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New Company Announcement

Phoenixsem.com has just launched a new website for Nextage Realty which is one of the newest and most innovative companies in the industry. We built a custom website on a powerful content management system. Further, we built in social networking and the Nextage Realty Income Calculator which allows agents to calculate commissions and sales bonuses based off their team building and recruiting efforts.

Looking for a custom solution or need similar to Nextage Realty? Inquire within to get a free quote and analysis.

The Great Debate – Is SEO Dead?

With the growing popularity of social networking, mobile web surfing and Blackberry / iPhone apps, is SEO really as important a fixture in web page construction as it used to be? Industry “experts” have been declaring SEO dead now for nearly a decade, but for some reason, here we are still talking about it.

The Internet is filled with articles bearing this same question, many of which first brought up the topic ten years ago. Ironically, if you look at those articles today, you’ll find that those articles applied the same strategies that they were claiming dead.

OK, So SEO’s Not Dead, Then Why Bring It Up?

What many of the industry experts fail to realize is that SEO will never die; it evolves to meet the current changes in the landscape. It’s true that today’s SEO strategies are very different than what was used ten, five or even two years ago. While certain aspects and strategies used in website optimization are dead, SEO as a whole is alive and well.

These days, easy manipulation via links is long gone, overstuffing the copy with irrelevant keywords – history. Modern SEO requires more marketing know-how in order to be effective. Hence the term Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Benefits of Mobile Search Marketing

As more and more people turn to their ultra convenient hand held devices for information and answers, mobile search marketing has emerged as a powerful tool for connecting consumers with your brand. Mobile search is the use of web-connected mobile devices to conduct search engine queries. Learn how incorporating mobile search into a stalwart marketing campaign can help you reach your target audience on an entirely new level.

Mobile Search Marketing Benefits -- Instant Accessibility

With mobile search marketing, reaching consumers has never been easier. Businesses now have the advantage of instant access to their target audience and consumers can get the information they need from just about anywhere.

By nature, the size and portability of mobile devices lends itself to accessibility. Consumers no longer need to be glued to their television screens or tied to a desktop or laptop in order to connect with your products and services. Mobile devices are extremely handy, travel easily from place to place and are incredibly convenient for people to use while on-the-go.

Mobile Search Marketing Benefits -- Complement Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy

You can easily integrate mobile search marketing with an existing search engine marketing strategy as a viable enhancement to your overall campaign. Mobile search marketing is a cost-effective, results-driven medium and can be a powerful addition to a well-conceived local search strategy. By adding layers to your search engine marketing campaign, you can effectively outdo the competition and increase the positive impact you have on consumers.

Using Google Analytics

Proper use of web analytics can tell you a lot about your performance online, as well as how successful your business is at reaching your target audience and engaging them with your products and services. By evaluating the various sets of data, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your Search Engine Marketing campaign and adjust your strategy as necessary.

Understanding Google Analytics

There are many web analytics applications out there, both free and paid, but Google Analytics is the most widely used. Google Analytics is a free application that allows you to create customized filters and manage sets of data according to your specific needs.

You can draw valuable information about your Search Engine Marketing strategy from some basic metrics in Google Analytics. Use the following metrics to make informed decisions about your marketing campaign and boost your online performance:

Visits -- You can use the visits metric to find out the number of visits to your site. Keep in mind that this set of data measures the number of visits, not visitors. Repeat visits from the same user are counted each time.

Pageviews -- This set of data is a total count of pages viewed on your site.

Pages / Visit -- This metric identifies the average number of pages a visitor viewed while interacting with your website.

Bounce Rate -- Find out the percentage of visits in which a user landed on a page of your site and immediately left.

Avg. Time on Site -- This measures the average amount of time visitors spent interacting with your site. The higher the time, the better.

% New Visits -- Learn the percentage of visitors who had never been to your site before.

Use Google PageRank to Evaluate and Adjust Your SEO / SEM Strategy

You can use Google PageRank to assess your Search Engine Marketing strategy and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Since each page of your website is assigned a different PR, ranging from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest, you can easily make distinctions among webpages with a higher PR and adjust your SEM strategy as necessary. You can also link from stronger internal pages and offer a boost for pages with lower Google PR.

Improve Your Online Reputation With Higher Google PageRank

At this point, most online users will attach value to websites and webpages with higher Google PageRank, including prospective clients and other industry professionals. PageRank can become a badge of authority in your industry and helps to make an immediate good impression with your target audience.

Meld Traditional News Release Writing With Search Engine Optimization

Press releases used to be written exclusively for the news media with the intent of enticing journalists to cover a story centered on the announcement. This would in turn help companies develop positive brand exposure. The objective is the same today -- only now, online press releases can offer instant visibility and effectively reach your target audience right away.

An online press release should appeal to journalists, as well as to consumers. The announcement should take on the narrative stance of a reporter concisely conveying the facts. The meat of your news announcement should be located in the headline and lead paragraph.

International SEO -- Local Domains and Hosting for Optimized Local Search

In order to have your pages recognized by the search engines, you need a country-code top-level domain (TLD) for the nation in which you plan to conduct business. For example, if you're planning to launch a site for an Italian audience, the TLD .it is vital for getting noticed and achieving high rankings.

Be aware that some countries place stipulations on whether a business is eligible for a TLD. Case in point, Italy will only register local domain extensions to those who reside, hold citizenship or have a physical business location in one of the 27 member states of the European Union. These conditions help underpin the importance of quality local search results.

When it comes to establishing relevancy and rankings for users, search engines favor not only local domains, but also local servers. A website with both a TLD and hosting in Italy will have the best chance to achieve high rankings in the SERPs. In fact, even if you plan to expand your business out to several foreign markets, you'll find it worth the time to optimize for local search by registering local domain extensions and hosting for each country. Without local hosting, the search engines will place much less relevance on your site.

Establish Your Goals for Email Marketing

In order to make the most of your email marketing campaign, set clear-cut goals and identify the overall message you wish to convey to consumers. Laying out your expectations from the start will help you track your progress and fine-tune your campaign. Many business owners make the mistake of skipping this important step, which can result in a lot of wasted time and money.

Email Marketing Essentials -- Ask Permission

Consumer consent is crucial in starting off on the right foot with your target audience. You want to illustrate that you have respect for consumer privacy by asking permission before disseminating your message. Unsolicited email marketing attempts can easily be interpreted as spam, diminishing the possibility of further communication with consumers who might actually be interested in what you have to say.

What Are You Blogging About?

If you've incorporated business blogging as part of your Internet marketing strategy, are you getting the reception you were hoping for? These days, company blogs are a dime a dozen. It just isn't enough to sign on, post a few lines and call it a day.

It's high time to wake up and use business blog marketing to the full potential. Read the following tips to pump some life into your business blog and start attracting the audience you deserve.

Internet Marketing Strategy -- Business Blog Marketing and Keywords

Blogging is a great way to target keywords and drive more traffic to your business. Aim your Internet marketing strategy toward lower competition keywords in order to increase your online visibility. Be sure to sprinkle your posts with anchor text links, which can not only increase your rankings, but also improve site navigation.

Don't sacrifice your business blog marketing wholly to keywords, however. The content you provide should be relevant to your business and useful to your readership.

Business Blogging -- Offer Something of Value to Your Audience

Any successful Internet marketing strategy provides users with something worthwhile. A number of companies use their blog platforms as an opportunity to wax poetic about their core products and services. While necessary for informing readers of your key offerings, publishing along these same lines time and again can get old and steer your audience in another direction.

Monitoring Your Online Reputation

While many businesses understand the importance of increasing their online visibility, there can be a detrimental down side. Publishing content on the Internet is literally at anyone's fingertips, creating numerous portals for unhappy customers, disgruntled employees and even spiteful competitors to tinker with the online reputation of a business at the click of a mouse.

While the accessibility of various online platforms provides a resourceful means for consumers to help one another make informed decisions, a growing number of businesses are feeling the sting of negative publicity. Whether fair or unjust, information about your business can be found on any number of forums, message boards, blogs and websites. This content can be posted instantly, indexed quickly and in the blink of an eye, you can have a series problem with search engine reputation management.

Any smart business owner understands that the key to a successful company starts with employee morale and customer satisfaction. In addition, some companies have earned their positions in the bad business hall of shame. However, as the adage goes, you can't please everyone.

Given the ease with which information travels online, reputation management is critical. The following provides an overview of online reputation management, along with some tips for staying on top of the content being published about your business.

What Is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management, or search engine reputation management, melds traditional public relations methodology with search engine marketing. The goal is to protect the reputation of a business by promoting top placement for listings that create a positive brand image while suppressing negative content away from view.

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