MARKETING 101

Rochester to Hold Digital Marketing Seminar

Joseph LaTona — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:01:54 +0000

Digital Marketing Seminar for Small Businesses

How to get local leads from the Internet As your Local Leads Expert, our job is to help you make sense of local search. Small businesses across the country are getting leads from major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing – not just any leads, but LOCAL leads! How?It’s time to find out.

On October 5th, we will give you the latest tips and strategies to promote your website through search engine marketing. We’ll answer questions such as: How are people searching for local businesses online? How do I get my business to show up in a Google search? What is search engine marketing? Can my business use it? What are my competitors doing online? What can I do to make sure current and potential customers find me online?

When: Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. (lunch will be provided)

Where: Frontier Pages/Berry 155 Corporate Woods, Suite 300 Rochester, NY 14623

Cost:FREE! The event is being sponsored by Berry and Frontier Pages. Our presentation is designed to help consumers find your business by driving traffic to your website. In addition to the FREE seminar, we will be offering FREE website evaluations for businesses that currently have a website

RSVP: Please RSVP at http://www.berrylocalleads.com/rochester by October 4th to reserve your seat.

Berry Company to Host Digital Seminar

Joseph LaTona — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:22:17 +0000

The Importance of Localized Content – Local SEO Takes Center Stage

Joseph LaTona — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:10:21 +0000

Localized content, or content that it is specific to users in specific geographies, has never been more important to search engine optimization (SEO) success than it is today. Search engines like Google and Bing have made localization a huge part of their ranking algorithms.

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Online Marketing Seminar to be Held

Joseph LaTona — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:20:43 +0000

ARE THE YELLOW PAGES DEAD?

Joseph LaTona — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:14:49 +0000

Online Advertising with Search Engine Marketing

Joseph LaTona — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:04:34 +0000

For any product or service, many consumers turn to Internet search first. The key is to make sure that your business scores high among the search results. Fortunately, we have an exact science to increasing your visibility to a targeted audience, and generating highly qualified leads. It’s called Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and Berry can put it to work for your business. We promote your business locally with sponsored links on Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Ask.com and all of their second tier search networks. We market your business where people are actively searching for your products and services! When searchers click on your ads we send them to highly targeted and relevant landing pages and persuade them to contact you. Clicks are good, calls are better! We track every contact made to your business with call tracking phone numbers and email contact forms in order to quantify your online marketing return on investment.

Paid Search Accounts for Almost Half of Online Advertising

Joseph LaTona — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:17:27 +0000

Thursday, June 17th, 2010 by Frank Reed

Paid Search Accounts for Almost Half of Online Advertising

According to MAGNAGLOBAL paid search is the leading form of online advertising, accounting for nearly 50% (actual 46.3%) of all online advertising. To Internet marketers this is not much of a surprise but it is something that many businesses still don’t grasp.

The study predicts a steady path of growth in overall online advertising spend as seen in the chart below.

Paid search should continue to lead the way moving in to the future. The report tells us.

Paid Search has quickly become the most important component of online advertising, and in 2010 this segment will account for $29.8 billion, up by 16.5% over 2009 totals on a constant currency basis. Google remains by far the global leader in Search, although a handful of other suppliers of search advertising are dominant in certain countries. Unfortunately for Google, China and Russia – the fastest growing large markets for online advertising – pose a challenge for foreign-based search engines. Separate government actions have led to Google closing its operations in those countries. However, domestic players (Baidu and Yandex in particular) have instead become dominant. The enormous influence – and profitability – of Paid Search increases the probability of governmental involvement in many countries in the years ahead. Such actions are unlikely to constrain the medium’s growth.

The caution of government intervention into this system is something that everyone should keep in the back of their mind since it can be a huge wild card as to the impact any government actions could have on the current system.

How is your online advertising budget broken out? Do you have paid search as half of that spend? Is it more? Is it less?

Studies like this often miss what many of the smaller players are actually doing because they are not considered in the research. While it is good to keep a finger on the pulse of these trends as a whole it is even more important to know just how they impact your business and what blend of advertising options best meet your specific business needs.

Do you have thoughts to share with us?

12 Reasons to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

Joseph LaTona — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:53:02 +0000

by Pam Dyer on 06/01/2010 10:18 2 comments , 7860 views
Categories: Social Media, Best Practices
Tags: business marketing

Social media is fast becoming an essential part part the marketing mix for brands. Companies are increasingly using social tools to monitor conversations about their products, competitors, and industry, and engaging with their customers to build strong relationships. According Forrester Research’s most recent Interactive Marketing Forecast, social media marketing will grow at an annual rate of 34% -– faster than any other form of online marketing and double the average growth rate of 17% for all online mediums:

And new research from Access Markets International Partners shows that almost 70% of small and medium businesses actively use social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to promote themselves. But simply posting what your CEO had for lunch isn’t going to help much with your branding efforts — it’s important to strategically use social media tools to increase exposure and reach your target audience.

Here are 12 compelling reasons to use social media to help grow your business:

1. Own your brand’s social presence: If you don’t create official channels online, it’s only a matter of time before your fans do it for you and create their own profiles and communities around your brand. It’s important to claim your brand name across all the major social media platforms. Here are two sites that will help you do this:

KnowEm: KnowEm has the highest number of sites (over 350) available for checking username availability. Simply by entering your desired username, you’ll be able to find out instantly if it’s still available. KnowEm also offers paid plans, from just signing up and registering you at 150 sites, to a full-featured plan which also fills in all profile details, complete with pictures, at 100 to 300 different networking sites.

namechk: Covering 72 major social networking sites, namechk is simple, fast, and easy to use. If your desired username or vanity URL is still available, you simply click through each one to claim it. If your brand isn’t consistent across the Web, namechk can help you by determining which usernames are still available on a number of the most popular sites.

2. Look like you “get it”: Your target audience is becoming more shrewd about leveraging social media sites as an integral part of their daily lives. If you want to appear relevant and in-step with the latest advances in technology, your potential customers will want to see you on these sites as well. If you don’t have a presence, you appear as if you’re not very savvy.

3. Brand recognition: You need to go where your customers are, and they are increasingly spending a great deal of time on social networking sites. Using social media enables your company to reach a huge number of potential customers. Getting your name out there is incredibly important — studies suggest that people need to hear a company’s name at least seven times before they trust and respect it enough to become a customer.

4. Take your message directly to consumers: Social media tools enable you to directly engage consumers in conversation. Be sure to build trust by adding value to the community consistently over time.

5. Increase your search engine rankings: Social media profiles (especially those on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) frequently rank highly with major search engines. Creating keyword-rich profiles around your brand name can help generate traffic for your both your social-networking sites and your company’s Web site.

6. SEO benefits: Many social media bookmarking sites use NOFOLLOW tags that limit the outbound link value of posts made on their sites, but there are still many leading sites that allow DOFOLLOW tags — including Friendfeed, Digg, and Mixx. You can also benefit from posting to bookmarking sites that use NOFOLLOW tags if people read your posts and link back to your Web site.

7. Social media content is now integrated with search results: Search engines like Google and Bing are increasingly indexing and ranking posts and other information from social networks. Videos from popular sites like YouTube can also be optimized for indexing by the major search engines.

8. Brand monitoring: Having a social media presence gives you a better understanding of what current and potential customers are saying about your products and services. If you actively monitor social conversations, you have the opportunity to correct false or inaccurate information about your brand and address negative comments before they take on a life of their own.

9. Generate site traffic: You can create additional traffic if you regularly post updates on social networks that link back to your Web site. Social media bookmarking tools like Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon can also generate additional traffic to your site if you create frequent articles and blog posts.

10. Find new customers through your friends: You shouldn’t neglect your personal social media accounts as potential avenues to promote the activities of your business. Posting regular updates relating to your business and activities can remind your friends about what your company does and influence them to use your services or make referrals.

11. Find new customers through your company profile: Your company profile is a great opportunity for you to post regular updates on your activities and about important news and trends in your industry. This will attract the attention of new customers interested in your industry and increase your reputation as an expert in your field. It’s important to post regularly if you want to increase your followers or fans and convert them to potential leads.

12. Niche marketing: Social media enables you to reach very specific subsets of people based on their personal preferences and interests. You can create unique social media profiles to target these audiences or create strategies based on addressing individual interests.

Are you using social media to grow your business? Please share your experiences!

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VISIT MY CLIENT’S OPEN HOUSE!!

Joseph LaTona — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:25:55 +0000

Open House - Saturday June 12, 2010

A TRUE SIGN PEOPLE ARE ON TO GOOGLE

Joseph LaTona — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:01:04 +0000