Category: Marketing

Visitors Stats [update]

Every year I release the information showing the visitors by region.

The reason behind tracking these stats is to improve my site accordingly.

So, here is the visitors stats by region for vinod.pro

 

Visits by region - Vinod.pro

 

(Click to enlarge)

The top 8 regions are;

  • USA
  • China
  • Russian Federation
  • UK
  • India
  • Germany
  • Spain
  • France

 

 

Note: This is purely to understand from which region I get more traffic so I can improve my website accordingly. I do not store visitors IP address.

 

Social Media Marketing for Business

Marketing is the key ingredient for a successful business. Thus doing it in cost effective way is a burning challenge to all the marketing managers out there since the more cost effective  the marketing strategy is, the more is the Return on Investment.

Despite the conventional marketing methods, businesses benefit more from the cost effective online marketing methods. Apart from various online marketing strategies, social media marketing plays a vital role in benefiting your business provided used in a proper way!

Many business owner are still not aware of the benefits of a social media marketing which is why I often posed with questions from clients, the common questions being

I often come across different type of questions from clients, the common questions I get to answer are;

what do i get from social media marketing?
what are the benefits of doing social media marketing?
How many hours should i put in to promote my business?
what if people talk bad about my company?

 

Before knowing the benefits of social media marketing for business, lets see some statistical data of social media sites.

Facebook

According to recent Facebook press announcement, Facebook statistics are;

  • More than 500 million active users
  • 50% of these active users log on to Facebook every day, so roughly that equates to 250 million users
  • An average user has 130 friends

 

 The highest number of Facebook users (country-wise) are nicely visualized in the below chart.

Twitter

The following are the estimated Twitter stats based on comscore.

  • More than 80 million global users
  • Generating more than 60 million tweets a day.

The highest percent of Twitter users (country-wise) are nicely visualized in the below pie-chart.

Blogs

Blogs are the best way to keep your target audience updated on your products, services or even about your business as a whole.

Advantages of Social Media Marketing

The above statistics shows how many millions of users use these sites and how potential are these networks for a business to grow. These social media sites can help your business in

  • Increasing the exposure
  • Branding
  • Knowing your target audience (Start-a-dialog, Interact & Engage)
  • Increase the Relevant traffic, leads/sales
  • Increase ROI (cost effect marketing)
  • Building community around business
Marketers indicated that blogs were the top area in which they planned to increasing their social efforts – Michael A. Stelzner

Understanding the importance of social media does not get your business the benefits. You need to learn the right way of promoting through social media marketing.

Learn

First things first, you need to learn which social media site to begin your marketing. You do not want to hit the tough road right at the start of your marketing.

Do a your research;

  • Based on demographics of the social media sites, you can identify the consumer group and know if a particular site has your target consumer group.
  • Know from your existing customers, you can get such information using feedback forms (add this in your regular feedback form along with email id).
  • Online surveys can help you gather this information.

The better you understand your target group, the better you have the chance and ability to serve them.For instance, your research tells that majority of your target audience use Facebook and only few others use twitter & 80% of the local people visit local news/entertainment blog.

With such information you can decide from where to start your social media marketing, ie. from Facebook in this instance.

Reach & Focus

Create your company/business profile(s) in the selected social site(s). Let your regular customers know that you have your business profile on these social network site. Invite your existing customers for friends. Target only those whom you believe are your target audience. Reaching the right audience is key here.

Have your focus on your goals and do not make your business profile a personal profile. You should interact with your network friends/fans/followers but should maintain your focus on your goals. Business should staff those who believe in social media and who does not loose their business focus.

Communication & Consistency

Make sure your objective is making more and more sales. Do not sound like a robot or a sales pitch, start a dialog, reply to your network friends/fans & engage. Make sure you maintain the consistency in updating your profile, either it's Facebook, Twitter or your company blog. Consistent transfer of information is very important to keep your social network fans/friends interested and entertained. This does not mean you just send automated updates or sound like a robot.

Social media marketing is an opportunity to increase or better your company image as in whole – Vinod
Attract

Attract your network friends/fans by

  • Replying or commenting on their updates
  • Giveaways/Discounts
  • Special Coupons
  • Sharing interesting news
  • Be creative and not just copy others
Build

Build community but not with increasing just the friends/fans in numbers. Successful social media marketing depends on how effective the response is from your network friends/fans and how influential you are in the network.

Try to be responsive and responsible as a business, you should be ready to handle any customer's negative feedback. If a genuine case, you address it and get it sorted. Ignoring social media marketing just because you are worried about negative feedback is just like a "bad business wanting good feedback". Businesses can be successful if you aim at customer satisfaction.

Opportunity

Be realistic! if your company has a negative image offline, then you cannot expect an over night image change for just being on social media/networks. If you want to be benefited from your social media marketing, then you should be ready to serve those negative feedback customers and turn them to positive, this is an opportunity to your business – utilize it.

Manage & Promote

Managing your social media profile is very important. Delayed response to a query does not really give a good impact. Always protect your profile from spam. There are tools that can help you in managing these tasks. Last but not the least, promote your business profile on regular basis to gain target audience and build your community.

 

 

Choosing the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is very important for SEO & Paid Advertising success. In any traditional (profit) business it’s all about profit and customer. Businesses aim to make more and more revenue and to generate revenue they have to make sure they reach as many potential customers as they can.

Especially when it comes to generating on-line sales, SEO & other online promotion plays a very important role in gaining relevant user & brand exposure. More than 90% of consumers use search engines as a tool to find products & services. If an on-line business/website does not receive the potential (relevant) visitor, then it will be very tough to make a lead/sale.

So, it is very important for you to optimise your website for right keyword phrases so that you get relevant traffic to your website via organic search results. To identify the right keyword phrases first you need to understand your business well and identify your target market or potential customer(s). To determine the target market and the potential customers, you have to do thorough research and this includes keyword research too. If you choose wrong keyword(s) then your website will not receive good results. Choosing right keyword(s) is very important for both organic search results and paid advertising.

I come across many businesses who stuck with their on-line promotion as they will be struggling in achieving their sales targets, this is mainly because either they end up in selecting too generic keywords for their SEO or they have selected a totally wrong keyword phrase(s) for their website optimisation. For instance, if your business falls in to high competition sector/market and you choose too generic keywords then you will end up in high competition where you may see very low conversion or sometimes no conversion/leads at all. There are different methods to identify the right keyword(s) for your websites. So it is very important to understand the basics.

Basics

You can use this simple method to identify the relevant keywords for your business website;

First list what you are selling and where. Then, make a generic list of key phrases that a searcher use to find products or services similar to what you are selling.. Shortlist the key phrases in combination to the target market/audience.

For Example:

1. You selling Apples, so the list of generic keywords around your product will be;

  • Apples
  • Fresh Apples
  • Wholesale Apples

2. You sell in specific geo-locations, so you now have identified your target market is Birmingham & Derby.

3. Further creat a list of key phrases in combination to your target market/consumers.

like;

  • Apples in Birmingham
  • Fresh Apples in Derby
  • Wholes Apples in Birmingham
  • Apples in Derby & etc

The above method helps you to understand and come up with the possible (first phase) of keyword phrases for your website..

Now you should find out how many times each of the keyword phrase (from your shortlisted keywords) are actually searched every month. There are different on-line tools that helps you know how many times a particular keyword phrase is being searched every month.

Once you know the monthly search volumes for your shortlisted keyword phrases you will be able to determine which keyword to actually use for optimising your site and target your off-page optimisation.

Tip: Along with the monthly search volumes, the keyword research tool(s) will also provide the how competitive a keyword is. Based on your website and your business goals choose the optimistic keyword phrase. If you sales targets are to be achieved very soon or like almost immediately then you should consider trying paid search advertising (like Google Adwords). This is because results from your SEO efforts are not immediate.

How soon I can see the results from SEO?

This entirely depends on your website, it’s content & how competitive keyword you have choosen and your optimisation skills (both on-page & off-page). In general you should not be expecting anything with-in the first month of SEO

How high competition is actually high?

When considering keyword phrase competition, always remember about;

  • Your website status (content, how old, how many pages, does it have authority in it’s niche & other factors)
  • Your experience levels
  • Your website theme/niche

When you workout the above three aspects you will be in a position to determine how high competition is actually high for you :)

Hope this helps you in understanding the basics in choosing the right keyword phrases

 

List of Press Release Distribution Sites

Here is the list of PR distribution sites, hope it will be useful for those who are in search of the press release sites.

Before you download the PR sites list, always remember that you do a press release only when you have something news worthy otherwise you can try articles submission instead.

Check your PR whether;

  • It’s News worthy to say
  • It’s not an Advertisement, so get it done by a professional
  • Follow the PR guidelines on the PR distribution sites, in general the basic guidelines will be common but it’s worth checking them in all sites as some has unique requirements.

Note: I will keep updating the Press Release distribution sites list file regularly, so keep watching this space at regular intervals for updated list of pr sites.

If you find any press release site of poor quality (spam & etc) or a site that is no longer live, please post here and I will update the same on the actual file.

I have attached the .txt file with this post and you can dowload it from the attached file section below.

Attached Files:

 

Alphabets according to Google.co.uk Instant

I have searched in Google.co.uk to see who comes up first for single letter (alphabets).

Here are the results…

  • A is for Argos.co.uk
  • B is for Bbc.co.uk
  • C is for Currys.co.uk
  • D is for Debenhams.com
  • E is for Ebay.co.uk
  • F is for Facebook.com
  • G is for Maps.google.co.uk
  • H is for Live.com
  • I is for Itv.com
  • J is for JohnLewis.com
  • K is for Klm.com
  • L is for National-lottery.co.uk
  • M is for uk.msn.com
  • N is for Next.co.uk
  • O is for o2.co.uk
  • P is for Paypal.co.uk
  • Q is for Qvcuk.com
  • R is for Rightmove.co.uk
  • S is for Sky.com
  • T is for Tesco.com
  • U is for Youtube.com
  • V is for www.virgin-atlantic.com
  • W is for news.bbc.co.uk/weather
  • X is for Xbox.com
  • Y is for Youtube.com
  • Z is for Zara.com

The interesting part is the letter “u” showing youtube.com in Top spot and sub-domains & sub-folders are given equal importance as long as they are relevant and satisfy the Google search algo.