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Article marketing is a key element of search engine optimization strategy. It is an effective means for providing quality backlinks to the content on your website. Because it helps your website content rise in organic search results, article marketing is a powerful tool that should not be overlooked.

Internet article marketing is the practice of writing unique, quality articles and publishing them on various online article directories. The goal is to generate a large number of quality backlinks to your website content. Your articles need to be educational, valuable and engaging so that readers will want to read more and become involved in your blog.

Here are three ways that article marketing adds value to your SEO strategy:

1.    Generate traffic to your website. Article marketing is a highly successful tool for steering traffic to your website. One way it does this is through the resource box found on most article directory sites. This brief biography allows you to give the reader information about your products, services and business with one or more keyword specific anchor links to your website. Readers who are interested in learning more about your company can click a link that will send them directly to your website. When other people republish your articles, these backlinks gain more exposure. Building backlinks is essential to improving search engine rankings.

2.    Build credibility as an expert in your field. When you publish a large quantity of knowledgeable and quality articles about a specific topic, you become recognized as a top expert in your field. Readers begin to look to you for relevant and topical information about a specific subject. You will notice more traffic to your website as readers stop in to see what you are writing about now. When people trust you and recognize you as a leader in the industry, they will be more likely to use your business when they need a specific product or service. This kind of exposure is simply not possible without a good article marketing strategy.

3.    Increase exposure. When you publish keyword-rich articles to a variety of directories, it increases your exposure on the Internet. The more exposure you have, the better the chance that your articles will be republished on another site. When this happens, your backlinks get more exposure. It is important that you submit articles to a variety of submission sites rather than just one. It increases the chance that someone will republish them and it helps you gain higher search engine rankings.

Article marketing is essential for improving search engine rankings. Don’t put it off any longer. Triad Search Marketing of Greensboro, NC offers article marketing services to businesses nationwide. Get a free quote!

By:  Nick Melillo, Internet Marketing Expert

Professional ethics and personal ethics have two distinct applications as one is involved in your own personal life and affects your perception and value placed upon things in your own life which does not apply primarily to your professional endeavors.  Your professional ethics play a unique role in that you are held to a certain standard when in the workplace and must abide by a specific set of ethics that is required by all employees of the company.

The same thing applies for managers and executives.  A corporate ethical policy determines how business operations will be conducted, included by whom, in what circumstances, etc…  However, although your personal life is distinctly different from your professional life, I feel that your ethics roll over from one to another and if you have good ethical values in one area you will have them in the other.

There is an exception to this and that is of the person who has low personal ethical standards, for this person it is less likely that they will have high standards professionally because of their inherent low personal ethical values.  It is important to practice what you preach at work in your daily life and live by a set of ethical codes which guide your actions in all aspects of life and your personal/professional journey.

By:  Nick Melillo, Internet Marketing Expert

In my opinion, a person must not only be objective but also think critically in order to make positive decisions.  However, this can depend on the nature of the person’s decision making process, since a lot of people operate very differently.  Some people tend to overanalyze things and this causes them to make decisions based upon their feelings, insecurities and expectations.

This can have a dramatic effect on their behavior in certain situations and can make it so that they choose their decisions differently, depending on the situation.  Granted, you can always make decisions without thinking critically but ultimately in order to make a good one you must have some form of objectivity and perspective.  By analyzing the big picture and looking at the whole scope of things with regards to the decision, you are able to more effectively determine the most beneficial course of action.

I think that most people take a critical approach to decision making based upon success vs. failure and weigh out their options, taking into consideration the highest chances for success and choosing the path which best fits their expectations.  This approach is the core of decision making for most people.  Ethical and moral considerations definitely come into play as well, especially in situations that require such thinking; but most decisions have nothing to do with morals (such as whether to eat turkey or ham, grab a yogurt vs. a banana, etc.).

By: Nick Melillo, Internet Marketing Expert

Critical thinking plays a large role in ethics because it is the process by which we determine for ourselves whether or not something is right or wrong.  In a sense, critical thinking is a form of analysis and determination of fact vs. fiction, identifying the unknown, coming to an understanding, etc…  By taking the path of a critical thinker, a person develops a mental process of evaluation which helps to determine their ethical standards.

By incorporating the critical thinking process into their mindset, it enables them to more effectively make decisions based upon truths and verified information, rather than unknowns and variables.  By eliminating the variables, you bring to view the plain truths which exist and make a decision based upon that.  Having a critical approach to ethical analysis is very important and remains one of the principle factors as far as I am concerned.

I think that people should have a very analytical mind if they are to be truly successful ethically, because it is too easy to forget and not care; resorting to self sufficient forms of thinking and ensuring your own survival, etc…  I think a lot of people who have had hard lives are forced to make decisions they would not choose to make otherwise had they not been in that situation at the time, but needed to make the choice that would best benefit them personally because of the extreme nature of their lives.

This is applicable to cultures all over the world and I am confident that if you are a smart person and understand the concept, critical thinking applied to ethical and moral standard analysis is something that is essential to your success and if not implemented in the proper manner (i.e. making poor decisions) can lead to negative outcomes.

There are many ways that you can optimize the performance of your Google Local Business listing to help it come up higher in the search results for various keywords related to your products, services and target market.  Think about what people who need your services are looking for, what type of keywords do they use?  How would someone who is searching for what you have type their request into Google?  Once you find out what the majority is, then the optimization part is easy.  Research is the key, lots and lots of keyword research and competitive landscape analysis.

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Here are some tips and tricks to get you started:

1. Get citations from major data suppliers.

This builds trust in the information that Google has about your business and is one of the biggest influencing factors which can affect your local business listings ranking positions. This is done by listing the business in very credible, highly popular business directories which provide information and resources. These high ranking references will give your listing that boost it needs to top the search results.

2. Make sure you have a good business address location.

Google is getting more advanced with the relevance they place on location and your business address must be extremely relevant to the search keywords in question, because if someone is searching for landscaping services in Yonkers, NY and you have a company in White Plains, NY that services the Yonkers area; it is still extremely difficult to rank well locally for that search term since there may be 30 other local landscaping businesses in the area that have local addresses. See what I’m getting at? Bottom line, if you want to rank high locally, make sure you have an office in a good location in that area!

3. Make sure your listing is Owner Verified.

This establishes a sense of trust between you and Google because now they know that the local business listing isn’t just some random user generated data that hasn’t been confirmed yet; they have a reliable source….you….telling them that this is your business, who you are, what you do, where you do it, etc… This is definitely one of the most important aspects to achieving good local business rankings.

Ping.fm has decided to update their platform with some very useful and relevant networks that you can now publish to via your Ping.fm profile.

The addition of Seesmic and Google Buzz will be great for Ping.fm users because of the added functionality and ability to network via these addition profiles, expanding the reach made available to subscribers and improving efficiency when distributing information across the social web.

The text below was taken from Ping.fm’s email update:

Seesmic for iPhone
If you haven’t heard, the biggest news this past weekend is the release of the Seesmic for iPhone integrated with Ping.fm.

You can get the app through the app store, or click here:  http://getap.ps/seesmic

This was no small feat and we’re pretty stoked about it. You can now seamlessly use Ping.fm on the iPhone.

Here’s a video from Loic to tell you more about it :

You can also check out all of the cool details (multiple accounts, Facebook, save to Evernote) in the Seesmic Blog.

Google Buzz in Ping.fm
We’ve integrated the latest and greatest Google Buzz service as one of the networks we post to. Yes, the long awaited day has finally come to where you can post directly to Google Buzz from Ping.fm. Thanks to the Google team and the recent API launches at Google I/O. It has all come together very nicely. As they increase their API’s functionality, we will be adding additional and more rich features as well. Hop on over to the Google Buzz page and let us know what you think!

Ping.fm Integrated in Seesmic Web
Last, but not least, we are officially integrated into the ever-growing-in-popularity Seesmic Web client! We’ve had a swarm of requests for this since our recent Seesmic acquisition and now the day has finally come. This is just a small step in the Seesmic integrations, but a very important one. Soon, we will also be integrated in all of the other clients Seesmic offers.

As a small business owner, it is important to consider the perception of your company in the marketplace. How are you perceived by potential customers? Do they view your business as well established and credible? This can be the deciding factor between making a sale and losing one to a competitor.

A website can make all the difference!

Having a high quality, professional website shows that you are up with the times and leading the way in your industry. Without a good website, people will assume that your business is struggling and not very well established. You lose credibility in their eyes and this can lead to them going somewhere else.

Most people don’t want to talk on the phone anymore, they would rather send you an email or fill out a contact form. This is another huge benefit to having a professionally designed website. You enable your market to interact with your business at any time they choose. A website runs 24/7, whereas your business hours may be entirely different. Your website is your best salesperson and can be the difference between a successful growing business and a stagnant one.

Regardless of what industry you are in, there is always an opportunity to advertise your business online. A high quality website is the foundation from which all marketing operations will grow. Once you have a nice website, you can then pursue a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and begin taking hold of valuable market share online for highly competitive keywords which are relative to your products, services, region and target market. These search terms bring you more web traffic and in turn grow business, which increases sales.

The first step is to build a great website that is user friendly and easy to navigate.

If you build it, they will come!

Since 2007, IDC, an IT think tank, in sponsorship with EMC, puts out a report on the state of the Digital Universe. This year’s report has just been released and there are some interesting trends that sales reps can draw from the report.

Here are some of the major findings from the IDC report:

* Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – will complete the journey from analog to digital.

* Last year despite the global recession, the Digital Universe, set a record. It grew by 62% to nearly 800,000 petabytes. A petabytes is a million gigabytes. Picture a stack of DVD’s reaching from the earth to the moon and back.

* This explosive growth means that by 2020, our Digital Universe will be 44 times as big as it was in 2009. Our stack of DVD’s would now reach halfway to Mars.

* Most of the digital universe begins with an action by a consumer – an email typed on a laptop, a digital photo taken at a wedding, a movie downloaded from Netflix. In fact more than 70% of the Digital Universe this year will be generated by users – individuals at home, work, and on the go.

* The social media invasion of the enterprise has just begun. IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions on the internet, B2B and B2C, will reach 450 billion a day.

That is some blow your hair back data, beyond the realm of human understanding because we have no real reference point for numbers so large.

But, how do sales reps rise to the top when the waves of information keep crashing on our head’s.

Key Takeaways:

1.) Begin to create content so that you can get found in search engines, social search, and the blogosphere. Do not get lost in the tsunami of digital information that is growing everyday.

2.) Learn a thing or two about SEO (search enging optimization) so that your remarkable content can be made sense of by search engines and given to the people looking for you. You want to be a search engine and opportunity magnet.

3.) Start digital networking everyday. There is more digital content available than ever before. If you read an interesting article about a company reach out to the CEO and other employees on Linkedin. If you meet someone interesting reach out to them on social networks and begin a digital conversation that can turn into a real relationship over time. Relationships turn into deals.

4.) Stop waiting to get into the personal branding game. The amount of content being created everyday is almost incomprehensible. The personal branders that are striving to solidify their personal brands now, will be the staples of their niche tomorrow.

The big question….

Are you ready for the digital universe?

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Are you a business owner searching for that edge on your competition to drive sales through the roof and dominate your market? We have good news, you have found it and it is called “market intelligence”. Our services enable you to see into your competitor’s SEO strategies and use their information/tactics against them to take the lead in the ever competitive search engine wars for online real estate.

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Our highly trained and experienced Search Engine Optimization Specialists provide local service to the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, including Winston Salem, High Point, Burlington and all the surrounding areas. We also work with clients down in the Raleigh Durham and Chapel Hill regions, as well as Wilmington and Myrtle Beach.

If you are interested in getting some top ranked positions on Google for industry specific keywords relative to your products, services and target market; give us a call or shoot us an email and we will give you a FREE SEO Analysis. This includes analysis of your website’s performance on the web, content, code and link structure with compete website auditing to search for errors which may adversely affect your Google PageRank. We also will show you exactly how many of your web pages are indexed and which ones are performing the best, then review the competitive landscape on the search engines to determine the best strategy for your business.

We will personally sit down with you and go over all of this information on one of our highly optimized laptops and show you through our software exactly what needs to be done in order to achieve the results you desire. This includes very extensive keyword research to find out which keywords will give you the most traffic and optimize your SEO strategy accordingly.

We also provide advice on Social Media Marketing and how it can generate you more business through the use of blogging, article writing, content management and consumer engagement via Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Ning, Delicious, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc…

Our experience gives us an edge and helps you grow your social networks with fans, followers and people clicking through the links we build to visit your website time and time again.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you get top ten results on the web!