Online Marketing Services Can Transform Your SEO Strategy
Online marketing services like plan development, graphic design, online reputation management, email marketing and copywriting can help you transform your SEO strategy in a very successful campaign. Here’s how:
Strategic Marketing Plan Development
Every successful marketing program is built on a well thought out and strategic marketing plan. By first understanding your business model and the competitive landscape, you can design a program to set your business apart and deliver the leads and sales you need to meet your business goals.
Graphic Design and Identity Development
Impactful graphic designs and graphic identities will keep your brand top of mind with your customers and stakeholders. From logos, business cards and stationary, to sales and marketing collateral and print advertising, you can differentiate your business from your competition and create the impression that drives your business forward.
Competitive Analysis & Online Reputation Management
Having the right information to stay ahead of the curve is often difficult. By leveraging new technologies and thinking differently, you can effectively monitor your competition and protect your brand online.
Email Marketing
Navigating CAN-SPAM laws and making sure that you get the best conversion rates in email marketing can be a challenge. Take the stress out of your email marketing program with stand out creative development, email list acquisition, email list building, and best in class email marketing execution.
Copywriting
Just as with great graphic design, great copywriting can mean the difference between a successful campaign and a disappointment. Powerful copy that is optimized for the end user and the medium, whether it be for a search engine, a print campaign, a direct mail piece, or a radio ad will help you produce the best leads and conversions.
September 30, 2009 No Comments
Wild Wild Westside..
I had read about rumors of Phoenix opening an aquarium in a magazine about a year ago and thought it was years in the making. Come to find out I had even driven by it about 2 years ago during the search for affordable homes (pre-real estate collapse). At the time the fish were not there, but the wild animals were. Who knew?! I drove by looking at the low tree line never being able to imagine what was behind them. Come to find out the World Wildlife Zoo is pretty amazing!
The day I went, I braved temperatures lingering around 115. But this ended up having two positives: 1) there was no crowd and I felt like I had a private zoo to wander around in and 2) it made me feel like I was crawling around in the Serengeti! If you are taking kids, wait for a cooler day because I was tempted to swim with the alligators!
To my surprise this place had everything from monkeys and snakes to rhinos and giraffes – here in the valley! There was even a bird with wing span of about 7 feet. I urge you to check out the snake exhibit for a hidden surprise.
I have been to the Phoenix Zoo twice. However, once it was during a monsoon and the other was very early for a 5k race. I was disappointed because I didn’t feel like there were many animals. But hear me out, I said it was there at off times, so I’m sure I missed a lot. But I stand by my word that the Wildlife Zoo brings some stiff competition to the Phoenix Zoo.
As I mentioned earlier, the Wildlife Zoo is home to the states first aquarium. Now it is new so as you walk through you will see signs for the “future site of…” popping up. It’s a work in progress but still great to see at this point. You also have to remember that this is a privately run institution that receives no public funds to operate. With that in mind it makes this attraction that much more impressive. On one end of the park you are staring at white tigers, on the other end you are making monkeys dance in front of you with no fences or cages. Then you get to the aquarium and you seeing fish from all over the world and petting sting rays! I literally walked around in amazement never knowing this place offered so many cool animals so close to home.
One last tip before you go: I made the mistake of eating lunch before I went. Little did I know I could have dined in the Tiburon Restaurant sitting next to a floor to ceiling window into the shark tank watching them swim by as I eat. I will return for this experience!
September 14, 2009 No Comments
Generate New Leads with Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing solutions will help you turn your current user base into loyal marketers who refer new business.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The concept of affiliate marketing began as a revenue-sharing program where businesses paid commission to people who referred new business. When it was finally introduced online, affiliate marketing quickly became a useful marketing tool that helped grow fledgling businesses like CDNow and Amazon.com into e-commerce powerhouses.
Both online retailers and consumers like affiliate marketing programs because, in most cases, it offers a performance-based pay scale. The more an affiliate sells for a company, the more commission they make. If an affiliate sells nothing, they make nothing and lose nothing. Retailers love this model because they do not incur a marketing expense unless an affiliate produces sales, and they reap the benefits of branding, online advertising, impressions and increased web traffic.
How Can Affiliate Marketing Help My Business?
Affiliate marketing can help your business by enlisting others to help you sell online. However, developing a successful affiliate marketing program can require significant work and maintenance. The marketplace has become crowded and disorganized, and the opportunity to generate revenue from affiliate marketing is much more challenging than it was a few years ago. The insurgence of Web 2.0 with interactive online communities, blogging and discussion groups has impacted affiliate marketing and made it more difficult to reach your target audience and stand out against your competition.
Contact Sheila Kloefkorn at KEO Marketing to learn more about how developing an affiliate marketing program can improve your Scottsdale business.
September 14, 2009 No Comments
Get More Business Leads Through Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing solutions will help you turn your current user base into loyal marketers who refer new business.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The concept of affiliate marketing began as a revenue-sharing program where businesses paid commission to people who referred new business. Both online retailers and consumers like affiliate marketing programs because, in most cases, it offers a performance-based pay scale. The more an affiliate sells for a company, the more commission they make. If an affiliate sells nothing, they make nothing and lose nothing. Retailers love this model because they do not incur a marketing expense unless an affiliate produces sales, and they reap the benefits of branding, online advertising, impressions and increased web traffic.
How Can Affiliate Marketing Help My Scottsdale Business?
Affiliate marketing can help your Scottsdale business by enlisting others to help you sell more online. However, developing a successful affiliate marketing program can require significant work and maintenance. The marketplace has become crowded and disorganized, and the opportunity to generate revenue from affiliate marketing is much more challenging than it was a few years ago. The insurgence of Web 2.0 with interactive online communities, blogging and discussion groups has impacted affiliate marketing and made it more difficult to reach your target audience and stand out against your competition.
September 2, 2009 No Comments
Podcasting: Spread the Word in Scottsdale AZ
Podcasting has become a popular social networking tactic that businesses use to disseminate great audio content, improve relationships with their customers and stakeholders, and boost their search engine optimization efforts. Using a podcast to distribute news, information and updates about your company and its products or services will help you find new customers and increase traffic coming to your site.
What is Podcasting?
Podcasting is a process that syndicates digital media files for distribution online. Consumers can subscribe to download an audio file from the internet and listen to it whenever they want on their computer or mp3 player. By subscribing to a podcast that they are interested in, customers automatically receive downloads of new podcasts as soon as they’re available.
Podcasting helps businesses gain exposure by providing information about their products or services to consumers who are interested. The podcast feeds are always available and can be listened to at any time. A list of the feeds can be published on the website where users can link to and subscribe to the podcast. This viral marketing practice is a popular search engine optimization strategy that can boost a website’s popularity quickly.
Contact KEO Marketing at 888.702.0679 for a free consultation to learn more about how Podcasting in Scottsdale can help grow your business.
August 12, 2009 No Comments
Corporate Blogging Helps You Connect with Your Target Audience and Build Community Around Your Brand
Corporate blogging can provide businesses an outlet for news, product updates, service announcements, customer interaction and so much more. Adding a corporate blog to your search engine optimization and social networking strategies can help your organization leverage a community of interested users who often convert into buyers. Blogging to communicate with your target market will bring more traffic and act a link building agent that can increase your website’s ranking.
What is Corporate Blogging?
Corporate blogging is an effective social networking tool used to communicate news, commentary or information. Typical blogs can combine text, images, links and other media that relate to a particular subject. Bloggers publish blogs in various ways: by video (vlog), links (linklog), sketches (sketchblog) or photos (photoblog). Blogs published via mobile devices are called “moblogs.”
Corporate blogging as a business strategy can help businesses gain online exposure by publishing information about their products or services. Consumers interested in your products or services can read about them, post comments, and then spread that information by linking, ranking or re-posting in their own blog. This viral marketing practice has become popular as a search engine optimization strategy because search engines value recency in information and it can boost a website’s popularity quickly.
Contact KEO Marketing to learn more about corporate blogging.
August 12, 2009 No Comments
Gainey Ranch Real Estate
Exclusive, private, lush and tranquil best describe this community located on N. Scottsdale Rd, and E. Double Tree Ranch Rd. With shopping, restaurants, and everything in between at your fingertips along with close proximity to the 101 freeway, Gainey Ranch is one of the most sought after communities in Scottsdale. This elegant community welcomes you with soaring palms trees, vegetation galore and the feeling like you have arrived in paradise. A guarded gate entry, and additional gate access inside the community ensures maximum privacy and security. Where once a historic Arabian horse ranch owned by Daniel C. Gainey lay, now 19 neighborhoods of over 1000 homes, a 27- hole championship golf course, and the luxurious Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa are home to Gainey Ranch.
As of July 19, 2009 there are 58 Active listings in Gainey Ranch, of which only 5 are short sales. Within that 5, all but one reside in “The Pavilions”. Listings in Gainey Ranch range from $199,000 up to $2,989,000. Call us today at 480-505-7814 and a Scottsdale.com Real Estate Professional would love to assist you in welcoming you to the prestigious Gainey Ranch.
July 29, 2009 No Comments
Foreclosure and Short Sale Anti-Deficiency Laws
Foreclosure and Short Sale Anti-Deficiency Laws … are changing in September 2009. This change will predominantly affect INVESTORS, but the rules are important to understand for any homeowner facing foreclosure.On July 10th, Governor Brewer and state lawmakers agreed to change those laws which protect homeowners against lenders pursuing them for debt that was not repaid as a result of foreclosure or short sale.
If the price that a lender receives when a property is foreclosed or for which a short sale is completed is less than what is owed, then the lender may generally seek a deficiency claim against the borrower for the difference in funds. The state of Arizona, as well as others, has anti-deficiency laws to protect homeowners from having a lender seek this deficiency amount from them…BUT, the homeowner must meet specific requirements.
Effective September 30, 2009 those requirements are changing. Two new requirements were added to the existing criteria: 1) the trustor (homeowner) must have lived in the property for a minimum of six (6) consecutive months (the law doesn’t specify how recent those 6months be, but the burden of proof is on the homeowner); and 2) a certificate of occupancy must have been issued on the property (no vacant land or unfinished buildings).
The original anti-deficiency requirements that remain a part of A.R.S. 33-814 include: 3) the property must sit on 2.5 acres or less; 4) property must be a one-family or single-two family dwelling.
Another important aspect of Arizona’s anti-deficiency laws is that a homeowner receives specific protection if the loan amount(s) (both first or second mortgages) were ‘Purchase Money’, or money that was used exclusively to finance the acquisition of the property. This protection does not include a ‘money-out’ refinance for repairs or debt consolidation.
Even if anti-deficiency laws apply, if a homeowner intentionally devalues the property (removal of fixtures, A/C units, damage, or let’s the property ‘go to waste’), the borrower can be liable to their lender for these monies!
July 23, 2009 1 Comment
Scottsdale Social Networking Helps Organizations Gain More Online Exposure
Social networking is a method for generating publicity through social media outlets, online communities and websites for people who share the same interests. Most social networking services are web-based and provide a multitude of ways for users to interact. Email, chat, voice chat, video, instant messaging, message boards, blogs and file sharing are just a few of the services that social networking provides.
The main types of social networking contain directories that allow users to connect with friends, share information and exchange ideas. Websites like MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Ning and LinkedIn have gained widespread popularity by featuring social networking and new technology, giving their users new ways to interact.
Now, many online businesses are also beginning to use these tools as a means of customer relationship management where they can communicate information about their products or services. This form of advertising gives users the sense that the business is part of their community and less of a stranger trying to sell something. The low cost and targeted connection with consumers of social networking makes it a popular, beneficial marketing tool for businesses looking to expand their user base and increase their website rankings.
Learn more about how social media and social networking training in Scottsdale can improve the quality of your interactions with your consumers.
July 22, 2009 No Comments
SSDT: Same Stuff, Different Trip
I left for Africa on a Wed. afternoon. The night before had been a going away party that ended up lasting from about 7 PM to 6 AM the following morning. Unfortunately I hadn’t packed before the party had started, and I needed to leave for the airport at 10 AM. I use the word “unfortunately” loosely, as I knew this was going to happen, and didn’t make time to pack before the party anyway. It was further compounded by the fact that I had a breakfast meeting at 8 that morning. Plus, I wasn’t quite sure what to pack as my packing list was in my e-mail box and the internet was out. A pattern emerges, mayhaps? In the end I just threw some things in my backpack and decided that should do it for two months.
I mean I’d prepared some. For a few days prior I’d been out shopping for concoctions filled with DEET and new tennis shoes, but most my time had been filled with trying to get credit at ASU for my trip. After receiving no credit for six months in Asia, and having finished my degree but not having enough honors credits to finish up at Barrett’s. I wasn’t about to let that happen again, so I managed to split the trip into two parts and get credit for each. The first three weeks I would be volunteering at different organizations in Uganda, and so I enrolled in a service learning course. For the five weeks after that I’d be working with J’lein Liese and the Foundation for Global Leadership, which counted as an internship.
That was the whole point of my trip, by the way. It dawns on me that not everyone reading will know, so I should probably explain it. Last year I took a six month backpacking trip across Asia. I visited Japan, China, India and Thailand. In preparation for that trip I was introduced to a woman from Charter 100 named J’lein. J’lein had a business leading American delegations to different areas of the world to educate them on local issues and what they could do to help. I guess it could be called philanthropic tourism. She used to be privately contracted by different state departments from around the world as well as the UN to work on various issues like women’s health (she’s very into women’s issues) and community building. After she had her son, though, she decided it was a bit too dangerous to continue. Often she’d be heading into villages within a week of wars ending to provide aid. She knew that the leaders knew the war was over, but whether the memo had reached BFE was always a little in question.
In our discussions we became friends, and she made me promise two things. One, I’d serve as a mentor for her son (Ethan is four), and two, that I’d let her take me to Africa. I of course had always wanted to go to Africa desperately since youth. I agreed on one condition: that I could bring a group of friends along with me for a guy’s trip. She agreed. Before that, however, it seemed like a good idea to go to Africa so that I’d actually know what I was doing when planning a trip for my friends and I.
Thus I found myself getting on a plane for Dubai that Wed., with a connection in Atlanta and no sleep the night before. Everything actually went surprisingly smooth on my way to Dubai. I had to fly Delta, not Emirates, which is possibly the best airline in the world (if they ever let foreign airlines compete fairly in America no American airline would survive), but I wasn’t willing to pay the difference in fair anyway, so I wasn’t upset.
The Atlanta-Duabai leg was particularly interesting. Despite having withdrawn all our troops from Iraq the week before, the plane seemed to be made up of three groups of people: Middle Easterners, Indian/Pakistanis and Americans heading for Iraq as private contractors. The girl sitting in my row set up gyms for the soldiers after having been a marine herself. The guys in the row in front of me did some type of construction. All their firms were scaling down after the troop withdrawal, but America definitely still had a presence in Iraq, in terms of citizens abroad anyway.
Despite it being an American airline, they had in-flight entertainment, and so after watching a couple of movies in the back of the chair in front of me, and reading a few chapters in my book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph, by T.E. Lawrence (the most insightful and brilliantly written non-fiction I’ve ever encountered, for those interested in military history, the Middle East or philosophy), I was there.
The airport in Dubai was nice, as I would expect of the first city in the world to hold a seven star resort. I got my luggage almost immediately and headed out to find accommodations for the night. Though my final destination was Entebbe, Uganda, they only had one cheap flight there a day, and it left at 5 am. Since I was getting in around 7, I figured I’d just get a room for the night near the airport, catch a couple hours of sleep, and then be on my way to Africa.
Outside of baggage claim all the different hotels and travel agencies had their booths. There were a lot of options, but I was only going to be there for a few hours so I just wanted something cheap and close to the airport. The cheapest hotel most places had to offer was $80. The Sheraton was only $130 on promotion, so I kept looking. It was while waiting in front of these booths I started to catch my first glimpses of Middle Eastern fashion. Several women in Burkas went by or waited with children. They seemed to all be married and with their husbands. I wasn’t sure if them being accompanied by their husbands and wearing burkas coincided or not.
Finally I ran across a group offering a three star hotel for only $50. It was still exorbitantly expensive, but hey, this was Dubai. They had indoor skiing despite 120 degree temperatures. If I was looking for cheap and humble near the airport, I had come to the wrong place. The woman behind the desk was from South East Asia. I guessed Thailand, but it turned out she was from the Philippines. As I looked around it seemed that many of the people working the desks looked Philippino.
Outside I grabbed a cab and headed to the hotel. My cab driver, as it turned out, was from Pakistan. I guess some things are the same all over the world. In the car we talked about the current economy in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE) debt laws, and how much I hate India (for those of you who didn’t follow my trip through Asia, in a month in India someone attempted to purchase me for slavery, the man I had to share a mosquito net with from my host family tried to seduce me, I got stranded in the desert by my traveling companion, and I almost died from disease. Twice). I could barely understand his answers, and when I could, they directly contradicted everything I’d heard, so after a little while I turned my attention to the city as it rolled by.
I honestly was a little let down. We got on the freeway and headed into town. Indistinct towers began to grow up around the cab, but nothing that couldn’t have been seen in any other city. The desert landscape had a kind of drab effect on everything. I imagine it’s hard to upkeep the buildings with all the blowing sand etching away at them day by day. I guess I was hoping for something more—I don’t know—Vegas? Ludicrously large reproductions of other country’s monuments, only with enough neon lighting to blind neighborhood pets? I mean Japan had their own version of the Eiffel Tower and Disney Land, I figured the richest city in the Middle East could have a little bling. Buildings had lit signs on them, but for one of the most extravagant cities in the world, it wasn’t as happening as I expected. Of course I only saw what was on my way to my hotel, which was the cheapest one I could find from the airport. I’ll be back at the end of my trip with some time and funds to check it out properly. I imagine when I go into the coastal side of town, things will be very different.
My hotel, at least, was nicer than I expected, from the outside, anyway. I paid the cabbie (significantly more than the ride should have cost—he claimed it was traffic) and schleped my forty-nine pound bag into the lobby, where the bell boy finally picked it up in time to carry it the ten feet to the elevator. The staff was almost all Indian and seemed nice enough. They took me up to a room on the fourth floor overlooking the main road in front of the hotel.
I immediately set about repacking my bag. I had been in such a rush that morning I had been forced to stuff the overflow in my carry on. With that finished I faced a debate. It was already 10 PM. My international flight was at 5 AM, meaning I should leave by 3 AM, yet I was still on Arizona time, which meant I wasn’t really tired at all. I decided to go out and find an internet café I could print the itinerary for the next leg of my journey. I figured proof that I had a flight might come in handy at the airport. It’s a gift I have, really, this foresight of mine. It’s almost like I can see the future. Just like several months ago I could have told you I wouldn’t have started packing until the day I left. Magic, if anything.
The street in front of my hotel was under construction. That seemed to be a consistent theme in Dubai. Arabs walked by, the men in flowing white robes and head cloths, the women in head scarves or burkas. Groups of Philippinoes or Indians were interspersed among them. It turns out only 8% of the people in Dubai are locals, quite the figure when you think that 6% are European. The Philippinos tended to be in Western dress, graphic t’s and shorts, while the Indians wore slacks and collared long sleeve shirts. The Philippinoes seemed the most expressive of the group, often returning my smile while the others tended to ignore me.
Many store fronts were still lit as I strolled down the street, despite the hour. Mostly they were cafés or restaurants. Inside some men sat smoking hookah, others people were at western tables eating. Most their patrons were Middle Eastern.
I had begun to wonder if I’d passed the internet café I was looking for when I finally saw the sign. I was the only Western patron, but that didn’t really bother me. I rarely like being places with a lot of other Westerners when I travel. It’s a bit snobbery in that I like to think I’m having rare experiences, and a bit hard earned wisdom in that it’s much harder to overcome racial prejudices when you go from being the only representative of your race present to just one among many (usually whom are much drunker and louder than you are). I threw up Facebook and my e-mail as I searched for my itinerary. A specific e-mail caught my eye before I could go any farther, though. “Trip cancelled,” it read, from Expedia. I opened it to find that the second leg of my trip the next morning, from Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) to Entebbe had been cancelled. Well that wasn’t good. I quickly checked Expedia, updating my Facebook status as I went. Expedia had the flight still on schedule.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I began to dig deeper on Expedia, reading a few more e-mails as I went. The next one down was from my mother, the subject reading, “Emergency! Contact Miriam ASAP”. Miriam was my trip coordinator in Uganda. Perplexed, I opened it up. It said that I must contact Miriam or J’lein immediately, as they had waited for four hours after my flight landed, and no one knew where I was. [Read more →]
July 22, 2009 No Comments