order to determine who will give you the most value for your investment.

#3 Stagnant Sites Don’t Sell

Imagine you’ve subscribed to an industry journal. The first issue contains well-written articles that offer a wealth of information about your topic. The second issue consists of the same articles. The third issue is the same, too – even the ads. Would you keep reading the publication or cancel your subscription? Like print media, websites need to be updated constantly in order to stay relevant. New content is attractive to both readers and search engines. Making changes to your site’s content on a regular basis will help position you with your readers as a leader in your industry and encourage Google to push your site higher up the rankings.

#4 Flexible Internet Marketing Tools Give You Room to Grow

In the past, if you wanted to freshen up your company’s website by adding new content, changing navigation elements, or implementing interactive features, it was an expensive and tedious process. With today’s technology, however, there’s no excuse not to grow your site as big as your company needs it to be. By developing your site using a dynamic open source framework, it is quick and easy to keep your site relevant to your readers and the search engines.

#5 Hit All of the Links

At Profile, we’ve developed a recipe for creating marketing tools that give our clients the competitive edge. We call it our three-link development system. Marketing + Technology + Superior Design. Without Marketing, the other elements would produce something that looks amazing but has no relevance to businesses. Leave Technology out of the mix and you get a good-looking piece of collateral marketing that could have reached more prospects and engaged more of your target audience if the latest technology had been utilized. Throw Superior Design under the bus, and you sacrifice the power of visual keying mechanisms that resonate with your target audience. Together, the three elements can be used to create marketing tools that attract, engage, and convert your market.