doublelinx:

I pride myself in being a bit of a contrarian.

When the ‘masses’ start taking to an idea in large numbers, I start to get suspicious. More and more people are accepting search engine optimization (SEO) as a way of life in business. The phrase is thrown around with reckless abandon amongst business people and there are literally thousands of new articles about the topic emerging on the market every single day (this article being one of them).

But, what difference is SEO really going to make to your business? What kind of results has SEO produced for other businesses? How well does it work for small to medium-sized business?

Well, I decided to find out.

The Biggest Market Ever

The Internet is the biggest market of consumers there ever was.

There are currently two billion Internet users around the world and that number is projected to jump to 2.7 billion by 2015. That’s more people than any other media source and makes up 40% of the world’s population.

That’s a figure that could make even the most self-restrained marketer salivate. All you need is to get the attention 0.000001% of this market and you’re on a major gravy train, right? Well, not exactly. The perils of working in market that big far outweigh the benefits.

There are approximately 634 million websites on the Internet – 51 million of which were added in 2012 alone. How do you stand out with so much competition?

That’s where SEO comes in…

Don’t operate in a vacuum

If your business doesn’t have a website, it doesn’t exist. In 2013, if your business website isn’t search engine optimized, it doesn’t matter either way.

The first thing most people do before they buy anything, even if it’s offline, is search the Internet. Approximately 89% of consumers look to websites like Google, Bing and Yahoo before making a buying decision. Search engines are the number one source of traffic, beating social media by 300%. For these reasons businesses work very hard to make friends with the likes of Google.

But, it’s not enough to be ranked on Google, if you want to have any kind of impact you’ll need to be on the first page because, and although as much as 61% of people look for products online, only 25% ever go beyond the first page of results.

Give The People What They Want

There are two main reasons people use the internet: To check their emails and to get information.

Although email marketing and search engine optimization is linked, the former is a huge field of study in its own right. SEO is more concerned with the second reason – giving people the information that they’re looking for.

Most of your customers go on the Internet to search for information on a certain topic, which is related to your product or service. They aren’t looking for your business, they aren’t even necessarily looking for products and services like the one you offer. However, if you can be the one to give them the information they’re looking for you’ve instantly proven yourself knowledgeable and reliable, which can be a doorway to a very profitable long-term relationship.

To answer the original question I posed in this article – yes, it really is that important. A good SEO marketing plan can mean the difference between a massive business success and operating with a vacuum.  

Need help with your SEO marketing plan? Try a few SEO services on Doublelinx.

evanescentroses:

I remember five a.m. scenery
rising up from the peaks to my north,
when the rains looked to be reaching
upwards towards the sky,
like the smoke that trailed off
the end of your cigarette.

You slipped your hand into mine
and placed your ashes between my fingers.
Watching the grey curls of poison
float up towards the purple sky,
and I remembered my brother’s brown eyes
and his taste for anything that could kill him—
he told me that he liked to challenge God.

He would press the orange end against
his arm, right in the centre of his wrist.
With each mark he drew a cross
and signed his name beneath it.
October came and went without a smile,
white silk lining his bed, and after
reading his words, I am not afraid to say
that he did the right thing. 

So I said to you that I would never
sip the drink of brimstone
as long as my heart remained
broken;
instead I took the embers and engraved
a star upon my skin,
and tossed it on the concrete,
and stomped the fires out.

Today I stand without you
knee-deep in thoughts of what we were,
and what we would be today,
and I pray the tide comes to capture me
and set out this hellfire I’m drowning in.

(via evanescentroses-deactivated2013)

doublelinx:

Video marketing can be intimidating for even the most hardened entrepreneur.

But for all the potential headaches it may present, the results can be phenomenal. Like in the case of the Dollar Shave Club.

The Dollar Shave Club is a business that delivers good quality affordable razor blades to its customers via the post– nothing spectacular right?

And yet one hour after they posted a particular video, the website crashed. In just 48 hours, they were recruiting family, friends and anyone they could pay to help them package 12,000 orders.

The video in question showed the company’s founder, Michael Dublin, making a few jokes and telling a few people to buy his razors. The video, launched in March 2012, has now been watched over 10 million times and launched the Dollar Shave Club into massive success virtually overnight.

I’m not telling you this for the sake of it. There are certain lessons hidden in the Dollar Shave Club story that can help anyone thinking about launching into video marketing.

Lesson One – “That’s showbiz, baby!”

The Dollar Shave Club video that went viral was, in essence, a comedy skit.

The people who watched and shared the now infamous video weren’t searching for affordable shaving solutions. They weren’t interested in how good the service was. They didn’t crave the convenience of having their shaving equipment sent in the mail.

They simply wanted to be entertained.

In the 21^st century everyone’s an entertainment junkie and that’s something you should always consider when making any form of video marketing you do for your business. Whether it’s a simple message from the executive, a how-to video or an elaborate online commercial – your customers want to be entertained. In fact, they demand it.

Of course, there are many different ways of being entertaining (comedy-skit versus documentary-style) but the point here is that if you want to get more bank for video marketing efforts, always give your customers some ‘pizzazz.’

Lesson Two – It’s a social, social world…

Your customers love to share information about their lives and their experiences that they think their friends will enjoy. Think about any email message you forwarded or any page that you’ve liked on Facebook. What you’re essentially doing there is saying “I think this awesome and I think you’ll enjoy it too.” What’s my Point?

The Dollar Shave Club video spread as fast as it did because of this same principle. When you make videos for your website (thinking of the potential of going viral) you need to keep in mind if the video is giving anything of value to your customer. It could be, like the Dollar Shave Club, entertainment value, or it could be valuable information they didn’t know (like in how-to videos), or it could even be a sense of becoming part of a community (like the Apple versus PC ads).

For most people it’s become virtually second nature to share everything they think is really great. Make your videos great too!

Lesson Three – The Power of video

There are certain things that are just expressed better in the form of video. Pictures, articles, social media simply can’t communicate a brand as succinctly and clearly as video can. When people watched the Dollar Shave Club video they didn’t just see what the product (razors) could do for them, they saw the businesses personality and identity which made it easier to buy into their brand.

When making videos for marketing purposes always remember to consistently represent your brand in how you choose to communicate with your customer and what you choose to say.

Get started today

Dollar Shave Club is an excellent example of the power of video marketing. This one video helped a little company with a weird business model become a household name. Imagine what it could do for your business.

Need help with your Video marketing? I’m sure one of our vendors can help you with that.

shecopywrites:

Thinking about entering the world of internet marketing but don’t know where to start? You may have questions such as…

How much money can I make?

What product can I sell?

Will people even buy my product?

Those are legit questions to consider because it’s important to consider the quality of the product and the market’s receptivity to it before you set out a launch date.

Nothing is worse to an entrepreneur than to launch a business only to have a cold or lukewarm response from consumers.

Kick off your internet business with a bang with these 5 niches that are guaranteed to make you some moolah….

1. Health — There is a tremendous market out there for people who want to improve and heal their bodies… especially the baby boomers! From natural cures to vitamins to anti-aging products, the health market is one of the most popular niches in internet marketing right now with no decline in the foreseeable future, thanks to the 50-years-old and up crowd who are becoming more interested in living longer and preserving their bodies.

2. Finance — Always a good niche. From young to old, everybody wants and needs to make money. With the financial state of the economy, more and more people are becoming interested in how to invest, how to save, and definitely how to make money quick. Create a product to show your consumer the ropes on obtaining financial success with step-by-step information that worked out for YOU as well. You can’t be a broke phony under this niche!

3. Self-Help — How many of us are constantly wanting to become a better version of ourselves from the inside out? I know I do. In fact, most of the books in my personal library are in the self-help category, such as The Secret and The Power of Positive Thinking. We’re living in a generation where people are discovering more about the power of the mind and are willing to obtain as much information as we can to achieve personal bliss. Tap in on this market with your own version of a motivational speaking series with books, dvds, and audio. With the right product marketing, your message can possibly hit home for lots of people and turn their lives around for good.

4. Fitness — There’s a fitness craze going on, too. Have you noticed that every time you watch TV, you’ll see that commercial for Hip Hop Abs with Shaun T? Or maybe you’ve noticed a gazillion Zumba classes pop up in your city? These fitness product trends can make you a fortune online as well. If you’re a fitness instructor, you can release a workout product for abs, glutes, biceps, or whatever your niche within a niche is. People also want to lose weight. If you have a product to help combat obesity and melt body fat, make it an irresistible guarantee that your market will thank you for. 

5. Dating & Sex — Can you imagine being single and getting no play whatsoever from the opposite sex? A lot of people need help figuring out why. It could be that he’s a geek or always clams up around women at the bar… or she has no self-confidence after her divorce and needs to get her groove back. People are online looking for the dating tools they need to feel like they’re ready to go out and get anybody they want. Sex is attached to that, too. Have a product that increases the sex drive or a manual on finding certain erogenous zones? If you’re an expert in dating, sex, relationships, or even marriage, your product should be able to thrive in this niche.