UPDATE: Anyway, come earthquakes, hail storms, hell or high water, quality, ethical internet marketing services will continue to come from Prospect MX Lancaster PA. You can count on that. Thanks!
‘Tis the season to grant wishes, and the team at ProspectMX has the spirit in 2008.
In order to do something special for those that spend all year working for the needs of others, we are proud to announce the ProspectMX Christmas Wish.
If your non-profit organization would like to receive $10,000 in internet marketing services from our company, we invite you to answer the following question on your blog or website between today (12/11) and the end of the year (12/31):
“How can internet marketing benefit your organization?”
Runner-up prizes are also available, including a year-long subscription to the SEO 101 Tools (launching this January), a three-month subscription to SEOmoz PRO (which includes Linkscape), and a three-month subscription to trackur – a social media monitoring service.
In order for an organization to be considered, it must have 501 3(c) status. Here’s what any interested non-profit needs to do:
Compose a blog post or web essay that answers the question “how can internet marketing benefit your organization?”
Drop a note in the comments of this blog post that includes a link to your entry (just so we can be 100% sure we got your entry).
Official rules are listed here. For more information on the ProspectMX Christmas Wish, you can e-mail me: jbentz [at] prospectmx [dot] com.
If you have ever wanted to see what kind of competition your geo-targeted adwords campaigns have in certain market, the Google Ad Targeting Preview Tool is what you need.
I have outlined in the video how you can see where your ads are placed in certain cities around the nation as well as spy on your competition a bit.
You simply just have to accept it!! Getting it is what we do!
Internet marketing is an absolutely essential piece of your overall marketing plan, regardless of your business model. It is easier to track ROI than most other marketing efforts. Some businesses need to do a lot and some may just need to do a little. Some companies may just need a strong link building campaign. Other companies may need to combine link building with social media and a strong lead generation campaign to find their success.
Even if you are starting out and the first step is simply getting indexed by Google, or your keyword phrase is number two in the organics and you want to be number one, you simply have to accept that an internet marketing company with talent and experience is going to help make a difference.
It is not about having too much or too little SEO. It is truly about having the right amount to meet and exceed your goals and expectations.
Thousands of web sites give away free products and extend special online trial offers as a way to build buzz and drive traffic to their website.
Running a link building contest and awarding a prize to your most active link builder can build buzz, drive traffic, and also provide the most important piece to the SEO equation – links!
Many companies with web sites should still consider typical internet marketing services to improve their positioning in Google. However, hosting a contest to generate interest in your website with the extra benefit of building links can certainly work.
Besides, if you’re going to personally front money for a prize, why wouldn’t you want to receive a return on your investment?
A link building contest should probably have one of two outcomes for determining a winner:
To acquire the greatest number of links
To acquire the most relevant, highest powered link
A link that drives traffic to your website can also be used to determine a winner. However, if the end goal of the contest is true link building, traffic should be a secondary concern.
Acquiring the greatest number of links has its pros (quantity) but tends to yield lower value, less relevant links. You will also tend to get a lot of entrants with startup Wordpress and Blogspot sites including one blog post having a link pointing to your site. When the goal of the contest is to receive links based on relevancy, you will get a substantial amount less, but they should be more valuable.
Below are some tried and true ideas prize ideas to consider when building links hosting a contest on your site. The more involved the contest is for the user, the better the prize should be.
T-Shirts (bloggers love these, especially when they’re funny)
Anything for a Nintendo Wii
Any Apple product
A complimentary product that makes a job easier
A permanent, do follow link to the winners site of choice (a great idea for Google authority sites)
Anyone have great contest ideas or prize ideas they want to share? Would love to see some in the comment space below.
It’s been a while since my last post and I’ve started gathering a ton of information about Twitter. Call this a case study if you will.
I love trying to figure out how people are going to react / respond to certain ideas.So far 1,350+ tweeps have watched the video I made last month to say “Hi, and thanks for following me.” I knew it would work beautifully because the idea was just so simple… I think the results speak for themselves – here’s the video (if you haven’t seen it yet).
Here’s what some of my Tweeps had to say about the video…
Unexpected Effects Of Being A Twitter Rockstar
Another interesting thing happened when I took 15 minutes to create & upload the video to YouTube. YouTube (owned by Google) is a social video network, you’ve probably already heard of it. Did you know that people can subscribe to your channel? It’s kind of like adding a tweep… except on YouTube!
While my plan was to welcome and engage new followers on Twitter… I ended up with this AWESOME FREE BONUS! I’ve had 30+ new people subscribe to my YouTube channel.
That’s pretty cool, but I’ve also had well over 100+ new friends added to my Facebook / LinkedIn / MySpace / Digg / Pownce & other social networking sites thanks to FriendFeed. If you haven’t done it, go and grab yourself a FriendFeed account and add your other social networking accounts TODAY! Put it on your blog… or maybe right next to your Twitter welcome video?! This is just a suggestion, but after all, social networking sites and social media is there for us to be social, right? It only makes sense to let your twitter friends know where to find you on the other sites.
Why Should You Follow Me?
Twitter is emerging more into the main stream day by day. People online are now wondering who they should follow. Since Twitter is the answer to “What are you doing right now?” I’ve created a little site called Tw33t.me to answer the question “Why should you follow me?”
The idea for Tw33t.me is simple. Much like FriendFeed, Tw33t.me users will be able to add all of their other social networking sites & a Twitter welcome video to their profile page by using their Twitter username and password. The idea is to create a sort of “Online Social Resume.” The site is in Alpha – almost in Beta – and I’ll be updating everyone via Twitter when we “officially” launch.
Pre-Tweet. Auto Tweet. Tweet Later.
I get this question all the time as a result of my Twitter exploits – “How do you auto-reply to new followers?”
Glad you asked. The answer is a handy little site called TweetLater that allows you to pre-post, auto respond, and even auto-follow new tweeps. TweetLater is a little techy, so I decided I’d drop in this short “How To” video so you can set it up to work for your Tweeps! I did this with Gmail because I figure that most readers have a Gmail account. Take a look. Re-watch it if you need to! *If you use Outlook @Wordpresswizard already made a How To video over here
Tweet Responsibly
Now, I would be delinquent in my duties as a social media evangelist if I didn’t mention being Socially Responsible. It’s great to have thousands of followers and friends on Twitter and other social sites… but we have to remember it’s not just about numbers! These are real people your talking to, they want to be engaged in your conversation… otherwise they wouldn’t have followed you. I know that some people are just going to use the scripts to gain as many followers as they can – so that they can push whatever affiliate program or junk they’re selling on ebay… We can’t stop that. But we can make a difference by using social media for good!
When you see an injustice or something that others should be made aware of… broadcast it! I’m infatuated with “Green Living.” If I see or hear anything that I think would help… you’d better believe it’s going out on my twitter stream! Some folks are going to use my tutorials for spamming purposes. It sucks, I know! I still believe that there’s more genuinely good people out there than there are shysters.
For any of you that have ever read anything like “How to Become a Digg Power User,” etc., you probably already know that in order to get followers or have people Digg / Sphinn / Buzz Up! your topics, they have to be great topics.Guy Kawasaki had written a few weeks back about an AllTop page built to do just that – it’s called GoodTweet. If you’re looking for something to post to your tweeps and you can’t seem to find anything you consider overly exciting, dig through GoodTweet and post it up. This will make your followers think that you have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on. And hence… want to follow you and more importantly retweet ya too!
We will come back and update this post when we find something that will allow the tweeps to use something similar to the GreaseMonkey script from the first article… until then – one at a time and happy tweeting!
Running a link building contest and awarding a prize to your most active link builder can build buzz, drive traffic, and also provide the most important piece to the SEO equation – links!
