LookupPage Blog | Professional Web Presence and Visibility

Enhanced Online Visibility and Web Content

At this point everyone serious about increasing their enhanced online visibility should be working diligently on their website and blog giving a large chunk of time and devotion to smart web content.  Key words and URLs are important but there are some even more, basic, good housekeeping rules that need to be followed to really make the most of a web site and send one’s enhanced online visibility into the stratosphere.

Develop Enhanced Online Visibility through Organization

For anyone who has performed any management task, no matter how big or small, the concept of good organization is not new.  Unfortunately many forget to apply organization know-how when working on the company blog.  Archiving posts is a crucial part of a successful campaign to create an enhanced online visibility.  Most archives are organized by category, date and perhaps key words (which is different from category).

Develop Enhanced Online Visibility through Link Baiting

Link Baiting refers to the deliberate posting of articles intended to draw a lot of attention to one’s website.  Obviously not every article can create a sense of urgency and compel people’s interest.  A good rule of thumb is to create a link bait post for every twenty to twenty posts written.  Since these are designed to attract attention they need to well-written (really show what you’ve got), have a hook, and a great graphic if at all possible.  Some ideas for link bait articles would be an interesting video or picture, breaking industry news, or secrets from within revealed.

Develop Enhanced Online Visibility through Analytics

All companies have access to their blog analytics.  This is tool that often sits unused in the company toolbox.  Through careful examination of analytics bloggers can see which posts were most popular and cultivate categories to match.  Also, trends in times of high traffic can be discovered through careful observation.  Lastly, analytics provide where the click originated from allowing companies to tweak their marketing to those locations producing the highest quality visitors.

With a little bit of time any size company can improve their website’s traffic thus building enhanced online visibility.  Organization cannot be stressed enough as it will ultimately make or break a site.  Even the best web content is worthless if visitors can’t navigate a site easily.  Companies can further their website’s success through a careful analysis of statistical information provided by analytics and well-placed link baiting.  If done properly enhanced online visibility will be increased with immediate results.

Does Your Online Brand Presence Match Your Brand

What are you saying about your business when you start investing in marketing tools to increase your online brand presence? Establishing a reputation on the web and increasing the amount of business you do via the internet is a multi-faceted discipline, and you need to look at what you are trying to say.

How To Increase Online Brand Presence Through Promotion

The first aspect that you have to consider is what you are promoting. Sometimes your online brand presence marketing will be about the promotions and sales of specific products. At other times, you have to use your marketing to establish a strong business presence through the generation of authoritative content for your website or blog.

You never really know how people use the internet and the search engines to find you, although your analytics programs will give you a good amount of information that you can use. The key is to make sure that your business name is as well represented as your products. Don’t lose sight of the fact that creating authority on the World Wide Web is your first goal. If users think that they can trust your brand name, they will be more inclined to look at what you are selling.

The danger of approaching your online brand presence from a retail and selling point of view is that you may come across on the internet as too promotional. This can affect you more than you realize. The way that websites are ranked by the large search engines is through the excellent creation of original content that provides a service for internet users. Never forget that your website, blog, Facebook page and any other internet marketing device should be used to provide a service to internet users.

Can your potential clients get good, relevant and useful information from your website or blog? Is there anything of value on your site apart from a sales promotion?

Potential clients and internet users are able to compare your brand to others on the net and will make a decision about whether or not to use your services in a matter of minutes. If you don’t have anything good to give them, they will go elsewhere.

Don’t let your online brand presence become tarnished through the use of obvious promotion. The internet is the gateway to the age of information and the worst that will happen is that you’re relegated to a lower ranking and your clients will not be able to find you.

Choose a Professional for Online Brand Presence

Traditional marketing may not be the answer when it comes to online brand presence and enjoying an enhanced online visibility. There are so many different ways of establishing authority on the web that will guarantee increased traffic and sales, so carefully consider using a professional online marketing expert to help guide your business brand to the top spot.

 

Enhanced Online Visibility Basics – Effective Keyword Research

To continually reap the rewards of enhanced online visibility it is sometimes necessary to re-look at the very basics of SEO: Keyword research. Many companies assume that they only need to do their keyword research once and it will continue to give them the results that they desire. Keyword research might be the first rule of SEO and enhanced online visibility, but how many of us pay it attention on a regular basis?

Enhanced Online Visibility – How To Find Your Keywords

Keyword research is a resource that is used to develop a list of words and phrases that adequately match your brand description and what you are selling. Discovering what the most important keywords are for your business can be done in a number of ways. Every website can use the multifaceted Google Analytics tool that is provided free of charge to all website owners.  You can also use a number of other analytics programs to make sure that your keyword research is as extensive as possible and covers all major search engines and not just Google.

Make sure that you do an exact match for keywords when you are starting out. It will give you the keywords and phrases that are an exact match for your website and your products. Remember that your keywords research can help you optimize your website which is the starting point for any SEO strategy or project.

When you start your keyword research for an enhanced online visibility you need to check just how much authority your site has currently. Authority is measured mainly by the numbers of sites that link to yours. Establishing authority if you are a new company or are starting a new website can be done through highly optimized web content which is based on keyword research.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Ongoing Research

You cannot stand still on the World Wide Web. If you only optimize your site for a few keywords, you may be missing out on a massive business opportunity. Your keyword research should be ongoing and done in different areas of your market to make sure that you are enjoying enhanced online visibility across a number of important words and phrases. Choosing the top keywords may not be the right thing to do if you’re just starting out. This is because your search terms could be too broad or too competitive.

 A good way to establish authority and increase the chances of an enhanced online visibility, is to consider ranking highly for a number of keywords that are not as competitive. Once you have made your mark on these words you can turn to more competitive phrases.

Keyword research for enhanced online visibility should always be done by a professional who can advise you of the different aspects and factors that you need to consider when you start your SEO campaign.

 

Small Business Budget With Big Business Plans – Boost your Online Brand Presence

If you are the owner of a small business it does not mean that you need to sacrifice your online brand presence due to a restricted budget. Many of the most successful small business owners borrow ideas from large corporations and tailor them to suit a small business model.

One of the areas that small business can borrow from big business is in the realm of strategic planning. It is vital for a small business to have clearly defined goals as well as a firm strategy for growth. Putting a strategy into action can be as simple as making a list of what needs to be done and actionable tasks to get it done.

A sense of business consolidation is also important when you are managing a small business and trying to create a sustainable online brand presence. You need to spend money on your overall plan and make sure that you are not paying money for individual items that will not help establish your online brand presence. Every aspect of your strategic planning should lead toward the goal line. Far too often small businesses try to do many little things without focusing on the big picture.

If you have a firm foundation and strategic plan for growth, you will not feel compelled to latch onto every new trend that comes along. Don’t stretch your resources too far or you won’t be able to harness growth. Some small businesses look outside of the business to establish a strategy, other still look within the growing business to capitalize on internal resources for change and growth. The most successful companies choose consolidation and planning first.

Online Brand Presence - Strategic Planning

One of the biggest factors that affect growth and strategic planning is brand reputation and online brand presence. You need to stop focusing on where you are on Google and start checking your analytics for information on the amount of traffic that is coming through to your site and the amount of traffic that you are converting.

Strategic planning means doing the right keyword research and placing your brand in places that will appeal to your target market. Social media plays an important part in your online brand presence, as does the preparation and regularity of your content. If you are going to invest money into your online brand presence strategy you should look at increasing your online brand reputation through the effective placement of content.

The road to online brand presence for a small business is exactly the same as the road that big business takes. What you can do as a small business might take a little longer, but the chances are that you will not be competing in such a large market. Enjoy enhanced online visibility and online brand presence by watching what the big brands do and making sure that you’re at the top of your niche market.

 

The Benefits of Online Monitoring Services

Online reputation management has become a cornerstone of any successful online endeavor, and even those who aren’t actively doing business online find themselves in need of reputation management to ensure they don’t miss out on job opportunities or lose existing jobs on the basis of negative publicity. It can be a confusing world, and moves at such a quick pace that many people find themselves overwhelmed rapidly. While a simple Google search every few days can provide a great deal of insight, for a truly secure online reputation most people opt to use a dedicated monitoring service or reputation management company. These services have a number of distinct benefits.

1. Cover a Range of Key Phrases and Keywords

When people are searching by hand, they tend to search for only one or two relevant phrases to their brand, since it is time consuming and annoying to repeatedly do searches. A dedicated online monitoring service will allow you to create a large list of keywords and key phrases, and all of the results will then conveniently be displayed in one place.

2. Receive Real-Time Updates

Sometimes even a few days can be enough for a bad piece of publicity to do some serious damage. With an online monitoring service you’ll find out immediately anytime anything changes, so that you can start doing damage control right away. The importance of this level of fast response cannot be over-emphasized.

3. Search Many Different Networks

While a simple Google search is a great start to discovering what your online brand looks like, the truth is there are plenty of other search engines out there, and many site-specific engines as well. A good online monitoring service will check not only major search engines, but also sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter to help you monitor your brand anywhere on the internet.

Use Google Keywords to Find New Brand Keywords

One of the major challenges facing search engine marketers is leveraging every relevant keyword for their brand and market sector. Often new marketers focus exclusively on high-profile keywords, which are heavily impacted, and offer a great deal of competition. While this is, of course, necessary, diversifying by targeting lesser-known and tangential keywords can have a profound impact on your overall traffic. Of course, in order to do this, you need some reliable way to find other brand keywords that relate to your product.

Thankfully, Google offers a tool that can be used to generate lists of keywords quite easily: the Keyword Tool provided by Google AdWords. By entering a keyword or phrase, Google will provide you with a list of keywords that its algorithms have determined are related. While the bulk of these may be too broad to be useful for your marketing, if you sort through the list you will find many that you have not thought of. Each also includes a rough idea of the monthly search volume for the key phrase as well, so that you can determine how valuable it would be to target.

Using the Google Keyword Tool is a great way not only to discover other phrases used to describe your industry, but also to see which competitor brand names are most searched for. By targeting these competitor brand names not only as AdWords, but also as keywords for organic results, you can work towards ensuring that your company will come up in searches for your competitor’s products. A large portion of search traffic is directed towards a specific brand, rather than a generic industry term, and people using individual brands are on average much more likely to purchase a product or service, as they have a direct interest.

In addition to finding other brands to target, the Google Keyword Tool can give you a lead on what misspellings might be common in your industry. Often misspelled key phrases generate a sizable amount of search engine traffic, but are much less competitive than the accurately spelled key phrases. This gives you the opportunity to target high-quality phrases without having to deal with the same level of competition.

It is, of course, important to find these alternate keywords and phrases that users might use when trying to discover your brand for proactive reasons – marketing your product and services. But it’s important for defensive reasons as well. Any strong online business depends on its online reputation, and to keep that reputation positive you need to track what is being said about you in relation to your industry. There are many tools for tracking your reputation, but they all rely on sets of key words and phrases. By being equipped with a larger set of relevant key phrases, including misspellings and alternative nomenclature, you will be much more likely to get the full picture, rather than just a part of it. And when taking corrective action to improve your brand reputation if something goes wrong, you’ll be able to much more accurately target the full range of web traffic.

Keeping Up On Your Brand Reputation with Firefox Extensions

Tracking your brand reputation on search engines, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites is an integral part of good reputation management. To be truly effective, however, you’ll want to check in regularly to see what’s changed, and how you can best get everything back on track. This can be greatly expedited through a liberal use of appropriate Firefox Extensions, which can speed up mundane tasks, and give you data that otherwise would take a great deal more time to work out on your own. These extensions are some of the most useful and affordable tools to help you build your online presence and manage your reputation effectively. 

Of course, one of the best Firefox Extensions for managing your reputation is the simple search widget included with Firefox – you can use it to search not only Google, but almost any site you might find yourself referenced on, without having to directly visit the site and find the search, saving you a step or two each time you search.

UpdateScanner

This is a convenient, free, and easy-to-use Firefox Extension that helps you track when updates are made to a webpage. While some sites have RSS feeds that can do this task for you, many do not. If one of these sites mentions you regularly, or if you anticipate data about you being changed there, you can use UpdateScanner to be immediately informed when the information changes.

coComment

Perhaps one of the most useful reputation management tools available, coComment is a way to track all of your various online discussions in one convenient place. The Firefox Extension keeps track of every site you post a comment on. When people respond to your comments, you are immediately informed. You can choose to be informed via the extension, by RSS feed, by a Google Gadget, or by email alerts. This makes it much easier to remain on top of hundreds of diverse conversations, ensuring you respond in a timely manner to anything that needs your attention, improving your online reputation and helping to interconnect you with large communities. The extension works with virtually any site, including all of the major blog platforms, YouTube, Flickr, the NYTimes, and many others.

EchoFon

There are a myriad of Twitter Firefox Extensions, but EchoFon is one of the most robust and least intrusive. It sits as a small icon on your bottom bar, and when you receive a new message or are referenced in a Tweet a small box appears and tells you what was said. You can also use EchoFon to post new updates, to save yourself from moving out of your browser. EchoFon pops up a chat-like display when you click its icon, giving you full Twitter functionality.

Facebook Toolbar

The Facebook Toolbar extension is exactly what it sounds like: an extension that adds Facebook functionality to any open Firefox tab. You can post updates, as well as see Friend activity. This will let you seamlessly stay integrated in conversations with your follower base, without having to constantly be checking Facebook to check for new updates.

Strengthen Your Link Reputation and Brand

Inbound links, or links that direct people to your site from other sites, are one of the cornerstones of a strong online brand. Not only do they drive traffic directly, they also influence how much weight your site carries with search engines, helping to bolster your online reputation. Many people take a passive approach to inbound links – if they appear, great, if they don’t, they don’t worry. Others work hard at getting new links, but are only aware of the links they directly solicit.

Build Your Link Reputation

Most people don’t realize that by failing to monitor inbound links, you’re actually missing a great opportunity to reach out to supporters, increase traffic to your site and build your Google CV. The internet is built on a model of reciprocity, and many people regularly check their outbound links to see if the link is reciprocated. If it isn’t, they may cull those links to make more room for people who will link back to them. Knowing when a site links to you allows you to decide whether it is a link you want to pursue keeping, and gives you the chance to take the steps necessary to keep it. Knowing when new links come in also gives you the opportunity to reach out to those people and, if necessary, ask them to improve the link text to best help your search engine relevance.

Collect Data About Your Links

There are two main classes of inbound link monitors: standalone software and web services. Both has their merits and flaws, but as both have costs associated with them, most people choose to opt for free web services. Using a web service gives you portability, and ensure you will never have downtime – rather than having to remember to open a program to check your links, it is done for you every day and you receive an email giving you an overview of new links gained and lost.

Develop a Linking Strategy

You can then use this data to develop a weekly strategy. Look at the new links you’ve gained, and visit the sites they came from. Decide whether you think that site has search engine relevance or traffic relevance for you, and if so how valuable it is. Find the context in which your link appears, and see if you think there is anything that could be improved – maybe it should go to a different page on your site, or have different link text. Then find contact information for the site operator and write them an email thanking them for the link to your site, informing them you have put up a reciprocal link (if you felt it was worth it), and if necessary asking them politely if they would mind updating your link information slightly.

You will also be informed when links to your site have disappeared. In these cases, if the inbound link was from a source you cared about, you’ll want to send an email and ask why they removed the link to your site, and whether there is anything you could do to reconcile the situation. If they decide to leave your link removed, you may wish to remove any outbound links you have to their site, as these one-way links may negatively impact your search engine rankings.

Use LookupPage Services

At some point, you may want to hire a team of professionals to manage your link reputation. LookupPage has a team of advanced SEO and linking professionals who know exactly which content to promote and how, greatly improving your link reputation. LookupPage also helps individauls and businesses get first page rankings on major search engines, under unique domain names.To start benefiting from our expertise, upgrade to our plan for professionals and follow these simple steps:

1. Sign into your account (or create a new one).
2. Click the "My Account" tab.
3. Click the "Upgrade / Renew your subscription" link.
4. Chose the "Pro" package and purchase.

We look forward to helping you manage your online image and reputation to ensure a safer and fully enriched online future.

How to Use Google to Monitor Your Brand Reputation

    

One of the reasons Google has become so powerful in the past decade is the fact that they have come up with excellent tools for the online community to use at no immediate cost to the end user. Because so many of us have a Gmail account, it is very convenient to click a single button and remain within Google property for photo sharing on Picasa or reading Tom Friedman’s latest article on Google Reader. Google is simply making money from offering relevant ads and services while making our lives easier. Their strong targeting is a result of knowing what we have been searching online and emailing about to our friends.

 Monitoring the performance of a website has become easier with Google Analytics, a free tool as well. Any person who has website nowadays can monitor the traffic the site is receiving and determine several important factors such as which key words generated the page view, the physical origin of the search and the type of internet browser used to visit the site. It was worthwhile for Google to give out Analytics free of charge because they realized that its full integration with Google Adwords would sell many sponsored listings.

Which free tool is Google offering to monitor my online brand reputation?

Although it is imperative for a business or a professional to establish a positive Google resume, there are tools that can be used to monitor new results on a day-to-day basis.   Google Alerts is a great tool for knowing what is being said online. It is very easy to set up an alert and the user can determine how often he or she will be receiving notices from Google, it can also be stopped at any time. A business can set up an alert for its name and the name of its competitors so that when new information appears they would be notified.  

How does Google Alerts Work? 

Google bots are constantly “crawling” the web. If an alert has been set up and they notice a change or new content regarding the topic of the alert, they send out an email with a link to the new content.

 

Find Out Who Is Googling You

People are taking their Google CV more seriously these days and with good reasoning. Googling someone is no longer just the practice of checking out the history of a potential date but a genuine inquiry that companies make when considering a job applicant or deciding whether to hire company X versus company Y.

It is safe to assume that choosing between two companies whose service and prices are similar could end up in a tie breaking decision that will be made online. Businesses and professionals realize that often only their web presence and online reputation are doing the selling for them.

It is equally significant to know who searches for you online. If a business or a brand is aware of whom its potential clients are it makes it that much easier to target and optimize the message for that audience. There are a number of free and premium tracking tools online that inform you of how many visitors your page had, where the query came from and at times even what the query was that resulted in a visit to your page. Two popular tools are http://www.freestats.com/ and http://www.addfreestats.com .