Elygantthings

Enjoying your thought process everyone. Keep the comments coming. I see all of your points. So for the sake of arguing over a professionals discussion of one of many ways to market your business. I'm pretty sure the author was not implying that this was the only way to market/advertise your business. It's just one of many ways to strategize and accomplish certain goals. I posted this article because it's true and does work. But, it's just one of many techniques to get traffic to your website. And it's just coming from the point of view of using and maintaining a healthy website for Google's ever so often changing rules.

Logo Design and Branding - Points to Remember By: Ray SmithA good logo design is highly instrumental in establishing a business brand and creating a long lasting impression among its customers. It should be able to create a powerful impact on the viewers and successfully exude the nature and attitude of a business. Ideally, a company logo design should be able to communicate your company ethos, principles, mission and the nature of product/service offered, to the viewers. A professional logo design would establish a professional image of your company and strengthen your brand. Actually, in most cases, the consumer gets the first impression about the company through your logo. Your business logo should build a brand that is strong enough to give your consumer a visual imagery of your company. People should be able to identify your company on sight of your logo. Trend shows, most of the good logos are simple and often text based. Think of the IBM, SONY or Microsoft logo, even if you view a part of you will be able to recognize the company. It is essential for a logo to be easy for people to remember. This principle of simplicity applies n most cases, however, we often see exceptions in Government Organizations, Hotels and Luxury resorts etc because they want to put up a classical exclusive image. This again brings us to a very important point that should be considered for a good logo design - the nature of business. While simplicity can be the basic principle for any logo design, the designs might vary widely depending on the nature of business. For example, a financial institution might like to use a boldface font to express solidarity and stableness whereas a courier service or transport company might prefer italicized fonts to express the speed and movement involved in their business. In addition, while specifying the design requirements for your logo you should consider the fact that you will probably have to use your logo on your fax cover and other places where it will be in black and white. You should ensure that your logo looks equally good and attractive in black and white. I would also suggest avoiding a very trendy look for your logo if you are planning for a long-term business because what we concern "modern" today might be backdated tomorrow. It is very important that your logo designer knows how to maintain this balance. While any professional logo designer should be able to create a custom logo design once you have provided them with your specifications, you should be careful to select an experienced designing company and not land up with some single designer start-up venture. Last but not the least important factor is a price. You are paying for your logo - something that is going to be used to establish your brand and represent your business for years, so you should be ready to pay a decent amount while it is also not necessary to pay some big amount like $350 for a logo. With the online logo design firms coming into the business, now you have a wide choice of price for your logos and it should not be difficult to find a logo designer that fits your budget. Some logo design sites would even allow you to quote your own price for your logo. If you have still not got a logo for your business or are not happy with your existing logo, it's time you get your new logo. Wish you lucked with your logo hunt. Author Bio Ray Smith is a marketing Expert with years of experience in different industries and specialized knowledge on branding and Internet marketing. Custom Logo Design Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

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http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/nomarketing.jpg by NEIL PATEL What if I told you that you can increase your traffic without any marketing? That’s right… even if you don’t have a marketing bone in your body, you can generate more traffic and sales. “How?” you may ask. All you have to do is follow this long tail strategy: Leveraging long tail SEO Who doesn’t want to rank for terms like “credit cards” and “auto insurance,” right? Although those terms are lucrative, they are actually extremely difficult to rank for. On the other hand, long tail keywords are much less competitive, and they will drive the majority of your traffic. http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/quicksproutseo.png If you look at Quick Sprout, 91% of my search traffic comes from long tail phrases. And just like Quick Sprout’s, the majority of your search traffic comes from long tail traffic too. This doesn’t mean that I don’t rank for any head terms. It just means that I rank for more long tail phrases. You probably experience the same thing as most sites rank for dozens of head terms and hundreds, if not thousands, of long tail terms. How do you rank for more long tail terms? First, you need to log into Google Webmaster Tools. Once you are in, you’ll want to click on “search traffic,” then “search queries.” http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/navigation.png You’ll see a page with a list of keywords that looks like this: http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/keywords.png The table will list all the keywords you rank for. What you need to do next is take the head keywords (phrases that contain one or two words) you rank for and type them into Google. For example, I rank for the term “online marketing.” So I typed it into Google and then scrolled all the way to the bottom of the first page until I saw a table that showed “searches related to online marketing.” http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/relatedsearch.png These are phrases that Google sees as relevant to a term you already rank for. And the head term is much harder to rank for than those long tail terms. So if you blend some of those long tail phrases into the page that already ranks for the relevant head term, you’ll start getting more search traffic. All I am doing is sprinkling in the phrases that make sense, two or three times within the page. I used this strategy on a monthly basis on Quick Sprout in 2013. And the results were great. In January 2013, I received 120,365 search visitors: http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/jan13.png In December 2013, my search traffic climbed to 174,496 visitors: http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/dec13.png Does this strategy still work? Although I’ve used this strategy a couple of years ago on Quick Sprout, it still works. It doesn’t take a ton of time, and it is really easy…especially if you have a blog. We do the same thing with our KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg blogs on a monthly basis. I would also continue to do it on Quick Sprout, but I just don’t have the time. What I’ve found is that if you combine the tip I mentioned above with the marketing tactics in this blog post on increasing your click-through rate, you should be able to double your search traffic within one year. Conclusion You don’t have to know a lot about online marketing to generate traffic or sales. Simple things like adjusting the keywords within your content or tweaking the titles of your blog posts can increase your traffic. If you are going to use the tactic above, don’t adjust your title tag too much unless you are trying to optimize your click-through rates. Instead, focus your efforts on optimizing the keywords within your content. By adding long tail phrases, you’ll generate more search traffic. Are you going to give the strategy above a try?

I always get a kick out of reading your entries. They are insightful and informative. Keep up the good work.

by NEIL PATEL http://quicksprout.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/truthfailure.jpg I know I’ve been there before and, sadly, more than once. Chances are you are going to be there too. Why? Sometimes solving problems and executing fast isn’t enough. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. The biggest factor in a startup’s success is luck, and that’s something you can’t control. The Fruitcast storyOne of my first startups that I thought would succeed was Fruitcast. It was a business that helped monetize podcasts. We would place ads within podcasts, which would help publishers make money and companies get in front of more people. When we launched the business, we received a ton of press and even had meetings to sell the company. One of the companies interested in buying us was Yahoo. Their paid ad division was looking for new channels to expand into, and Fruitcast was an opportunity for them to enter the podcast advertising arena. We never sold the company to Yahoo because of multiple issues within our business. Firstly, the economics didn’t work. Secondly, the main person who was behind Fruitcast wasn’t committed to the business. The big lesson I learned from this startup is that you shouldn’t get distracted. Don’t let press, potential acquisition, or funding talks take your attention away from what’s important. Focus on growing your company and changing your business model until it works. If those other things work out for you, great! Just don’t count on them. The Serph storyIf you thought I had bad luck with Fruitcast, just wait till I tell you what happened with Serph. After two years, Serph never launched, and I was out a million bucks of borrowed money. The concept behind Serph was very similar to Amazon Web Services, except Amazon Web Services didn’t exist yet. We spent a million dollars on servers and infrastructure, but the business never launched. Why? Because we picked the wrong team to run the business. They were smart, but they were poor executors. And that wasn’t even the worst part. We should have launched the business a few months into starting the company, but we never had the opportunity as our business partners ran away with our money. To add insult to injury, before they left, they trashed the house they lived in, which we owned. The lesson I learned with this startup is no matter how good your idea is, you’ll never succeed unless you launch. To ensure that you launch on time, you need to pick the right team. The team has to be able to execute well. Beyond that, you need to have similar values and fit well together. If you can’t gel as a team, you’ll never meet deadlines. Will your startup succeed or fail?Sadly, I can’t answer this question for you. You will know better than anyone else if your company has a shot at succeeding. But to figure this out, you’ll have to look at it from an outsider’s perspective. It’s going to be hard for you to do this, but it is possible. All my failed experiences (dozens of them!) taught me that you are going to make mistakes. If you learn from your mistakes and start avoiding them, you’ll increase your odds of succeeding. Take it a step further, and learn from other entrepreneurs. The principles of entrepreneurship haven’t changed. What worked for Carnegie and Rockefeller in the 1800s still works today. So, when you have time, read the life stories of other entrepreneurs, and learn from their mistakes. What should you do?Whether your business is doing well or poorly, one thing will remain true: eyeballs are always valuable. Sure, you want to create a great product or service, but that alone may not be worth much to someone else. But what usually is valuable is eyeballs. If you can get thousands, if not millions, of people to your website on a regular basis without spending money on ads, you’ll have something valuable. Those visitors will be worth something to someone, even if you can’t make your business work. For this reason, I changed the way I start companies. Before I create a company, I actually pop up a website, work on building an audience, even if it takes me a year, and then I consider creating a business. I do this because it is much easier to make money and create a profitable startup if you already have eyeballs on your website. If you want to build up traffic to your website, focus on inbound methods. You can start by following the instructions in these guides: The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing – if you haven’t marketed your website before, start by reading this guide.The Advanced Guide to SEO – learn everything you need to know to rank your website highly on Google.The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing – in order to build a loyal audience, you’ll have to create a bond with your visitors. You can do this through content marketing.The Advanced Guide to Link Building – referring sites are a great source of traffic. You can get people to link to you by following the steps in this guide. ConclusionI’m stubborn, so if someone told me my startup wasn’t going to succeed, I would push forward anyway. Heck, even when I knew my startup was bound for failure, I still kept pushing forward because I hate failing. But pushing forward when a company is bound for failure doesn’t make sense. Why? Because you are wasting time, which is your most valuable asset. It’s something you can’t buy back. You might as well put your time and energy into something that you and others feel has a shot at success. These days, if I get into something I realize is sliding toward failure, I quickly get out. But I had to learn this the hard way… What would you do if your startup was bound for failure?