Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations
IMPORTANT NOTE: Phone support will be closed on Monday May 26th in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Chat and e-mail support will still be available on May 26th. |
It is May! Wow, seems like we were just in January yesterday. Hopefully all of you are doing fantastic on your websites. Last month we learned about Inbound Links. This month we will broaden our horizons by learning about Social Networking.
Social Networking via Blogs
Promoting anything online boils down to one thing: getting links. You submit articles to either A) get quality inbound links, or B) get your link in front of your (human) target market. You exchange links for the same reason - for traffic and search engine benefits. You pay for advertising so that you can put your links in front of people who are searching for products/information you offer on your site.
But with a blog, it comes much easier - and for the most part, naturally. You’ll find that you get a large number of unsolicited natural links, and that those links will be posted in places that get seen by a large number of potential visitors and readers.
Why is this? The blogosphere is made up of information hubs, grouped by topic and style by both individual readers and authority sites, which creates a natural breeding ground for super-networking between information publishers.
This group, as a whole, links very freely to sources that relate to their own - or, simply put, to ‘bloggers that they like’. In the end this creates an entire network of related information for each niche, and even micro-niche, within the blogosphere.
Don’t set out to be “The Lone Blogger”!
Previous teachings may have left you thinking that “linking out” is a bad thing. You may leak “Page Rank”. Or worse, lose your visitors by sending them to someone else’s link. But when it comes to blogging, you will actually increase your readership dramatically by getting involved… and by linking out freely.
Here are 7 ways that you can get involved:
1) First and foremost, if you are currently using Blogger.com – you may want to try using a WordPress blog on your own domain. There are other solutions out there (such as type pad, for example), but you’ll find WordPress super easy to use and an endless source of help and information on it across the web. This is important, because WordPress has TONS of ‘perks’ to blogging that you won’t find elsewhere.
2) Second and equally important, if you have a “splog” (a “spam blog”), it’s time to trade that in and start publishing quality content. In order to truly do well with a blog long-term, you need to post useful information on a particular topic on a frequent basis.
3) Having your personal style shine through in your posts is a big plus. Even if you’re quirky, because your readers love ‘real’ and that’s why they’ll keep coming back. The winning combination in your actual writing is: Quality Content + Personal Style. You might be funny, geeky, outrageous, dry - whatever. But this tends to be a big ‘attraction factor’ with blogs.
4) Make use of your Blogroll and link out to related blogs, or blogs that you frequent yourself. Wordpress has a feature that will automatically alert the bloggers that you link to, and most of them will check out your site - and add you to their blogroll if they like what they see.
5) Include Tags in each of your posts. Try using the plug-in here: http://www.broobles.com/scripts/simpletags/, which allows you to include tags at the end of each individual post. This is VERY easy to do - not as complicated as it sounds. Simply put the code at the bottom of each of your posts with relevant words that pertain to that post.
Once you publish your post, check out the hyperlinked tags at the bottom. Click on each one and you will see a listing at Technorati of posts on other blogs that are also tagged for that particular word. Check those out, and if they are interesting and related… leave a comment! When you are given the option to put in your URL, link back to your individual blog post on the same topic (not your “home page”).
6) Frequent blogs that you like, or that are on similar topics as your own, by subscribing to them through a feed reader. Check ‘your favorites’ no less than once a week, and post comments on any interesting new posts you find there. You can find active, popular blogs on just about any topic in some of the major blog directories.
7) When you find posts of particular interest (while going through the steps above), mention them in your own blog posts. In WordPress, when you link out to an individual blog post on another blog, it shows up in the comments section of that post as a “trackback”. It’s automatic, and it’s that simple: you link to a post and an excerpt from YOUR post shows up in their comments.
When their regular visitors and new readers are finished reading the article, they will notice your excerpt and link at the bottom. Many of those readers will click through to see your comments on this post, or to continue their research of the topic. It’s a great “traffic sharing” method - highly encouraged in the blogosphere!
As you get more involved, and become ‘known’ in your particular niche, you will find that others link as freely to you as you are linking out… which improves your overall exposure, your readership, and your search engine rankings.
What kind of results can you expect?
Try tracking your results. The goal is to see the number of unique visitors and an increase to the number of inbound links showing up daily!
iMergent Inc., parent company of StoresOnline, launched our mortgage and financial services division November 17, 2007 under a Federal Bank Charter Home Savings of America. This new division will continue the tradition of outstanding customer service and innovation that you have come to depend on from StoresOnline. The timing is great as fixed rates are near historic lows-15 Year fixed rate is available today of 5.125%!! iMergent Financial Services is currently able to provide residential and commercial real estate lending, credit enhancement services, and equipment leasing. Make sure to check out future additions of the newsletter for more details on each of these exciting new services.
Product Spotlight: Prime rate is now 5.0% and just recently we have seen a rally in Mortgage Bonds. What does this mean? 30 year mortgage rates have dipped down again. Currently a 30% fixed mortgage is available at 5.625%--Don't hesitate to call us for a FREE, NO OBLIGATION RATE QUOTE. We also offer FHA financing which enables customers to refinance for cashout to 95% of the homes value.
Our financial specialists are standing by to help you with any of your financial needs.
Call: 866.918.8866 OR Email: contact@imergentfinancialservices.com
We are happy to announce that you can now get your logo designed directly through us. We are pleased to offer this new service to you in addition to our websites.
We want to help you attract the right customers for your business. First and foremost, your logo should look great and serve a functional purpose. A quality logo design should be distinctive, polished and memorable.
Average Competitor's Basic Package: $300 - $600
StoresOnline Logos Basic Package: $185
Our designers are some of the industry's best! Giving you a quality logo is the most important thing to us. We will provide you with a variety of fresh, unique logo concepts, customized specifically for your business needs, while communicating with you throughout the process.
Example Logos: Let our work speak for itself. Below are some actual logos created by StoresOnline Logo
New StoresOnline Pro Features
Product Export: "Delete" and "Product URL" are new columns being added to the Product Export in pro for Tab and Excel formats.
The delete column will allow for a mass product delete. The Product URL column is the "Example URL" found in the product edit screen of the builder providing the full web path to the product.
Essence and Zepher Color Scheme: Essence and Zephyr both had their site elements color based on the primary color, when they should have been based on Link or Navigation. We have changed the color that the site elements are based on. In Essence they will be based on Link color and in Zephyr, the Navigation color.
Page Element: A new page element, Recently Viewed Products, has been added to Pro. The new element displays a list of products recently viewed by a site visitor. "Recently viewed" can be found under the Navigation group of elements to add to a page.
New Design: Cologne is now available. Please make sure that you check it out.
Avail: We have added an explicit column for sorting by first name and last name and added the labels back into the person edit screen.
New feature in the Store Builder: If you get an error at the top of the page and it is related to a field not being filled in or the data being invalid, the corresponding field will be highlighted and if you put your mouse over the highlighted field, it will give you the details of the error.
For example, if you add a Standard Product and instead of filling in the SKU and Product Name fields you hit the "Done" button, you will get 2 errors: "SKU is Required" and "Product Name is required". The SKU and Product Name fields will be highlighted. If you put your mouse of the highlighted field, it will show you the error for that field.
Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own Toll Free Number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location. Talk to your customer support representative today!.
Featured Testimonial
"[My manager] just told me I was done...It devastated me. It turned me off on the corporate world and everything else. But now they're supplying my products...I think in the grand scheme of things, I think them letting me go was the best thing that ever happened to me."
Jerry Lillie
www.tanks-to-pans.com
www.yourautocoolingsource.com
Click Here to read Jerry's story >>
Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at www.myquickresponse.com for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582.
As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!
Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.
