Darby Sieben -

One of the more common questions I get from small businesses is how can I get more links to my site? The first question I ask is what types of links are you looking for? The myth that any random links to yoursite will help you get higher ranking in search engines is simply false. The key is links from trusted sources and links that make sense.

For example, creating links to your supplies and having them link back to you as a reseller would be considered a very good strategy. Having links from other websites, blogs, etc. to your news articles or specific products can also be beneficial. In some cases, it is very worth purchasing links on sites such as directories as well.

Anyway, for starters I would read Jim Westergren’s Link Building Guide – this is probably one of the best on the web and is a good starting point for any business.

If you have any questions after reading his article, drop me a line.

Popularity: 9% [?]

As Search Marketing becomes mainstream and part of any media planning, the real question is; when is search marketing not a viable solution. Search marketing is still in its infancy in terms of who really understands this medium. Coupled with that there is the confusion of organic search and paid search. This article is not going to get into the specifics of each one, other than a very high level discussion of when search marketing is not the best alternative.
To start with, let’s ask the question – what is the dependency of search? Users requesting! That’s the dependency. The problem with that dependency is; “do you users know what to search for”? Here is a simply way of looking at search marketing – if your product or service is in demand and your objective is to grow your sales volume of an in demand product/service then search marketing should probably be part of your mix. The alternative is that if you have a product/service whereby there is no demand and you need to create it, then search marketing is probably not the best alternative – why – because nobody knows it exists, therefore, how can they conduct a search on it?

For starters ask yourself – does your business advertise in a directory? If so, you are probably a great candidate for search marketing, as directories are identical to search marketing – just in paper form. If you do a lot of radio advertising, flyer or direct mail advertising you may also be a good candidate for search marketing. These mediums have a sense of urgency around them and most businesses use them to drive sales or promotional events. Those business owners believe the demand already exists and therefore, they want to increase their share of it.

With that in mind, search marketing can be a great support mechanism to ensure growth in sales. For example, start your search marketing campaign on the day that your radio spots run – targeting the same message in your radio ads as on your search ads and using keywords pulled directly from your radio ad. What you are most likely to see is an increase in your search marketing campaign right after a radio ad run – people hear the ad, but need another venue to make the contact. This is the old technique used when companies would run a radio ad on a Thursday promoting their newspaper ad on a Friday for a sale on the weekend. Now, substitute newspaper for search marketing and you will be surprised at the ROI model with that combination.

Search marketing is not the end all be all form of marketing – it is another important piece of a marketing mix. The biggest mistake business owners make is that they are “hoping” search marketing is the answer to their sales lows (for all products/services) as opposed to asking the question – does search marketing really make sense for this particular product/service? Will users even know what it is to look for? If I examine my retail customers – what do they ask when they come in to my store and can I apply this to search marketing?

Popularity: 4% [?]

Are you a high volume user of MSN Messenger? Do you live on your BlackBerry? Then you might be interested to know that Canada’s First MSN Bot is now live and you can use it to get your Yellow Pages.ca listings, maps, driving directions and more. This post is going to focus on some screen shots of the bot and how you can go about accessing it through your MSN Messenger. Once again, Yellow Pages Group in Canada is proving to be a worldwide leader in partnering with new technologies to access their data.

To start with, load your MSN Messenger and click on the Yellow Pages Tab on the left hand side,

Then select the tab to the right called IM Search, which brings you to the following screen:

Now we is a detailed description of the service, but if you want to start to get information from the bot, just click on the Add Me button,

At this point – it asks you whether you wish to start a conversation with imlocal@msn.com – since this is an automated bot, you can safely start a conversation. At this point, it takes you to the messenger window where you can start your conversation. When you first launch the service it basically sits there until you give it a command. You can type a variety of things, I will choose Dentist.

You will notice that because this is the first time I have used the bot – it also asked me for my postal code. I selected a random postal code and you can see that the bot is now going to get me information on dentists closest to that postal code.

Looking at the screen above, the bot has given me the 8 closest dentists to the postal code that I selected. From here I have the option to type "m" or " more" to see more results or simply type in a number to select a particular dentist and get more information.

I opted to select more information on dentist #8. The bot gives me a couple of more options – it provides me with a link to view more information about the dentist which loads this dentists YellowPages.ca advertising. I also have the choice to type in "dd" for driving directions or if I want to view a map to this location I can accept the invitation to do so.

When I select map, notice that my messenger window expands to provide me with a detailed map on the left hand side of the screen – powered by Windows Live – this is a very cool feature.

Finally I can select "dd" and it will provide driving directions from my address to the this location.

So, if you are a big user of MSN Messenger and Yellow Pages, now you can have the best of both worlds, through your computer or handheld device.

Popularity: 9% [?]