13 Keyword Tools for Effective Research

Published April 23rd, 2013 in Marketing, SEO - 4 Comments

Keyword research is a big part of online marketing and search engine optimization. For some types of websites, niche sites in particular, effective keyword research can be one of the biggest factors in the success of the site. In order to be effective and efficient with keyword research you will need to have access to the right tools. Depending on your needs you may be able to get what you need from a free tool, or you may need to look at the features of some of the many premium tools that are available.

In this article we’ll take a look at 13 of the leading tools specifically related to keyword research. Many of the pro tools listed here also include a variety of tools for other aspects of SEO (such as link building).

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

10 Effective Custom Facebook Landing Page Designs

Published March 12th, 2013 in Marketing, Social Media - 4 Comments

Facebook allows advertisers to create a custom page where clicks from their promotional content will lead to. A landing page ensures that your customer finds a more focused and targeted message. The more focused the advertising, the better the chances of converting leads to sales.

When it comes to landing page designs, there are some stunning examples out there. Those that use the functionalities of a landing page combined with great graphics. We’ve selected 10 stunning one’s for you here:

1. Starbucks – Blonde Roast

Starbucks’ Blonde Roast campaign offered coffee drinkers a free cup with their regular coffee. Each cup had an illustrated “Light Note” on it – a simple message to brighten your friend’s day. The campaign was so successful that even after Starbucks ran out of actual cups; it launched a Facebook application where people could send cards to their Facebook friends with the same messages and illustrations. The application is easy on the eyes and the mind. It’s simple and elegant with a big green button to get you started.

10 of the Leading Mailing List Managers

Published March 6th, 2013 in Marketing - 14 Comments

Email marketing is a major part of doing business online and staying in touch with your customers. When compared to other types of marketing and advertising, the return on investment is often higher with email marketing than any other method of advertising. Whether you are looking to gain new customers, get more repeat purchases from existing customers, or just to stay in touch through newsletters, email marketing offers plenty of potential.

One of the challenges of getting started with email marketing is to find the right service. There are plenty or options, and in this post we’ll look at 10 of the leading options. The options listed here will meet the needs of most small businesses and online marketers. If you are in need of something more robust (and more costly), you may be interested in InfusionSoft or OfficeAutoPilot.

AWeber

50 Awesome Business Card Templates

Published January 29th, 2013 in Design, Marketing - 6 Comments

Having a great business card doesn’t require a huge expense or a custom design. Although a custom design is always an option, quality business card templates are available for purchase at very affordable prices (generally less than $10). With a large selection of templates available, it’s usually possible to find one that will fit your needs.

Additionally, if you are working with a client that needs a business card design, you may be able to find a quality template that would fit their needs and save a lot of time for you, as opposed to doing the custom design work yourself.

In this article we’ll showcase 50 excellent business card templates. Most of them come from a few different sources that are the best places to find quality, affordable business card templates:

• Our own Vandelay Premier
• GraphicRiver
• CrazyPixels

Stylish Retro Business Card Template ($6)

Social Media Sharing Icons Influence Web Designs

Published January 15th, 2013 in Marketing, Social Media - 8 Comments

Last weekend I participated in my first hackathon ever. Do you know what hackathon is? It’s a 24-hours long marathon where people with money (investors) look for potentially successful development projects. So me and my friends had to build and to present a more or less ready-made project (both from development and business point of view), so that investors would want to spend their money on it. On one of the latest stages of the project development our developers and designers disputed a lot about social media icons to choose. Nobody wanted to give in. This argument gave me an idea to pay more attention to social media icons in web design. What can they look like? What are they really used for? Why do web developers doubt about them?

Why Your Business Cards Go Unnoticed

Published December 24th, 2012 in Design, Marketing - 1 Comment

There are so many business owners who rely on business cards to get noticed and gain more exposure. Business cards have been used for decades as a way of spreading the word about a specific business. And, while they have been used for quite some time, not everyone is having success with them.

5 Tips to Creating Stellar Videos To Describe Your Business

Published September 11th, 2012 in Marketing - 1 Comment

Done the right way, there are few trust-building, explanatory tools as powerful as a business video, especially for businesses with particularly complex products. But, of course, a poorly produced video will have the opposite effect, making a product and business appear unprofessional or behind the times. Here are our top five tips for designing a compelling business video that describes it all.

1. Plan Your Storytelling

First, clarify your purpose. Will this be a cut and dry video explaining what your product is and how it can be best be used, or are you looking to communicate a little bit more about your company’s background and mission? Next, think carefully about the kind of storytelling approach you’d like to take. Do you prefer a traditional storytelling structure with the description of a problem at the beginning and the discovery of a solution by the video’s end, or do you want to experiment with something more structurally wacky and creative? Will you rely on case studies and anecdotes, or do a few well-chosen facts and figures say it all? Oftentimes, it’s best to make an abstract product or process concrete through the first-person story of fictional customer X, or through the use of a metaphor that relates directly to your audience’s experiences.

If you’re really having trouble discerning your story’s arc, choose from a range of storyboarding or scriptwriting products to help you plan it out. In the end, it may even be worth consulting with a professional writer or editor to get it just right. The last thing you want is to discover you need a change of direction midway through a shoot.

Principal Content Strategies for Top E-Commerce Sites

Published July 6th, 2012 in Marketing - 3 Comments

There are many techniques to transform your business site’s success. A simplest strategy is to create a schedule for news releases and adding new and fresh material to a site. Updated content encourages interaction between a company and the customer. A website can refresh its content by launching enticing strategies for users to interact with each other from the site. Here, we will go through some of the most effective strategies (acknowledged by almost all top business sites), which any business site must have, to keep it fresh and add more value.

Learn to be Persistent

It is better to own no website than to own a website with no fresh content. A high-traffic website, which gets around a million page views/week, needs many changes on its front page each week.

Photo credit: StockProject

12 Essential Tools to Build Your Online Portfolio

Published April 25th, 2012 in Marketing - 23 Comments

As a creative professional, you need a repository of your work that you can show other people. This is called a portfolio. Since we now live in the internet age where anyone can access anything anytime, it is imperative that you have an online portfolio. The only real problem is figuring out where to put your work – there are so many online portfolio tools and communities, it can be challenging to determine which one will work best for you. I’ve written this article to help you decide how to get your portfolio up and running ASAP.

Best Options for Real Time Analytics

Published November 8th, 2011 in Marketing, Tools - 22 Comments

Every business, large or small, has a need to know what is going on with its website and how users are interacting with it. There are a number of different options when it comes to website analytics, and this post will feature the leading options that provide visitor data in real time.

Real time analytics can prove to be invaluable when working with social media or viral campaigns that tend to send traffic quickly and in short bursts. In these situations you’ll need to be able to react quickly, and real-time website analytics allow you to do so. Here is a look at some of the best options.

Google Analytics
In recent weeks Google Analytics rolled out a new feature for real-time reporting. You can see how many visitors are on your site at the moment, what specific pages they are viewing, what sites referred them, where they are located geographically, and more. You’ll need to be using the new version of Analytics in order to view the real time data (read more about that in this post on the Analytics blog).