search engine marketing Tag

Setting Up Your Online Business for Search Engine Success

An increasing number of budding entrepreneurs are turning to the internet as the catalyst for their business endeavors. Many recognize the low startup costs, minimal overhead and instant access to a global market and dive into an internet business headfirst, not taking the time to research their options thoroughly. Just as with a brick-and-mortar store, it’s imperative to do your due diligence to conceive a marketable product with adequate levels of supply and demand, establish a breakeven point and determine if you have the time, money and perseverance required to make your business a success.

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Getting to Know Search Engine Algorithms

Anyone looking to rank highly in the search engines needs to know a little bit about algorithms. I know, this sounds like some sort of esoteric calculus equation used exclusively by astrophysicists, but it is actually the heart of all search engines. Although there is some discrepancy as to the precise definition of an algorithm, it’s basically a method for solving problems using a precise sequence of instructions. Flowcharts provide a good analogy.

When you go through a flowchart, you are asked a series of questions and eventually led to some resolution. This is essentially of microcosm of an algorithm. Each search engine uses dozens of “signals” to comprise their algorithm, including variables such as a website’s speed, content and inbound links. As you can imagine, sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo! are constantly updating, augmenting and refining the signals used in their algorithms to ensure users are presented with the most pertinent information.

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Custom Jersey Site Successfully Teams Up with iePlexus

Transitioning from the retail market to the online market can be a difficult endeavor, and no one is more aware of those difficulties than Lane James. The proprietor and owner of OnTheField.com, James has been in the sports jersey business since 1993. In that year, he opened a physical location across from the then-standing Kingdome.

“We had our difficulties with teams going up and down, winning and losing, but once we moved to the Kingdome location, we started seeing growth,” said James. “Then we could turn to making our name a national or worldwide brand. We had wonderful IT people that helped us establish an online presence, and we started selling licensed sportswear through our website.”

Recognizing the inherent importance of a niche market, James made the decision to specialize in sports jerseys related to Major League Baseball, the National Football League, Major League Soccer, and many other sports-related organizations.

“The key factor in our business is customization,” said James. “Just select the specific jersey and tell us the name and number of your favorite player — or yourself — and we’ll ship that jersey to you with this custom information.”
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Check Business Makes the Right Choice with iePlexus

Even in an age of debit cards and credit cards, checks are something that most people use on a regular basis. Whether you’re paying your rent, your utility bill, or a friend that you owe for dinner, most people dig out their checkbooks for all those purchases where plastic can’t be used. Online entrepreneur David Hamlen acknowledged this fact and built his web business, www.ChoiceChecks.biz, around this popular product line.

“I developed this site because I was writing so many personal checks myself,” said Hamlen. “I did some research and figured out how much I could save per check if they were purchased in bulk.”

After developing the basic idea that he wanted to carry personal and business checks as well as check accessories and accounting software, Hamlen recognized that there was still a great deal of work to be done before launching a fully functioning web business.

“I took a year of planning and analysis and decided what market I wanted to focus on,” said Hamlen. “I started this process in 2005, and my site didn’t launch until March 2006.”

Entering into his business with the aim of catering to his customers, Hamlen decided to differentiate himself from other check companies with his variety.
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XML Sitemaps and Search Engine Marketing

I’ve always held the belief that XML sitemaps are an important technical aspect to an effective marketing campaign, especially when it comes to blog and search engine marketing. However, this belief was only supported in theory. Sure, every piece of marketing advice and documentation pointed to why XML sitemaps were beneficial, but there wasn’t any data to back up that claim. It was a search engine optimization assumption, in that because this technology was supported by Google and all the other major engines, it made sense to include it in a comprehensive marketing campaign. The question is, does this actually help the engines index your site better or faster? Or is this just a myth pushed by myself and the rest of the SEO community to justify the addition? Couldn’t search engines find and index your site or blog easily on their own?
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Search News Recap 11.24

We only scratch the surface of the search engines when it comes to news on our blog here at iePlexus, and I think we need to devote a little more time to such a broad and important subject. From here on out, I’m instituting a weekly search news recap, a place where we can review and discuss the most recent developments in search engines, ranking, optimization, and technology. Although we don’t directly provide search engine optimization here at iePlexus, it’s vital to consider the engines in any online marketing campaign, and news relating to that subject is just as significant. Also, with any social media advertising or web 2.0 marketing campaign, greater exposure in the search engines is often a byproduct of effective work, so it makes perfect sense to be stay informed. I’ve always been an advocate of a comprehensive, all-inclusive approach to internet marketing, so despite the additional work, I’m just going to have to create a new blog category and start sifting through the archives for relevant posts. Sympathy is definitely appreciated.
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Advertising With A Business Blog

There are many advantages to advertising with a business blog in today’s competitive online marketplace.

For one, blogs carry more weight with search engines because they are updated regularly with fresh, informative content. This consistently updated information is a magnet for search engine robots. When these bots crawl blogs, the more information that can be found and indexed the better. Blogs add more and more content as they develop, thus helping that information reach more customers. The users finding blogs online are typically very targetted visitors, having searched for a specific keyword found in the blog to end up there. The owners of these blogs are also advertising their sites all over the internet and participating in the very active blog community.
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Why Blogs Get More Hits Than Websites

The major search engines strive to find fresh, informative content to keep their users coming back. Blogs meet this need because they are updated on a regular basis, they are full of content relating to a particular or broad range of topics, and they are very search engine friendly.

Often times, your business blog will be found through the search engines before your actual website. Take any popular keyword and type it into Google. The majority of sites that appear at the top of the lists will be sites containing a wealth of information about that topic, not just sites selling similar products. Search engines are looking for content before anything else. Write good content on your blog, on a regular basis, and not only will search engines reward your work, but other people will link to your site naturally.
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