Web 2.0 is all around us.  I came across this site that you need to check out:

 http://youhavegottobekidding.com/

 You get to add stories, rate stories, ask for career help, network on a forum, add videos, even take a poll.  This is engagement at its best!

Check it out, you can learn from companies like this

Twitter is a fascinating site.  It’s a mix between and a blog and a social network and has been labeled a “micro-blogging”  site.  The reason:  you can update twitter with “tweets” that are 140 characters or less.

The best way to leverage twitter is to not necessarily be telling people what you are doing or up to, but rather, what you’re interested in or things they should check out.

For example:  Michael is writing on his blog, you should check out his latest post to help increase your traffic.

A few other keys to twitter:

• Develop raving fans
• Announce specials
• Post web site of reference (links to your site, blog posts, events, products)
• Post often!

When leveraged correctly, twitter can help you send a substantial amount of traffic to your web site, especially speakers and authors!

Please take a minute from your busy schedule and check out the link below about how you can start your journey today to a wealthier more empowered life!

I promise you will not regret it.

And, here’s why . . .
If you respond TODAY to this amazing offer (for less than a night out at the movies) you will receive over $2,500- worth of special limited time F.REE life transforming and business building bonus gifts and advice from the world’s top sales and marketing experts and self development success coaches!

The best part, the book is only $19.95

Here is the link for this one time today only, special offer

Purchase the book today and you will get a free web site from us if you purchase any of our marketing packages!!

Create a great day today!

Before we tell you what the single, most important online marketing strategy is,  we want you to give it a few thoughts.  What might it be?

• Link Building?
• Directory Submissions?
• Blogging?
• Article Submissions?
• Email Marketing?
• Video Marketing?
• Social Marketing?
• Twitter?

While we love all of these (especially blogging and article submission)  it’s none of these!  In fact, it’s more of a philosophy to your online marketing strategy that must be in place for your business to operate to it’s fullest potential.

Relationship building is your ticket to a successful online business.  I encourage you to type this out and print it on your wall. RELATIONSHIP BUILDING   You  and I are in the business of building relationships.

When you have this cleared in your mind at the forefront your better able to attack your online marketing.

First, think about blogging.  Is your blog self serving, or are you providing a mix of useful content to your readers with some sales pitchy “stuff”  in there. Is it updated often?  Or are you more of a one blog a month kinda person.  The blog is critical to building a relationship with your readers

Check out this blog on Life Coaching, the law of attraction, success, and feeling more peace, love and joy in your life.  This is one of the best examples of a relationship blog we have seen.  Matthew Ferry posts often, and has a philosophy to deliver as much value to his readers as he can.

Social marketing is  another very powerful way to build relationships online.  We recommend using myspace, facebook, as your top two social marketing site.   You can couple these sites with various others (auto-updates from twitter, squidoo, and youtube)  to make them even more powerful.

The key to social marketing is to have a similar philosophy to your blog - you need to be providing value to your fellow facebook or myspace friends.  Give them some solid reseasons to stay loyal to you.  Whether it’s free content, book reccomendations, or simply keeping them up to speed as to what you are up to.

When all is said and done, if you keep the core philosopy of building a relationship with your prospect and customers you will outsell and outmarket your competiors 95% of the time!

Have a successful and productive day today!

Michael

One of the busiest buying seasons is just around the corner - are you preapred for it?

For many of our clients, the holiday season can make or break a year.

We ask you this — are you ready?  How are you setting yourself apart from the competition?

Are you tracking every visit to your web site all the way down the line?

Are you then taking the data and improving your buying rate?

Get ready because we’re predicting online sales to go thru the roof this year!!  People are sick of paying the crazy gas prices, and are buying everything and anything from the web.

Get your online strategy in place and ready to get the orders coming in!

Hope your having a great morning!!

I just finished reading the Sunday paper, and couldn’t help but write this post.   All I continue to read is “gas is expensive, save your money, cut coupons, people are not spending money, recession this, recession that.

I think Tim Ferris from the 4 Hour Work Week was right - we need to go on a media diet!!

Let’s not get out of touch with reality, yes consumers are spending less, BUT, when they are spending money, they are coming online to do it!  They don’t want to fill up their SUV’s with $150 tanks of gas, when they can click a few buttons and have their stuff delivered right to their door.

At Taz Solutions, while many businesses are pulling back their marketing efforts - we’re encouraging our clients to keep ramping up.

Now more then ever consumers are:

• buying stuff from the web
• looking for experts to help them
• purchasing coaching
• reading more materials (blogs, videos, articles, news)

I urge you, don’t fall into the trap and pull back your marketing efforts.  Ramp up, while all others are ramping down!

We’ve talked about blogging as a means of traffic building many times.  However, guest blogging can also serve as a great way to generate additional traffic to your site.  Guest blogging is writing and submitting a post that is displayed on someone else’s blog.  Many bloggers use guest bloggers if they are going on vacation or just don’t have time to update their blogs on a regular basis.  Writing for someone else’s blog may seem counterintuitive, but it can actually very beneficial as part of a marketing campaign.  So how can guest blogging improve your Internet marketing results?

Exposure to a new audience - Guest blogging opens you up to a whole new audience of potential customers.  Those who haven’t come across your blog may be reading the blog you are guest posting on, so they’ll get a chance to read your writing and follow links to your site.

Backlinks - Guest bloggers are usually allowed to include a short bio that contains a link to their site.  This can help you to create backlinks, which make it easier for potential customers and the search engine spiders to find your site.

Improved credibility - If another blogger thinks your information is good enough to post on their blog, people may begin to see you as an expert in your field.  This improved credibility can result in more traffic to your site and increased inquiries from potential customers.

If you don’t feel like writing a guest blog post for someone else’s blog, send us an e-mail.  Our bloggers can develop a high quality post that you can use to reap the benefits of guest blogging.

Viral marketing takes advantage of the power of the Internet to draw more visitors to your site and improve your sales conversions.  This marketing technique encourages readers to share information with their friends and family members, which results in information being spread to a wider user base (much like a virus spreads from one person to another).  One way to use viral marketing in your online marketing campaign is to offer a free e-book for visitors to your site.  The e-book could be as short or as long as you want, but it should contain very useful information for readers.  Offering a free e-book on your site benefits your business in two ways.  One, you can encourage people who download the book to share it with others, making your links and word about your business spread.  Two, those who sign up for your e-book will be on your e-mail subscriber list so you can market to them in the future.

To offer a free e-book on your site, you can use several delivery methods.  One way is to upload a PDF of the e-book and allow people to access the link to the PDF document once they have entered their contact information.  Another way is to use an e-mail autoresponder service to send a copy of the e-book to subscribers once their information has been received.  No matter what technique you use, make sure that your e-book delivery system works well.  If you ask a reader for contact information and their book is never delivered, you may have some angry site visitors on your hands.

There’s a simple (and free) marketing tool every business owner should be using to spread the word about their business.  It’s cost-effective and, best of all, it works.  That tool is the e-mail signature line.  Used correctly, an e-mail signature can get prospects to your site and help you to make more sales.  The signature line is basically the close of an e-mail message.  Some people have just their name, while others may have a quote or a tagline.  Savvy marketers use this valuable online real estate much more effectively.  You can (and should) include your name, company name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and link to your site in your signature.  Smart marketers also include a short blurb about their latest blog post or e-zine issue.  So how can an e-mail signature line benefit you?

Using an e-mail signature line can lead people who are already on your subscriber list to your Web site.

Including information about your latest e-book or product in your signature line can generate interest and send warm prospects to your sales page.

Current clients may forward your information to their colleagues and friends, giving you added exposure for your business.

Used in forums and discussion groups, your signature line can provide quality backlinks to your site.

If you need help developing an effective e-mail signature line, let us know.  One of our Internet marketing professionals can assist you and have you marketing your business more effectively in no time at all.

In order to achieve the best possible SEO effects, each of your site pages should be highly focused on just one item or service.  If you have many products or services on each page, it will be difficult for the search engines to determine exactly what your pages are about.  Focusing on only one product or service per page allows you to optimize your meta tags, content, keywords, and links for those specific items so that it is easier for customers and the search engines to find your business.  For example, let’s consider an online jewelry store Web site.  Many jewelers group all of their products on a few pages.  This is not the best way to set up a site if you have SEO in mind.  Instead, the jeweler should devote one page to each of his different products, optimizing those pages with very specific keywords.  So, pages for “jewelry” and “gold jewelry,” which are very broad categories and hard to rank well for in the search engines, may turn into pages for “diamond tennis bracelet,” “14K gold emerald earrings,” and “amethyst pendant.”  These are more specific search terms.

The same can be done for someone who offers services instead of products.  Take the freelance writer who has one long services page titled, “freelance writing services.”  This is a very competitive keyword and is difficult, if not impossible, to rank well for in the search engines.  The writer could break up her group of services into separate pages for “SEO press release writing,” “article submission service,” and “ebook writer.”  These are more specific and ranking well for these terms is a more realistic goal than wanting to rank for a term such as “freelance writing services.”

An added benefit of using a very narrow focus on each page of your site is that you will receive more targeted traffic.  If someone is looking for an amethyst pendant, she will be likely to use the search phrase “amethyst pendant” when shopping online.  This may lead a warm prospect directly to your site.  The same thing can happen for the freelance writer who has separate pages for each service.  If someone is searching for an article submission service, they are not likely to type “freelance writing services” into a search box.  Instead, they will type “article submission service.”