Let’s Talk Startup SEO: 8 Ideas to Help You Get Noticed

By now we, as startups, have all become completely obsessed with SEO. But, it definitely is something that can make our websites better, so we continue to follow this obsession until the bitter end. Since the letters SEO were first strung together, there has been a frenzy of ideas and activity in response to the concept. And for good reason, when it comes to startups, SEO can be a kingmaker or a death knell depending on which way the winds blow.
Unfortunately, we aren’t always that great at coming up with new ideas for this amazing concept. Instead, most of us choose to stick with the ‘same ole, same ole’ and hope we don’t get lost in the shuffle of everyone else who are doing the exact same thing. Well, let’s talk about breaking that cycle, shall we?

Relative Keywords

We all know that keywords are important when it comes to SEO, but did you know that relative keywords are just as important? These are the keywords that are similar to the main keyword you have chosen. You should always remember that not all of your target market is going to search for the same exact keyword. Having a variety of relative keywords will help you capture those who don’t follow the norm and search for something similar, but different.

Images

Images may make your post look more pleasing and interesting, but there are actually other benefits to including them. For example, they can actually help out with your SEO efforts. Add tags to your images so that they can help tell your story. Sometimes, this picture is the only thing you have to capture the attention of a potential visitor, so make sure that it is a good one.

Meta Descriptions

What’s a Meta description? That’s the short explanation you give to your content so that search engines will know what it’s all about. For best results, make your Meta description around 156 characters and make sure that it gives search engines the information they need to know what your article is all about. This is something that can greatly affect your placing on search engine result pages.

URLs

Even your URL can sabotage your SEO efforts. The longer your URL is, the harder it will be for you to get the page up in the listings. Make a URL that is short and to the point. It’s also best to add your keyword in there so you are found a bit easier. Here’s an example of a bad and a good URL:

• Bad: www.yourwebsite.com/why_you_need_to_add_SEO_to_every_page_of_your_website
• Good: www.yourwebsite.com/SEO_website_importance

Mobility

Today, more and more online activity is taking place through a mobile device rather through a computer. In fact, many internet users don’t even have access to computers and solely find things on their smartphones. What can you do about this? Make sure your website has a mobile version! Your mobile website needs to be optimized for search engines just like your desktop version. It also needs to move quickly and be easy to read on a smaller screen.

Other Search Engines

Gone are the days when you only need to worry about how Google looks at your webpage. While Google is still the master when it comes to web search results, others are quickly rising up from the shadows and threatening to take over the title of most popular search engines. This means that you will need to focus on more than just Google when you are setting up your webpage’s SEO. Make sure you keep in mind the other big names when you are going through this process and find out just how Bing and Yahoo! feel about SEO as well.

Focus on Local

If you are a small business, make sure you aren’t taking your local SEO strategies for granted. You will want to make sure that your business is front and center when locals search for your business. You should also make sure that listings that are not directly related to your page are kept up-to-date. This means you should check out your yellow pages listings as well as other business listing to make sure the phone numbers and addresses match what is listed on your website. If not, make the necessary changes. Remember, not all of your customers will arrive at your website. Some will find their way to other listings and be confused if they are not accurate.

Old Content

Looking for a way to freshen up your website? Don’t forget to take a look at the content that you have placed on your website in the past. Take some time to freshen it up and adapt it to the new standards in SEO. Since this is something that is always changing, there are certain to be some things you can change about your old content that will help make it show up in the search engines once again. Also, make sure that your content is still accurate and relevant. If not, out with the old and in with the new. Never get stuck in a rut with content that isn’t valuable for your readers.
SEO is definitely something that can leave you scratching your head in confusion. However, instead of staying this way, make sure you are taking the time you need to learn more about it. Obviously, it is not something to be taken lightly and it can be a lot of work to be successful at it.
Source : tech

Eight essentials for landing page optimization

Over the years, what makes a positive user experience and what will drive conversions has changed dramatically. 
10 years ago, banner ads were all the rage and offers for a free laptop actually drove customers towards a particular brand. Today’s online customers are much more sophisticated. They ignore flashy advertisements and pop-up ads merely drive people to ad blocking software.
Instead, you need to engage and convert these customers in a much more subtle way.
You need to use a little psychology. By understanding what people like to see and what resonates with them, along with some machine learning and a few industry best practice techniques you can create landing pages that connect so people convert.
A landing page that successfully brings in new customers has a number of different parts. Neglecting a few of these essentials has the power to drastically reduce the success of your page and therefore minimize the leads and customers that would be otherwise cultivated.

Headings

Your headline will let customers know if they have found the right page. It is your chance to draw the customer in and encourage them to keep reading your content. Your headline should not be the same as your page title tags, but ideally it will tie-in to the searches and keywords that you are looking to attract.

Design

The design of your page will have an incredible impact on your conversion rate. There are multiple psychological principles at play that can guide your design process and help you maximize your layout.
Here are some that you can use right away.
The power of people
People themselves can also be used to influence the eyes. Customers respond favorably to images of real people and faces, which naturally help them connect to your website.

You can then take this a step further by having those image subjects looking at your product. We feel an innate desire to see what people are looking at, which means customers will follow the model’s glance to your product.

The importance of lines
You can control where your visitors look next with careful modifications. Arrows and lines naturally draw the human eye because people are inclined to follow a line from its beginning to the end. Pointing arrows at particularly important parts of your copy or your CTA itself can draw attention to these aspects of the page.

The importance of contrast
Contrast can help make certain aspects of your page stand out, which in turn makes them more memorable and noteworthy. This means you should use contrasting colors on your CTA and to highlight other important parts of the page. Using blank space around the CTA can enhance the effect even further.

Content and copy

The content is your chance to connect with your audience and provide them with immediate answers about why they should care about your offer.
Generally, you do not want to have too much content on the page. A study by Google has found that visitors are more in favor of sites that are not too visually complex and follow a predictable pattern, making it easier for them to process quickly.
Certain types of copy have been found to be more successful than others. For example, people hate the idea that they may miss out or lose something, this is a phenomenon called loss aversion (or scarcity marketing). That is why advertisements that hint at limited quantities of products or very little time until the sale is over tend to succeed so well. The same concept can apply to your landing page.
Copy that spells out clearly what customers are going to receive from you, such as a decrease in expenses, can also help. So too can testimonials where genuine past customers articulate how exactly your service made their lives better.

Forms

The human brain is wired to minimize cost. This cost might come in the form of actual money, or it might be something as simple as extra fields in your form.

Even if you add just optional sections, the brain will interpret this as an additional ‘expense’ and therefore you will reduce the motivation of visitors to fill in the form.
In fact, MarketingSherpa found that one additional form field decreased conversions by as much as 11%. Instead, you should keep your forms as concise as possible. If the information is not absolutely necessary, do not include it. You can always collect more information from your leads as you build the relationship.

Calls to action

Most people want to spend their time maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. That human desire also applies to your landing page. Your call to action (CTA) is your chance to invite your customer to take the next step in building a relationship with you. It should come at the end of positive, engaging content and tie in nicely with the message you are trying to communicate.
Focus on the user and include personal language, such as ‘Start My Free Trial’ instead of a generic, ‘Click to Download’.

You should make sure there is only one CTA on your page. While you might think offering multiple options will give you the chance to entice more people, all you end up doing is confusing people about what you want them to do and they click off the page.
Make it simple for visitors to know and complete the desired action.

Check the competition

Looking at competitors’ pages can offer you key insights about how to improve your page that you might not have otherwise considered. It also can help you better position your own page to outperform those competitors and better position your brand.
Optimization is where machine learning plays such an important role. You can use technology to analyze the landing pages used in your industry to determine the best practices and how you can make your pages more successful.
Information such as the layouts on the top performing pages, the styles of the CTAs, the lengths of the headlines and the colors found on the pages can be compiled and provide you with ideas for A/B tests.

Eye-tracking

Eye-tracking is a capability that lets you know exactly where people are focusing when they see your web page. This has led to some amazing insights, such as the importance of the direction where your photo models are looking, as discussed above.

When you use this technology for your own page, you can also see if customers are paying attention to your content, where people look before they convert and what seems to be connecting best with visitors. This will help you make modifications as needed and further optimize your page.

Measurement 

Successful LPO is driven by A/B testing. If you have not done A/B testing before, the concept is straightforward. You create two versions of your landing page. These versions should be designed to test specific characteristics, such as the wording on your CTA. When you run the A/B test, some of your visitors will be randomly sent to one page and the rest to the other.
Since this is done randomly, you can then interpret differences in conversion rates between the two pages to determine which page should be permanently live.
Testing should not be limited to major changes, however. Even small details can impact conversion rates. Do not forget to test things like:

• Layouts
• Design
• Language and wording
• Font and type size
• Heading length
• Amount of copy on the page

In conclusion

Landing page optimization is a critical part of online engagement. These pages are designed to capture the attention of the customer and drive them forward to make a purchase, fill in a form or otherwise convert.
Most pages have tremendous room for improvement. Although the average landing page conversion rate hovers around 2.35%, the top performing pages see conversions over 5%. Review your landing pages and see how well they line up with the LPO essentials.
Source : searchenginewatch

Meta Description Tags

When we talk about something being “meta,” we are aware of the self-referential nature of the object—a movie about a movie, a song about a song, etc. And when the prefix “meta” is used to talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is being self-referential in relation to your website.
In this part of my blog series on SEO for independent publishers, I encourage you to be as self-referential as possible. Because when writing great meta description tags, it’s imperative that you have content located in your HTML code that best describes a specific page on your website, as you need to talk about the books in your catalog and your company in the most descriptive way possible.
I should be honest from the start and say that meta description tags will not help your SEO, per se. They don’t affect your rankings. At all.

So why are they so important?
Instead of affecting your rankings, they will make your webpages stand out in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and potentially improve your Click Through Rate (CTR) by providing potential customers a quick snapshot of your page information and bringing more of them to your site. Your descriptions give you an opportunity to have “selling” text that will induce someone to actually click on your link over competing sites’ pages that are also displayed in the SERPs.

The 12 participants in our evaluation of SEO factors scored an average of 1.5 (an “F” grade) on meta description tags. This was mostly due to the meta tags being absent from the page code (more than half the participants were missing meta tags). But this is a good opportunity to make some changes, write some great content and improve your CTR.

That Is So Meta
As mentioned above, meta description tags are found in the page code and used to define and describe that specific page. Think of it as conveying a summary of what that page has to offer a customer, like a one-line synopsis. Similar to how a page title would define a page’s content in less than 60 characters, a meta description tag needs to do that in less than 160 characters (including spaces). (In reality, like the page/link’s title, the search engines actually calculate the number of pixels the text will use, but for our purposes, the 160-character limit should suffice.)
Meta description tags are important for the following reasons:

• Meta tag descriptions show up in the SERPs: When a user types a search term into a search engine, the results that are returned (the SERPs) contain brief descriptions of each page populated from the meta tags. These descriptions help a user further define what they are looking for. For example, a search for author “Lida R. Baker” will return a result from Wayzgoose Press that briefly defines her qualifications found on her author’s page. Of course, one of the issues is that it is about the 150th search result, so it’s doubtful that anyone would actually see it. (There’s another issue of the actual page this content is on, which we discussed in the URL Structure and Site Architecture post.)

Search terms appear as bold text in the SERPs: As a way to further highlight search terms in the generated SERPs, Google will present search terms that are found in the meta description in bold text. This encourages the user to click on the search result that includes their search terms in bold. The more search terms highlighted, the better. In the example above, Lida R. Baker would show as bold text in the SERPs.
• Social networks love meta descriptions: When a customer or author shares one of your webpages through Facebook or Twitter, the meta description of that page goes with it (unless of course you have told the social platforms to use something different—which you can do—but that’s another blog post). If Wayzgoose Press adds social integration to its pages (an SEO Factor we will discuss in further posts), a full meta description would accompany that link any time the Lida R. Baker page is shared.

Writing the Meta Way

When adding meta description tags to your pages, you need to develop content that is equal parts creativity, sales pitch and conversation. Meta tags can give you an advantage over your competitors in the SERPs if you a) use descriptions that are different from standard, boilerplate text, b) use descriptions that make use of words and phrases that your customers are looking for and c) use descriptions that meet standard sentence structure, convey information in a natural way of writing or speaking and are both relevant and engaging.
Here are some guidelines to consider when writing (or revising) meta descriptions:

• Understand Keywords – When you are writing for your website, you need to have keywords at the ready to add to your content. In the case of meta descriptions for independent publishers, keywords could include the genre (fiction, non-fiction), book author, title and subject, awards or achievements. The important thing to remember: don’t just jam a lot of keywords together. It looks bad on the page and can confuse your potential customers. It is best to create a unique, readable sentence that describes the page and uses keywords where applicable.
• Mind Your Letters and Spaces – Just like page titles, meta description tags are limited to a specific number of characters (including spaces) before they are cut off or truncated by a search engine. Most SEO experts agree meta tags that are under 160 characters are best. While these constraints can sometimes hamper good meta tag creation, it’s best to think of multiple, concise and complete sentences for meta tags. That way, if the content is truncated, at least some of the important information will be presented in the SERPs. Note: don’t make your descriptions too short either. They should not mirror the page title in length or breadth.
• Don’t Duplicate  – As I have mentioned in many of these blog posts, duplicate content is not your friend. In the case of page content and titles, it can devalue your search ranking. For meta descriptions, it can confuse your customers. On InterVarsity Press, most of the meta tags areRemember, you want each meta tag to accurately describe a specific page in your website. Repeating these tags will prevent potential site visitors from knowing what’s on your page, and they may go to a competitor’s site that has a more robust description.

• Add a Call to Action – While it may not fit for all your webpages, a call to action within the meta tags may entice a customer to visit your site before the others. Offers may include markdowns, free evaluations of potential submissions, author workshops or limited stock for a specific book. Attractors, such as “learn more” or “find out now,” are popular calls to action in the meta tags.
• Sell Your Content – In addition to writing in complete sentences and thoughts, be persuasive when developing your meta content. Think about the value of your books in relation to what your customers want. A good meta description will advertise the important information while encouraging the customer to learn more about the subject. Ask yourself, “If I were a customer, would I want to click this link?”

And keep in mind, that if you don’t have the meta description set, Google will choose one for you, and that might not be the text that you want. We had one client that didn’t have any descriptions set, and had a drop-down at the top of the page so the user could select the country they were in. Google used the first 160 or so characters of the country list as the description whenever any of their pages showed up in the SERPs. Needless to say, they weren’t getting a lot of organic traffic to their site.
Keeping It Meta
Meta tags may seem like a lot of work, especially for publishers with large catalogs and a rich roster of authors. But once you start to see results, the time and effort you spend will be worth it. I should also add that meta tags should not be part of the “set it and forget it” content of your website. Set an editorial calendar for your meta descriptions and revise them as necessary. The more meta work you do, the sharper your message will be when presented in the SERPs.
Have a look at Google Search Console Support for additional guidelines on creating great meta description tags.
It should also be noted that Google’s Snippets team recommends a meta tag for a book to have much less descriptive and selling text than we usually recommend to Biztegra’s Publishr clients. This would result in a meta tag code that would look like this:. This is one area where we differ in opinion from what Google tells us. In our work at Biztegra we focus on doing with clients what we’ve outlined in the post above.
We will be maintaining our focus on “self-referential” content and delving further into the code in our next post on creating great heading (H1, H2, H3) tags.
What do your descriptions look like? Let me know in the comments below.
Source : digitalbookworld

11 Effective Ways Of Doing Local SEO

Now that the designing of the site has been completed, your job is done, right? Wrong. In fact, it has just begun. Your beautifully designed site with menus and submenus is nothing but a page unless it is accessible via the World Wide Web. This is achieved only when you get high ranking in search engines. Ranking in local search results of Google is next to impossible. Once you start with you local search engine optimization you will have tons of hands guiding you to follow various practices. By following every practice, you might end up doing worse for your site.

 

Google lists a site higher only if it is visited often. You cannot ask your potential customers to visit the site often. It is automatically done once it is listed high in search engines. If you are not doing well in your area, then you can let your competitors take the plunge to rank high in search engines. You surely do not want your competitors to beat you in rankings. This is well achieved when you pay attention to local SEO. You must have heard and read a lot about local SEO. Though many companies opt for it, not many know what exactly it is. It is surely a confusing topic.

What exactly is Local SEO?
If you own a local business you will understand the challenges as an owner you have to face. Local SEO is all about getting higher search engine ranking when a customer types a specific area. It is believed that around 97% of users tend to search for local services and products. Apart from this, around 90% of the Google search results do not ever pass the results that are loaded on the first page itself. The second page is often considered as second preference. This type of SEO is needed when you want to get noticed in the home market. This is achieved when the site is optimized for local SEO.

Is Local SEO different from traditional SEO?
Ranking of the site according to Google and other search engines is done based on the number of links received from other sites. The site that gets more links tends to get higher ranking and ultimately more traffic. However, when talking about local sites, these sites are only relevant to local areas. As a search engine, it needs to take care of many aspects than just links. No matter how small, medium or large your business is, opting for local SEO is highly recommended.

Types of Businesses for Local SEO
Any company that does business locally should not neglect the importance of local SEO. It can be anything from a local restaurant, dentist, lawyer, doctor or even a retail outlet. It is somewhat the same as local Yellow Page directory.

Benefits of Local SEO
There are innumerable benefits associated with Local SEO. Mentioned are some benefits of it:
1. It helps in improving and enhancing the search engine ranking.
2. It helps your business to get front page ranking on various major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
3. It helps in increasing the leads, sales, and even conversions.
Now that you know all the information on Local SEO you should know how to do it. If done correctly it can reap huge benefits. But a single mistake is more than enough to get your site down rather than ranking high. Mentioned are 11 effective ways of doing Local SEO:

Create Local Place Page
This is the prime step towards local SEO. Ensure you have a great local business page for all the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Creation of the local page is easy as all you have to do is to offer accurate business information like hours of working, contact number, location and so on.

Online Reviews
It is believed that Google largely takes into consideration reviews when getting ranked high. You should know that reviews serve as a direct platform for customers to get easy information on products and services. The reviews are for Google users who take your business on SERP. One of the best ways to get easy reviews is by adding a button on your webpage itself. This makes easier for your visitors to post prompt and quick reviews.

Photos
It is rightly said, “A picture can speak a thousand words.” Remember this aspect when getting high local SEO ranking. When a client searches for your business locally they surely want to see pictures. Google+ allows you to post around 10 pictures at one go. Ensure the photos posted are not fake and of your products and services alone. Photos help your visitors to get easy information.

Target Right Keywords
Keywords play an important role when talking about getting a high ranking. When it comes to local SEO, the limelight goes on long and geo-specific keywords. Instead of using the keyword “plumber”, when using local SEO it is wise to target “plumber in Pennsylvania”. When you take a closer look you will find it actually changes the whole dimension. This further helps you to compete effectively with your competitors and rank high in search engines.

Get Ready For Less Competition
When you do business nationally or internationally you have to compete with a larger audience. However, this is lessened when you opt for local SEO. You will find the competitions are reduced to certain organizations or businesses in that certain area itself. The reason for this is because the keywords you use are location specific. This actually works in the favor of your business as you will not be competing internationally, but just local businesses.

Citations
When talking about local search engine ranking, citations play a major role. Google actually takes them as votes. However, it is of paramount importance that the citations match the details that are posted on your site and Google local page. As compared to traditional SEO, Local SEO is more into citations. It is basically a non-link mention of the address, contact number, brand name, and more. It mainly aims at listings on various directories and also getting positive reviews. You can put an icing on the cake by considering some common techniques of including blogs and quality links.

Conversions
No visitor likes to wait for minutes and hours in order for the site to load. They will obviously prefer other sites that are offered as second or third suggestions. This leads to losing your customers. It is seen that conversions tend to drop drastically when a webpage takes the time to load. To boost and enhance the conversion rates ensure the pages load quickly. Normal time for any page to load is 0-5 seconds. If it exceeds more than that you know you are lagging behind.

Results
Not many companies understand the importance of getting fast results as long as SEO is concerned. It is seen many of the SEO companies tend to continue with the optimization process until there are some great results to show. However, this can be effectively avoided with Local SEO as it offers faster results.

Solutions That Are Readymade
As compared to traditional SEO in which an expert makes use of various tools when it comes to managing the processes, there are certain tools that help in your Local SEO.

High ROI
It is believed that Local SEO helps in getting higher ROI easily. There are a number of reasons that shows why local businesses get high ROI. One of the main reasons is because it is basically physical providers. As you do business locally you can expect less competition, and thus better chances of getting high listings in Google and other search engines.

Social Media Integration
Social Networking sites have made a great impact on getting high exposure. You are highly recommended to have a healthy dose of effective social media contact. It is a great platform to reach out to a larger local audience. It is a great recipe and should not be neglected in any way. Ensure you have a great presence on various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.
These are some of the most and effective 11 ways to do Local SEO. It is your easy ticket to getting high ranking and exposure on Google search engine. If your business largely relies on local customers and visitors, then local SEO is surely made for you. It is one of the best ways to be seen on the first page of Google and other search engines. In this way, you can expect a lot of businesses.
Once you opt for Local SEO you will actually notice the difference and establish a strong online presence. You should know that most of the searchers never ever go past the results other than the ones posted on the first page. Make use of this aspect and get high ranking and the much-needed exposure. Do not make your customer wait for long! Make use of Local SEO techniques and get high listings easily.
Source : business2community

 

5 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.
1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.
Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

Here’s How To Avoid The 3 Most Common Affiliate Mistakes

Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning some money online. This program gives everybody a chance to make a profit through the Internet. Since these affiliate marketing programs are easy to join, implement and pays a commission on a regular basis, more an more people are now willing in this business.
However, like all businesses, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. Committing some of the most common mistakes will cost the marketers a large portion taken from the profit they are making everyday. That is why it is better to avoid them than be regretful in the end.
Mistake number 1: Choosing the wrong affiliate.
Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of one, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. This is the kind of products that the program thinks is “hot”. They choose the product that is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them. This is not a very wise move obviously.
Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try top choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For any endeavor to succeed, you should take some time to plan and figure out your actions.
Pick a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.
Mistake number 2: Joining too many affiliate programs.
Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs to try and maximize the earnings you will be getting. Besides you may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs.
True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them.
The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as huge as you were thinking initially it would. The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program that pays a 40% commission at least. Then give it your best effort by promoting your products enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.

The technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into things, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be staying for a long time too.

Mistake number 3: Not buying the product or using the service.
As an affiliate, you main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. For you to achieve this purpose, you must be able to relay to the customers that certain product and service. It is therefore difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly. You will also fail to create a desire in your customers to avail any of what you are offering.

Try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. If you have done so, then you are one of the credible and living testaments aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.

Many affiliate marketers makes these mistakes and are paying dearly for their actions. To not fall into the same situation they have been in, try to do everything to avoid making the same mistakes.
Time is the key. Take the time to analyze your marketing strategy and check if youa re in the right track. If done properly, you will be able to maximize your affiliate marketing program and earn higher profits.

Boost your SEO by 400% with Microdata

Structured Data is the next big thing in SEO, start using it on your site and improve your search presence.

When it comes to the SEO of the website most webmaster focuses on having targeted keywords in the title, description and the content of the page, which is a must need thing to do. Also some spend a lot of time and money on building backlink for their website, which is a complete waste of time and money. But one thing most webmasters and SEO analysts often miss is the importance of Microdata instead spend more time on other things.

Structured Data or Microdata is actually a way to represent what kind of data is present on a particular page of a website. You can see the list of different kind of structured data or microdata list at the official site Schema.org. Now, let’s say you have a blog where you post your articles. After adding structured data to your individual article page you are actually saying the search engines which exact part of that page represents the post title, which part represent the whole article, who is the author of the post, which part of your page represents the breadcrumbs etc.

Now if you have an eCommerce website, you might wanna structure your product page with the details like which section of text represent the product name, product brand, SKU ID, average review, number of people reviewed the item and many other thing.

Why should you care about microdata?

Most people often ask that as their site is running smoothly for years without microdata why they should bother to add these microdata on their site. It’s not something that users can see on that page. But the question they forget to ask is how they can improve the search engine experience for their website.

As we all know that Google (the search engine that almost everyone use) has more than 200 factors in their search algorithm which decides the position of your website on the search page. Now obviously proper page title and description is the most important thing, but one of those ranking factor also includes how well the content of the page has been structured. If you do not use microdata on your website when Googlebot will crawl, it has to decide everything by itself and many times it can lead to wrong information on the search result (like wrong title, description etc.).

But if you use structured data Googlebotr will have the exact idea what part of your website represent what thing and in return googlebot will give higher SEO score to your website and in the end you site will be listed within the first few pages of Google search.

Does it really improve SEO?

Yes, of course it does. Don’t believe me? Well here is a real life example. If you ever visited the Genesis Framework website, you would have seen that they claims to improve your website SEO tremendously if you use genesis framework for your website design. Also you will find a lot of reviews on the web saying that how easily Genesis Framework themes for WordPress helped them to improve their search presence and SEO.

But a very few people ask that how do they do it? Besides giving the place to customize your page title and descript what more does it have? Well, the answer is structured data or microdata. You can use plugins like Yoast SEO to add the page title, description customizability but it doesn’t add any microdata to your site.

This is where Genesis themes gets the boost. If you create a website using Genesis Framework every single page you will create will have the structured data added to it by default. Though it is not perfect every time, but in most time it does this and this is where Genesis based websites gets their SEO boost.

I’ve been using structured data on my website for years now and I’ve seen tremendous improvement in terms of search presence and click through rate. It has almost increased about 400% compared to my earlier site that doesn’t had microdata in it.

How to add these Microdata/Structured Data?

Well, this is the hard part, there is no such plugin exist to add microdata in your website just by one click and the reason bind that is every site is different and has different kind of data in it. So, one set of microdata which might be perfect for my website is not necessarily mean that it will be perfect for  your website too.

Though there are certain themes for CMS like WordPress which comes with preloaded microdata, but still it is not always perfect for all website. The reason behind that is these themes often use some generalized microdata, but if you add your microdata manually within your theme’s code, you have the chance to use much more exact microdata that is perfect for your business or site niche.

I know, it’s really hard to do this if you are not well familiar with programming and that is why Google has made a Structured Data Markup Helper website which will give you a very basic idea how to add microdata in your website and what things you should add in your existing code. The website is very simple, you just provide the URL of your existing page and then mark what section represent what and it will show you the section where you need to add your code.

Structured data can be added in two ways in any website:

1. Adding Markup to the HTML
2. Adding Markup as JSON format

But you must keep in mind that Google always prefer the HTML based microdata and for a hand-few number of cases it actually supports the JSON based microdata. Google is expanding their structured data support and in very near future it will support both of them for all scenarios.

But if you are still confused and don’t wanna get into all this trouble, here are two best option I can give you:

1. Get themes which already preloaded with Structured Data Markup properly, like Genesis Frameork, Divi Themes Microdata.
2. Hire a developer to edit your existing theme to add appropriate structured data in it.

I’m really sorry that I do not have any better option to add microdata in your website at the easy way, because it isn’t easy at all.

What extra benefit will I have with microdata?

If you have a blog kind of website then the only visual change you might see is showing your website breadcrumb in the search result instead of the whole link and may be showing the date on which it has been posted and if it is a review post, Google will show up your review stars along with the reviewer name (these are called Rich Snippets). That’s it, for general blog and article based website you will not see any more visual changes to your search result besides the fact your site SEO is now boosted a lot and it shows up at the beginning pages of Google search.

But if you have an eCommece based website, you can show up a lot of things in the search result itself besides the product name, description and breadcrumb if you add all microdata properly at the proper place. An eCommerce site with properly added microdata can show up the product review, number of reviews, in stock details and even brand names (these are called Rich Snippets). It’s pretty cool and trust me all this changes to your search result increases a lot click-through rate to your website.

If you don’t trust me, ask yourself if you search for anything on Google at it returns 10 search result, and 3 of it has some review star rich snippet showing on it, which one will you click? The answer is the one which is showing the cool rich snippet. And this is the same for other too because this is how human psychology works.

How to test if Structured Data is working properly?

After you implement structured data in your website you must test every single of your site to make sure your microdata markup does not have any errors in it. Those microdata doesn’t look like any programming language but it has a proper order of category and subcategory which you must maintain always.

You cannot add anything you want under any markup category, every mother category support a list of child category, so you must have to choose from them. You will get more details about microdata and it’s listing at the official website Schema.org.

Now it’s time to test your microdata. Visit Google Structured Data Testing Tool and fetch the URL that you wanna test. On the right hand site the tool will show you the list of structured data that Googlebot has identified and if any of them contain any error. This is really useful to check if everything is working fine and to debug microdata issues.

Conclusion

If you have spent tons of money to various SEO agencies scaring you with you have wrong title, description or maybe you need more back links – these kind of stuffs, take a step back and spend that money on adding structured data support to your website. In near future this is going to be a very important thing in terms of SEO. As in this current time only Google takes advantage of structured data, but in very near future search engines like Bing, Yahoo will also implement it. And trust me when I say it, structured data can boost your website SEO and search presence hugely.

Feedback

So, have you ever thought have microdata or structured data are so important thing in terms of SEO and improving search presence? Do you use microdata in your website right now? Does it helped you to boost your site SEO? Have you added the microdata manually in the theme or purchased some theme that comes preloaded with it? I’m so excited to hear your thoughts about this in the comment section below.
Source : isaumya

The higher the level of SEO What more needs to match its website environment

 The saying goes, a good horse with a good saddle, if we have a good website SEO but without the support of the website, it is wasted resources. Recent site optimization process, often included issues relating to the exchange website with business owners and site construction staff. For the site included I always have an idea how to make your site to upload new information in the shortest possible time so that search engines crawl and the first time the site is updated, and this is my idea in recent years, we have been trying to practice.

In general, the higher the weight of the site, updated faster, search engines also crawl the corresponding information quickly. To get the faster your speed and increase the number of sites included, must first raise weight of the site, and because each search engine's algorithm is different, so we need to optimize targeted, only one purpose to improve website overall weight and to improve your speed and the number of sites included. For different algorithms search engines, I have here the main study is Baidu and Google, because in most businesses and individuals, Google and Baidu occupy large tracts of the world, even though Google has launched the continent, but in HK of Google is still very market, and it has recently been saying that Google was preparing to re-fought in the mainland market next year.
Combined with years of optimization experience, I think the site optimization process in order to improve your speed and the number of sites, must first increase the weight of the site,

Probably something like this:

Contents 1 General site is very important, original practicality, in addition there are enough valid user support, the site's content also reflects its importance, after Baidu spiders crawl multiple acquisitions and practicality website content has become very high, so Baidu assigned weight of the site also manifested. For example, recently we developed Amoy Lok Habitat release Tianrun City] listing software, and then presented to the client, the site content is very important.

2 site's internal structure, Baidu this year also introduced a new program, clearly support Whitecaps owners of behavior, for black hat is always opposed to it, therefore, how to design a good interactive site inside a frame structure, and the site is very important, It also can increase the weight of the site.

3 Baidu and Google have overlapped, in fact, a large part of the site if it is a high quality high weight, Google and Baidu are simultaneously recognized, so the search engine gives the right to the site of heavy high, your speed and the number will be appropriate to speed up and growth.
Therefore, I think included the number of indexed rate increase site and increasing the site must improve weight of the site, for Google, there are a lot of website optimization staff considered outside the chain to improve the ranking, the outer chain can fully enhance the rankings I think is very important, in addition quality of links is also very important, high PR value of the site for the corresponding Google is updated much faster. We deal with the site included in the issue process needs more lessons, so more in line with search engine algorithms developed techniques to enhance their strength. So each site select their SEO , the website should be based on the level of their own choice, not blindly seek high-tech, it is the best fit.

How to construct a building site within the chain cow B

In the field of SEO it is very important that you make your site for a particular things or we can say on a particular theme. Make the site within the chain is very simple, always remember: we are published each article needs to be done within the chain, (also referred to as the anchor text), an inner page about three general within the chain, not too much , more search engines will think that we are deliberate in order to do seo optimization , also known as over-optimization. If we do not, we are the inside pages (text page) is in a state of loneliness, the search engines generally do not like loneliness of the page, a strong chain of sites are generally within the system is also very sound. Within the chain system is like a spider web, cobweb we have seen it! Try a little dense spider web, so you can use the network to capture more food, of course: Intensive excessive also not a good thing.

I talked about here, many people may deliberately do within the chain, for example, I published an article about the entertainment news, but my main theme of the site is seo, in order to achieve the desired within the chain, we This article went to do within the chain, in fact, this is not good. Within the chain in addition to site optimization seo good outside, the main purpose is the user experience, users can find the fastest speed they want, it can be said to guide the user now! If a user enters is our entertainment news page, we do something within the chain and entertainment irrelevant, you think users will click into it? Even if the user clicks on the inside, users will immediately close the window? This page is the high jump failure rate is not it? Thus it will be greatly reduced, counterproductive.

Cow B website within the chain construction is basically to do the following:

First: Website within the chain (anchor text) each article is generally three to five sufficient

Different articles, requirements are not the same, because every site, its articles are up slowly, especially the new station, you do not have any of the content, we do the content of the previous month, the first not within the chain. And some special articles, it is not good to do within the chain, you can choose not to.

Second: the relevance of the site within the chain

Many people think that within the chain is easily done, this is a very wrong perception, the more relevant user experience possible. Do you think a person would really want to lose weight increased interested? Basically not, unless the head so that the door squeezed.

Third: Website within the chain must crossbar link

I do not know how we are doing within the chain, it is inside the inner pages, columns or columns page to page or pages on section pages, inside pages to the home page. You must not be one-to-many or many-to. Home pages for the time being will not speak, I'll use a separate article to share with everyone.

SEO site server has a very big impact

SEO site server has a very big impact , so you must be careful to choose a good server virtual space provider.

The vast majority of small and medium enterprises can not, there is no need to have their own independent server . Your site is operated by a professional network companies or network studio to produce, and they will put the server in the virtual space leased to you.

Let's think about it, if a potential client in the Baidu search keywords to your product, he clicks on your site and wanted to know your product, but your website was half open, open rate that can really makes a Mana, make people worried to death. What do you think, that potential customers will have the patience to wait forever? After 5-10 seconds, he will leave. In this way, you lose a potential customer, we lost the opportunity of an order. There may be a loss of thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, millions.

Web page opens slow for many reasons, but the server instability is the main reason. Search engine indexing programs - we vividly described as "search spiders" that day will come to your site once the index, but if just hit the server instability, search spiders will not be able to enter your site, then you Categories on the website ranking in search engines will decline. If the server is chronic instability, it is unfortunate, even if your Web site has been the most perfect SEO, search spiders to your site will not be interested in keywords on your site will be difficult in the forefront of the search engine appears.

If the server is very stable, your site virtual space is large enough potential customers to click, web Shuadeyixia came out, so the pleasure is that everyone likes, potential customers will browse your site carefully, the result is Maybe he'll pick up the phone contact with you.

Therefore, we must be careful to choose a good server virtual space provider. Because the stability of the server or not directly related to your keyword rankings on the website and your orders.

Due to your web site production company has done a lot of sites, those sites they will be placed on the same server, if one site because of cheating punished by search engines, then your website might be implicated. Now there are a lot of rubbish small sites, they specifically carry out his money flow by means of cheating, the result is K out by search engines, thereby hurt the same server in the other sites. Of course, you do not have excessive stress, now Baidu and google technology more perfect, not easily given to you implicated in the crime.

There's server, as there always "search engine spam" Spammers, mirror sites, doorway pages, by the search engine penalties, which may all be inside the site has been implicated, some ranking dropped significantly, some simply it was K out. This is the most troublesome. Therefore, in order to take preventive measures, you'd have to check in advance whether this server punished by search engines.

So, how to check it? Very simple.

First of all, to this network the company asked him to provide them to the IP address of your server. Next, you enter the query IP address professional website: www.114best.com/ip/ (Note: If you can not open this professional website, you then search on Baidu "IP Lookup Site", you will find a lot of queries IP addresses professional website). Then you enter the IP address of the IP lookup website, search, you can find more than one site's domain name. The site's domain are to share the same IP address of a server. You just find one of them, such as www.hao123.com, then you get into google, enter: site: www.hao123.com, search, google you look at this site contains the number of pages. The same way, find a few more site's domain name search, google look how many pages they included. If the site's domain name contains most of google, it shows this server is secure; if the majority of these site's domain name is not included in google, it shows this server punished by search engines, and it must not Select this server, that is, absolutely not choose this company a network. Because even if this network no matter how well the company's website, the server has a problem, the website is also made out of scrap, waste your money.

Finally, talk about regional issues server. This is mainly to distinguish between domestic and foreign.

If you are doing foreign trade, the company's Web site is the English site, then you'd better put your site hosted on overseas servers. Why should I? Because if your site is hosted on servers domestic from foreign too far, foreign customers opening time your website takes relatively long, and the customer's patience is very limited, page 5-10 seconds can not be opened customer left, this is for you is a loss. And if your site is hosted on servers abroad, to close the distance, the speed of normal Web page opens, that potential foreign customers easy access to your site, he is likely to you inquiry, and possibly next to you orders.

Server also determines the regional ranking results. Now we assume that your English website do a good SEO. Then, when your site is hosted on overseas servers, then your product key words in a foreign country when searching in google rankings on the front a lot, but in the country to be searched when the rankings are in the back A lot of. Similarly, when your site is hosted on a domestic server, your product key words are searched in the country when ranked on google in front of a lot, but in a foreign country when searching, ranking in the behind many.

So, your main customer groups where you can put your website which is hosted on the local server. Everything oriented to potential customer's location.

So, how to go abroad server hosting it? Generally speaking, if you do the English site, the customer base is a foreigner, it is best to find a network of specialized foreign trade company for you to do, they are agents of foreign server space provider. But, the price may be a little expensive.

If you are doing a Chinese website, the customer base is the Chinese people, the server does not matter any domestic cities.

In short, the server for the SEO effects are great, many people have overlooked this detail.

If you really do not believe that the network company, you can own to China million net (www.net.cn) to buy server space, spend 200 yuan to buy 100 megabytes of virtual space is sufficient. Million net virtual space is usually the most stable.

As for the site's SEO, you have to choose those brands on the market is also a good optimization company for you to do, or listen to a friend's recommendation introduction. Nothing to spend more money, do not be cheap, cheap goods is not good sentence truth.

New rules around the principle of Google keyword ranking

Google New rules keyword ranking principle before and after

1. ranking order from the original adjustment per week 1 rankings, and now one day are likely to adjust rank 3-4 times.

2. To further improve the keyword ranking order of their products, including Google Encyclopedia Google Map Google know Google Post Bar and so on. Site weights there is cooperation and Google also increased.

3. Compare the real information website ranking will forward points. Website ranking nature of the company's Web site than the personal nature of the advantage; for some junk sites plagiarism Website imitate site Never give in rank.


Google latest collection of rules:

1. the new station included a short time, from the previous two weeks to a month, and now a short one to two weeks.

2. The new site, hardly more need to pay attention to the quantity and quality of external connections, you only need to try to do the quality of the station and frequently updated content can be.


3. big update page Wednesday previous updates, change update Thursday.


4. The update time: Update the morning in the evening 7-9 pm 5-6 points 10-12 points every day; probably more Thursday 4:00 big; big monthly updated time is the 11th and the 26th, especially on the 26th update the sharpest, K station is also the largest. Small business site content, it is recommended every Thursday at the contents before updating, the best conditions are updated 3-5 posts per day.

Google new rules to your site's ranking down the right principles:


1. the site has pop ads such sites, Google given down the right treatment .

2. involved in AD alliance sites give adequate down the right.

3. web page site there are a lot of content to the JS code in the appropriate handling down the right .

4. the export of one-way connection too, right down to to deal with; the site for heilian and connected trading.

5. Link the site too much, or is indecent Site Links Site of, right down to to deal with. From the site outside the chain weights analysis: 1 blog comments and forum signatures Google now has not given outside the chain weight; two pairs of outer chain right major portals weight have a certain strengthening of the portal outside the chain of weight algorithm also made adjustments .


These are the Our Research Data about SEO finishing the relevant information about Google new rules, I hope all of you SEO enthusiasts some help!

7 tips for choosing a website development partner

Grand Rapids is a hotbed of small business startups and growth. As with every business, your website is a critical business investment.
Whether you’re starting a new business or ready to take your website to the next level, it’s likely you’re going to need help from a web design and development company. Websites are often a specialty or professional service that businesses and organizations aren’t able to do in house.
Think of it like your accounting, payroll, or even human resources functions. You need someone outside the company that can help. So how do you choose who will help you develop a website that fits your business?
There are many factors to consider before hiring a web developer. It is a big investment in budget dollars and your time. You don’t want to waste it. Here are some questions and considerations you can use to help gauge potential web developers.

1. Do they have your business in mind?
Your designer should focus on your business’ brand. If designed correctly, your website should convey your brand’s feel, culture and values. To ensure that this shows on your website, pay attention to whether developers are asking questions about your business, your culture and your mission. How well are they getting to know you and your brand?

2. What do you want your website to achieve?
How can they help you get there? Identify what the website can help achieve for your business. Is it generating leads, selling products, providing customer support or resources?
A good website development team will look at how the website can support your bottom line.

3. Do you like their previous designs?
Research, research, research. Go online and look at an agency’s portfolio to get a feel for the type of work they produce. Are the sites easy to navigate? Is the design pleasing to the eye? What design elements do they utilize; imagery, text and other styles are details that impact your user experience. Your web provider must have a style you like.

4. Are they experienced in SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is incredibly important for businesses to increase their online presence. It is part of your website’s foundation, so they should be talking about your on-page SEO elements and site structure, not just the pretty design. The Beginner's Guide to SEO from Moz is a great resource. Moz explains, “You can’t just build a perfect website and write great content; you also have to get that content shared and talked about.”

5. Will the quality of my site match the price?
Again, research, research, research — do we sound like a broken record? Good. Compare your potential developer’s work to others and take note of the quality of the content and design. Reach out to more than one developer and get a feel for the quality of their product compared to the price. You will want to gather this information to make sure you are getting the best return on your investment.

6. Do they have varied experiences?
The developer’s ability to work with a handful of different platforms offers flexibility for your business and an added breadth of knowledge. If they have a proprietary platform, be sure to ask about customer service and support. If it’s their system, only they can work on it. It’s kind of like getting a pre-nup, since you’re going to be married to them for the life of this website.

7. How much support will we need once the site has launched?
Who is going to update and take care of your website once the developer places it back in your hands? If the relationship between your developer and your business is not ongoing, make sure they communicate all necessary information to you in order to keep it running (passwords, hosting info, user manual). Determine which individual(s) within your company will be maintaining the website and set up an ongoing content calendar to ensure updates happen on a regular basis.
It seems that websites are treated more like a commodity than the true business tools they can be. Invest the time in talking with a few different firms to be sure you’re getting a reputable partner, someone who gets you and your business and most importantly, someone that will treat this like a business tool, not “just a website.” You could get that anywhere. Source : grbj

The 10 Traits of Successful Online Marketers

Whether you’re a professional marketer or a business owner looking to do your own online marketing, you need certain traits in order to be successful. While some of these traits are inborn -- meaning you either have them or you don’t -- most can be learned and honed over time.

Following are 10 of these essential traits:

1. You love a good puzzle.

Online marketing is like a large, complex puzzle, especially when it comes to SEO. There are many pieces to this "SEO puzzle" -- keyword research, link-building, technical compliance, user experience and social-media integration being the most significant. A successful online marketer will naturally be able to see how these pieces fit together.
Examples of what a successful marketer will recognize include how social media reach impacts organic link building; how user experience affects search rankings; and the best way to incorporate keywords while still remaining technically sound. If you have a knack for solving puzzles, there’s a good chance you’ll excel at SEO.

2. You’re patient.

Online marketing requires a willingness to put in hard work now, even though you may not see the results for months (or even years) to come. There are no quick fixes when it comes to online marketing, so you must be prepared to continually work toward your goal without losing steam. A lack of short-term results may be disheartening, but if you’re patient, the results will be well worth the wait.

3. You never stop learning.

SEO and social media are constantly changing. Google tweaks its ranking algorithm hundreds of times each year, and new social media platforms emerge constantly. In order to remain authoritative when it comes to online marketing, you must be passionate about lifelong learning. This means staying on top of industry news, attending conferences and regularly networking with others in the digital marketing space.

4. You’re trustworthy.

More than ever before, people buy from people they know and trust. Being trustworthy -- and able to convey this trait to others -- is critical to being a successful online marketer. Garish, over-the-top landing pages; blatant self-promotion on social media; and spammy, keyword-laden copy will inevitably damage or destroy your online reputation. Being authentic and trustworthy is what will set you apart, helping you build long-term relationships with your customers and clients.

5. You’re a competent manager.

Most online marketers find it necessary to outsource or delegate at least a few of their marketing tasks. It’s rare that any one individual will excel at (much less have time for) every aspect of marketing: writing, communications, social media, technical SEO, etc. For this reason it’s important to have great management skills -- in particular, the ability to inspire and motivate those around you to help you meet your goals.

6. You care about your customers.

A great user experience is not only good for conversions, it’s increasingly important for achieving and maintaining high organic rankings in search engines. Successful online marketers, however, aren’t out just to make a quick buck. They want to meet -- or exceed -- the expectations of their customers and website visitors. They know this is the way to build long-term, profitable relationships based on trust.

7. You’re a great communicator.

Being able to communicate effectively is critical to online marketing success. This doesn’t mean you have to be an expert writer or speaker; it does mean you need to clearly and professionally convey your thoughts and expectations to clients, prospects and members of your team. It also requires an ability to listen and actually hear what others say, and to connect, engage and think about things from someone else's point of view.

8. You make things happen.

Industry knowledge and analytical thinking are both key to online marketing success. However, if you aren’t willing or able to actually execute your plans, you’ll never succeed online. Do you frequently start projects or tasks but then fail to complete them? Do you prefer the planning stage of tasks to the actual execution of those tasks? Do you get excited by research, but lose steam when it comes to implementation? If so, online marketing may not be the career path for you.

9. You know how to tell a good story.

Marketing is getting more and more difficult, as consumers grow increasingly wary of being "marketed to." Stories have a way of cutting through the clutter and helping to create an emotional investment in your business or product. Being able to envision and articulate the story behind your brand will be a defining characteristic of successful marketers as consumers become more and more cynical.

10. You’re not distracted by the 'next big thing.'

Online marketing is usually a long-term endeavor. For this reason, it’s critical that you maintain your focus over the long haul. This means setting attainable goals -- both short and long-term -- and not being swayed or distracted by irrelevant trends or fads. It means staying on task and seeing your plans through to completion, even when those around you may be trying new strategies and shifting course. While it’s certainly important to remain flexible and adaptive, changing your focus frequently can significantly eat into your productivity and leave you in a constant state of flux.
Source : entrepreneur