Just Released Business Twitter Tool To Grow Your Business

HUMMINGBIRD 2.0

Just released  today Twitter tool to grow your business. & get more followers.

Manage Multiple Accounts

Finally manage all your business profiles with one simple tool while automatically growing each network.

Easily Manage the Social Media Chaos

Upload photos & links and track their click-throughs. We analyze all details & display results helping improve your marketing campaigns.

Detailed / Easy to Read Reports

Easily view how many users the auto-follow engine has seen, un-followed, followed, followed back, success ratio, and much more.

3rd Party Plugins

We’ve designed the platform to easily accept add-ons and plugins written by other developers. Most of which will be 100% free to download.

Supports MAC, PC, & Linux

We built Hummingbird 2 on Adobe Air to make sure it could run on your platform. No user left behind!

Check this one out.  http://tinyurl.com/y9nx6af

Microsoft and Yahoo Agree on Partnership

By now you have probably heard the news Microsoft and Yahoo! agreed on an Internet search partnership. This is a 10-year deal to take on Google, which holds a 65% market share in online search. By combining search operations, advertisers (clients) will benefit from an increase in visitor traffic and quality.

If this deal is approved by American and European regulators, it is expected to close in by mid 2010. U.S. users may start to see the change as early as three months later and users around the world will see the full effect within two years.

Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say “powered by Bing.” Yahoo!, in turn, will be responsible for attracting premium advertisers. Microsoft will pay Yahoo! 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo!’s sites. Microsoft will also have the rights to integrate Yahoo!’s search technology into its own existing Web search platforms. Yahoo! said the agreement will modestly decrease its overall revenue but increase its operating income by about $500 million annually. 

Here are excerpts from the Microsoft/Yahoo! press conference:

  • The deal isn’t expected to occur prior to Q2 2010.  The companies first will give antitrust regulators time to review the proposed partnership’s effects on the Internet ad market 
  • Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz anticipates about 2 years (2012) to implement the integration of different technologies
  • Publishers will find combination to have better reach and competitive rates than apart
  • Carol Bartz stated “we have full flexibility on what to do within our own sites”

 On a side but related note, over the past few weeks Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine), has shown a material uplift for many client campaigns, in both traffic and conversions.

What will this mean for Google?

The actual effect the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership could have on the search market is anyone’s guess. Certainly, Google is in the companies’ sights: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer describes the move as a way to provide “real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company.”

But could it have any real impact? Many are expressing their doubts. Some analysts, however, point out that if Microsoft and Yahoo have any chance of chipping away at Google’s search market stronghold, this would be it.

Pay Per Click Advertising in a Nutshell

All small business owners want to grow their businesses and become more successful. The best way is to attract new customers. However, without the advertising budget of a large multi-national corporation, finding these new customers can be difficult. So how can you find consumers interested in your product or service and grow your business without a significant investment?  

One option is to take the traditional route and advertise in your local yellow pages or on search engines such as Google® or Yahoo!®. A more timely and cost-effective approach involves Pay Per Click advertising. Take a look at the benefits of Pay Per Click advertising and how integrating this strategy into your business plan can let you quickly and economically grow your business. 

What Is Pay Per Click? 

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC as it is commonly referred to, is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content Web sites or blogs, whereadvertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser’s Web site. 

Pay Per Click advertising is a form of search engine marketing requiring advertisers to bid on keywords they expect a target market will use as search terms when looking for a product or service. Using this technique, you pay to have your site appear in the “sponsored listings” section of search engines like Google® or Yahoo!®. You’ll pay for each click that you get through these ads, hence the name “Pay Per Click.” 

Why Pay Per Click? 

PPC is a powerful tool for improving your Web site’s presence and building your customer base. Research has shown that yellow pages ads are not as effective as online advertising. A recent study by Piper Jaffray & Co. entitled, “The New eCommerce Decade: The Age of Micro Targeting,” indicated that the average Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) for search was $8.50, considerably lower than the CPA for the yellow pages ($20). Using online advertising techniques, like Pay Per Click, is an effective way to drive more targeted leads to your Web site from Internet search engines. 

PPC should be part of a larger online marketing plan that includes several ways to increase the visibility of your Web site and therefore drive more traffic to your business. 

How does PPC differ from other online marketing efforts like SEO? 

Pay Per Click advertising involves buying keywords you believe your customers will be using to find your products or services. Pay Per Click is a fast-acting strategy that can frequently yield increased traffic in less than a month. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), on the other hand, is the process of optimizing a Web site to receive traffic from natural search results. ”Natural” or ”organic“ results are non-paid results the search engine believes is the best match to the query. 

SEO involves adding content and keywords to your Web site and increasing links to other sites in order to increase the number of times your site appears via search engines like Google® and Yahoo!®. Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that can take more that six months to yield increased traffic to your site.  

SEO requires you to keep your Web site’s content fresh to entice search engines to visit often. It requires you to adjust your approach to bring new visitors to your site through testing. The best way to keep your site interesting for users and search engines is to update your Web content often with keyword-dense articles, while acquiring links from Web sites in your industry. SEO is a long term strategy that takes planning and significant commitment.  

In comparison, Pay Per Click offers a quick and effective way to increase hits in less than a month. The best long-term promotional strategy for your Web site is to consider using both paid and non-paid techniques. This way, you can see the quick results from the paid search campaigns while you wait for your search engine optimization results to grow. Over time, you can continue to supplement your SEO with Pay Per Click campaigns when needed. The two together offer maximum results without great expense – the ultimate combination desired by every business. 

Pay Per Click Advertising Pros and Cons 

The major benefit of PPC is that it can be operational within minutes of setup. You can actually drive traffic to your Web site in the same hour that you open a PPC account – it’s that fast! Another benefit is that you pay only when someone clicks on your ad – you don’t pay per impression like most traditional forms of advertising. Here’s a quick run down of the pros and cons of PPC: 

PPC Pros 

· Calculation – PPC is easily measured. Marketers are able to get raw numbers within seconds. Return on investment (ROI) and cost per acquisition (CPA) are easier to calculate than for traditional print and broadcast advertising.

  • Cost – You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
  • Speed – Everything about PPC is done quickly. The campaign can be running in less than a day.
  • Timing – You can set up your ads to only run when you want them to.
  • Targeted – You can easily tap your target audience by using the proper keywords and ad copy. 

PPC Cons 

  • Expense – A PPC campaign can be expensive it if isn’t monitored correctly.
  • Click Fraud – There is always the risk of getting unethical clicks.
  • Learning Curve – It takes time to optimize for the keywords that convert users to customers. 

Why should I pay someone to manage my PPC campaigns? 

Pay Per Click advertising campaigns require extensive management and oversight in order to maximize your return on investment. Therefore, your business may choose to hire an employee to monitor and/or review the campaign on a daily basis. While this is manageable for some companies, others do not have the resources. Hiring an outside firm to oversee the campaign allows you to make the most of your budget without increasing your overhead. 

Benefits of hiring a company to manage your PPC campaign

There are two main benefits of having an outside company manage your PPC campaign: 

  • Time Savings
    It is prudent to manage your campaign at a minimum of once a week for testing, oversight, and adjustments. Many outside firms even oversee the campaign on a daily basis. Using a company to monitor your campaign can free up your limited resources and get professional results at the same time. 
  • Expert Management
    Outside firms have expertise with PPC campaigns. Not only do you get the benefit of professional insight, but they can provide you with feedback and reporting on how your campaign is performing, which allows you to maximize your investment. 

What should I expect from my provider? 

Investing the time and money to hire an outside firm should yield better results, but selecting a professional for the management of your Pay Per Click campaign can seem daunting. Following these important guidelines will help make your decision simpler and ensure the best outcome.

First, it’s important to hire PPC account managers who are experts in their field, are Google® certified, and use cutting edge technology that will allow them to monitor your PPC campaign 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These experts should continually be testing and evaluating your PPC ads to ensure you continue improving click rates over time. 

Second, your consultant should be able to provide references and show examples of successful campaigns they have managed. Optimizing online marketing results is truly an exercise in trial and error. The experience a professional consultant has will translate to the smoother launch and operation of your program. 

A professional firm will be able to generate more business for your company from multiple sources including targeted clicks, telephones calls, emails, and form submissions. The consultant should be able to tell you which sources of traffic convert the most visitors into consumers. When hiring a provider, it’s important to ask them if they have a multi-dimensional plan for your PPC campaign – more than just targeted clicks.

The PPC consultant needs to be able to take care of all the details of your campaign so you can focus on running your business. The consultant should provide all oversight for the campaign to protect against unnecessary expenses or even click fraud. This kind of expertise allows you to focus on your core strengths while maximizing the investment in your campaign. 

Finally, make sure your provider has strong reporting tools so you can track the progress and success of your campaign. The provider should be able to customize these reports to fit your company’s needs. 

Summary 

As a small business owner, you can’t afford to ignore new and profitable ways to increase your business. Pay Per Click is a simple, cost-effective and quickly implemented strategy that lets you grow your business when you need to. It does not take months or years to implement, does not require in-house expertise or incur enormous overhead. A Pay Per Click campaign, when managed correctly, offers a winning strategy for any online marketing plan. 

About CP Communications 

Our full range of Web-related services includes:

For more information, please visit www.CPCom.com or call 1-800-796-3683.

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Power That an Ecommerce Website Can Bring

eCommerce internet solution is proving its significance in the world of business for the last few years. It has become equally beneficial for entities involved, customers as well as companies who are providing ecommerce solutions. The ratio of providing satisfaction to customers by ecommerce solution providers in the business world is measured unequal or it varies due to many factors.

Global business world is the blend of big business players as well small companies, both are providing ecommerce solutions to their customers at their respective levels. Every company wants to expand their business and Internet is the best way to expose products and services and to reach out the customers spread all over the online business sphere. Good technically sound, interactive design, smooth navigation, error-free payment system is some of the qualities or properties of good ecommerce website that helps the companies for exposing their products & services to achieve maximum level of customer satisfaction.

Many studies all over the business world use to conclude variety of results over the concept of ecommerce. Many of them conduct studies with company point of view, such as they use to research on companies ecommerce websites, there are many issues like whether the website is exactly according to company? Whether it is able to gather the potential customer base? Whether the ecommerce website of the company functioning properly?

On the other hand there are also studies conducted on the customer satisfaction, customer complains about ecommerce solutions provided to them, customers good and bad experiences about ecommerce internet solutions as well as variety of customer views about visualization of the ecommerce website and online security of the personal information.

Hence it is concluded by various studies, ecommerce websites are playing key role in between company and customer. Ecommerce website provides the power to both the entities involved, companies need to develop well functioning ecommerce websites and customers expect excellent services from the company and more from their ecommerce website which is main mode of interaction between them.

Power that ecommerce website can bring to business and to achieve highest level of customer satisfaction depends on professional business web design. A website demands for the professional design that makes selling process easy for customers, design of the website is most responsible factor for ecommerce success. Professional design plays great role in any company’s ecommerce website that helps in gathering customers from the online market.

For the success of the ecommerce website there are few important tips that should come under consideration of ecommerce solution providers:

  • Regular watch on visitor’s expectations from your ecommerce website
  • Keep essential, useful and limited information on the website
  • Well planned website
  • User friendly website
  • Easy to load website
  • Search engine friendly design

Companies providing ecommerce solutions should understand the value of professional design that gives power to their websites to drive sales.

Online security of the information is another big issue for the ecommerce solution providers. Error full ecommerce website is the big constraint in the success of online business today. There must be online security for attracting more and more customers to ecommerce websites, error-free shopping cart that provides security to personal information of the customers is very essential for the success of online business.

How to run an Internet business despite having a wife that hates computers

 If you are single or run your business in partnership with your wife, then this information is of no benefit to you.
But if you are like me, that have a wife that hates computers and Internet and actually believes that your PC is your lover, then this information has to do with you.

As funny as it might sound, it actually can become a major problem in your family, if you don’t know how to manage this situation. I speak from my own experience, where I’ve been trying to make a dollar since 2004, when I started to see the potential of the Internet to make me financially independent.

I love my wife too much, I swear, but I confess that sometimes I’ve faced endless discussions with her for either spending too much time on the computer or buying training material or software to improve my business. At the end, I think she is right, had I already reached financial freedom, she would’ve been the first person to support me.

After all these years, I reached a conclusion If you are married, you can’t get success alone, you either do it together or no one get it So, like it or not, your wife is your business partner on your online ventures.

Here are 5 tips that might be helpful to you, if you are on this situation:

1. - Explain what you are doing:

Sometimes, your wife thinks you are just fooling around checking porn sites. Explain your goals, business model and what you expect to achieve in a specified timeframe, you might find she has much better ideas than you.

2. - Setup a budget and stick to it:

Agree on a budget to invest on your online business and stick to it, no matter what. This will give her the peace of mind that you won’t overload your credit cards.

3. Analyze where you spend your time:

Get a time tracker, (there are many free online), so you can analyze and see what you currently do with your time. The goal is to find blank spots so you can be more productive and do more activities in less time.

4. - Establish a Work Schedule:

Agree on a work schedule with your wife so she knows beforehand how many hours you’ll be working on your computer and stick to it. Many of the discussions I’ve had with my wife have to do with the fact that she gets very angry when she sees that I’m in front of my computer every minute I’m not doing something specific.

5. - Spend more Quality Time with your family:

Please don’t just stay at home watching TV with her, for quality time I mean do something interesting and fun, like dining in a nice restaurant, visiting new places, or do something she likes. Remember that monotony brakes relationships so try to show her that you care about her.

Why is Online Advertising Necessary for Offline Businesses

Business world and the digital age:

We are living in a world which is increasingly becoming digitalized day by day. With the arrival of Internet much of the information now is present in the forms of bits and bytes. Internet acts as a data stream which receives and delivers information at a high speed in a more efficient manner. This revolution of technology has more or less turned our world into a ‘web world’.

In this era of cyberspace many people prefer buying online because online transactions are easier and fast, so the companies and the brands also have to change their ways to win this business race in intense competitive environment. These companies and brands have to reach out to the consumers too in a manner which is both reliable and effective to serve the customer’s needs. This two way flow of business information gave rise to online business, which is also called ‘e-business’.

“E-business involves the use of electronic platforms, such as intranets, extranets, and the internet to conduct a company’s business”. (Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong 2003, p.74)

Online advertising:
E-business gave rise to a marketing phenomenon ‘online advertising’. Online advertising refers to promotion of a product on the internet using various internet features. Kotler and Armstrong (2003,p.89) defines online advertising as the advertising which is visible to the consumer while they are browsing the web and this type of advertising mainly includes banner and ticker ads, interstitials, sky scrapers and other forms.

Need for online advertising:
When the brands and the companies went online, they felt a need for advertising their products in the wired world. This gave rise to online advertising or e-advertising. The basic motive behind online advertising of any company is to become global and attract more business. Advertising online offers a new dimension and a unique charm to the product which is an additive advantage.

How it works for offline businesses:
A question might arise in one’s mind that how and why a car company located in Japan would like to reach to a person in a Middle Eastern country? Well, the answer is quite simple, for why we could say ‘more business’ and for how the answer is ‘online advertising. Online advertising offers many benefits to the offline businesses, such as

Monetary advantage:
Online advertising provides monetary gains to a business which it can’t gain locally. These financial benefits would ultimately lead to a more progressive business which is the dream of every single dweller of the corporate sector. Online advertising might just provide the chance to a local offline business to claim its share in the global market.
Wider recognition:
Online advertising provides an offline business a wide spectrum of recognition. If, an advertisement is posted on the billboard the amount of people noticing it would be way less than the people noticing an advertisement pasted on the internet that is because of more usage rate and also because no time limitations. By advertising online a local business company might just be a global brand one day.

More reach:
Online advertising produces a chance of world wide reach to a company. For an offline business it could offer it international outreach and diverse consumers. Philip R.Cateora and John L.Graham (2003, p.245) says “Internet cuts transaction costs and reduce economies of scale from vertical integration; it reduces the economically optimal size for firms. Lower transaction costs make it easier for companies to develop a global reach”.

High profitability and Security:
Online advertising provides a business with high profitability and makes it secure in competition of international marketing. A secure business is more beneficial and reliable and offers the owner much more satisfaction then an insecure one.

Conclusion:
The art of advertising is necessary for the survival of every business but if you want to succeed you would have to go a step ahead and that is ‘online advertising’. For an offline business it is necessary to make sure that they do not lag behind in this intense race so therefore they to make sure of their grounds in this competitive atmosphere, to fight they would need to advertise and to conquer they would need to advertise online.

More Traffic Please!

If it weren’t for the business of affiliate marketing, did you ever think that you would be looking for more traffic? In the context of automobiles, nowadays every household seems to have at least 2 or 3 cars on the road and it sure looks like they’re all on the road at the same time! Literal traffic is just plain out of control, but on the other hand as far as affiliate marketing goes that’s just what we want.

It’s seems that regardless of the amount of clicks we get to our sites, it’s never too much. The more traffic the better! Easier said than done you say? Are you fighting to get more traffic on a steady basis? There are many methods available. We’ll just mention a few to get you started.

METHODS FOR GENERATING TRAFFIC

Free traffic sites are a great source of advertising for your business. Especially if you’re just starting out. Most of these sites require that you click on posted advertisements in order to earn credits towards your ad exposure. Many of these sites have large memberships which means that your business is being exposed regularly to a sizable amount of visitors on a daily basis. All for FREE!

Search Engine Optimization is yet another method that can have a tremendous impact on the growth and profitability of your business. By using keywords that you have directed the search engine to look under, you can drive tons of free traffic to your site and increase your page ranking so that your business is seen faster.

Article Marketing is quite an effective way to drive targeted visitors to your site, by providing content that one can use to either evaluate an opportunity or service’ as well as assist in the profitable development of your business.

The key to using these various methods is to strategically combine your efforts so as to maximize your time and effectiveness in obtaining more free traffic for your business. However, not to be overlooked is the value of keyword research. In order for your efforts to pay off, the keywords or keyword phrases you select can determine whether you have massive traffic or no traffic at all.

Keyword research may seem time consuming and somewhat tedious; however if you carefully invest the time into meticulously selecting the best keywords for your ad campaigns, the dividends will far outweigh the time invested. It is for this reason that I mention pay-per-click advertising last. Because of the cost associated with this high powered traffic generation method, it is vital to understand the value of keyword research. If you’re going to pay for the click, then you want to get the most bang for your buck. Here are a couple of recommended keyword sites that can help you get the most profit from your hard work:

Wordtracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool

http://www.wordtracker.com

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

If Your Customers Twitter, Should You?

by: Erwin Steneker
If Twitter is a new place for your customers to reside, should you do ‘Twitter Marketing’?

Twitter is a fairly new online social community application, used by over millions of users worldwide (and growing). It’s also known as “micro-blogging”, sharing what concerns you in 140 characters or less.

With so many people firing away on what makes them happy or sad, your customers maybe tweeting (= posting on Twitter) about you, your company, or brand. Are they saying good things or bad things, are they happy with your products? or confused? or disgruntled?

Getting curious already?

You should be. If your customers are out there talking, and you can listen to them… never miss that opportunity! In fact, you should try to talk to your customers as often as possible, as they can tell you what you do right, and what you do wrong.

Twitter is just an ongoing worldwide conversation, and you have the opportunity to listen in on what they say (if you cannot restrain yourself, then do a search on Twitter right now: search.twitter.com. Don’t forget to come back here!).

If they’re saying really great things about your product or business, it’s great for morale. And if they’re saying bad things… well, there’s even better things you can do with that:

1. Learn from what customers don’t like. Change it. Make happy customers. Get more customers.

2. Make right what went wrong. It’s my experience that when you apply a helpful attitude, it often turns a disgruntled customer into a loyal fan.

3. Set the records straight. Sometimes, people don’t play very nice. A competitor may spread some bad rumors in an attempt to hurt your brand. Some customer go all out on a minor nuisance, and try to paint you black… if you know they are spreading mis-information, you have the opportunity to share your side of the story.

But it’s hard to get to the point in less than 140 characters.

But if your customers are twittering, you should keep an open eye on yet another channel where you can be talked about. Even more a reason why you should make and keep happy customers by providing great customer service!

Twitter should most definitely be on your list of channels to check out on a regular basis.

Using Twitter as a help desk channel is a whole different ballgame. As a matter of fact, it’s a challenge to handle lots of different channels your customers can use… if you have a physical store, they can come to see you. Or they can call you. Or Skype you. Or send an e-mail. Or use a form on your web site to start a help desk ticket. Maybe they can even have a live chat. And now Twitter.

How do you keep track of it all? That’s a real challenge!

It can actually be too much to handle. Especially if you’re just a small operation. Even with just a few channels to handle (phone & Internet) I could notice that either one or the other would be given precedence. Not good. On each end of each channel is a customer, and often you can’t determine which one to give priority.

But I can’t tell you to focus on just a few channels, and do those very well. Because it would ignore an important truth:

In this day and age, a customer is a multi-channel customer. They expect us to make it easy for them to contact us. And so we should. But Twitter, with its 140 character limitation, doesn’t lend itself well to get to the bottom of serious customer service issues.

Simple questions, that can be answered by sending folks to a page on your site: Twitter’s great for that. Serious issues that arise? Try to get the customer into an e-mail conversation (managed by a help desk application or not) as soon as possible.

But don’t ignore Twitter. People are talking, you know…

And you’d better listen!

The Benefits of Using Google Analytics

by Cliff Posey

Are you new to the world of Google Analytics? How does it work to help you with your website? This is actually a free service offered by Google that is able to generate detailed statistics to your website. It can also track how

your website visitor ends up at your website. It is able to track all the referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links even within PDF documents.

Google Analytics was developed from Urchin Software Corporation’s analytics system. The system brought some ideas from Adaptive Path, which product is Measure Map, was acquired and renamed for Google. This software has helped numerous websites in achieving their goals. With the help of this analytics program, you can learn where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

With the data collection done by Google Analytics, you will get more information that helps you improve the quality of your site. Perhaps, you need to write better ads or strengthen your marketing initiatives. It also helps you find the keywords that attract your most desirable prospects. Furthermore, you may get to know what kind of advertising pulls more responses and what landing pages and content increase your earnings too.

Best of all, it is free for everyone, no matter who you are, you can enjoy the benefits of Google Analytics. Therefore, you can save your money and spend more on marketing without spending a cent on web analytics. In addition to being user friendly, it provides sophisticated analysis too, so you can expect a high-end analytics. It is scalable for any size site too. Regardless of your size from large and high traffic corporate sites to small just built sites, they always deliver consistent service.

Google Analytics is backed up with technical support resources, which includes Help Centre, Conversion University, user-to-user help forums, an official blog, and in person training that are done by their Authorized Consultants.

Additionally, their system tracks all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, just name it. Best of all, it can track all campaigns regardless of any search engines or referral source. Since all the analytical data tracking contains very sensitive information, Google takes this matter very seriously to definitely safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. You can refer to their privacy policy.

Google Analytics has some limitations. Programs such as Firefox’s Adblock and NoScript can block it’s Tracking Code. These programs inhibit some traffics and users from being tracked, this will cause a discrepancy in the data collection. Moreover, privacy networks, like Tor will conceal the user’s actual location and will show fake geographical data. Meanwhile, users who do not have JavaScript enable or have this feature turned off will also prevent Google Analytics from tracking the users. When users block or delete Google cookies, it will definitely not function at all. This is the largest potential impact that this system is facing, thus resulting in loopholes in its tracking activities.