What is Pinterest?

For those people who are not aware of what Pinterest is, it is a website that acts as an online or virtual pinboard. Even if the site is still for invitation only, it has already attracted a lot of attention from the online crown because of its interface.

How To Join Pinterest?

You will only be able to join Pinterest if you will receive an email invitation from a friend who is already a member of the site.

Visions and Features of Pinterest

• Although their vision is more likely similar to other social media sites like Facebook where they wish to congregate people through the things that they mutually find interesting, Pinterest gives out a different vibe through their theme-based collections of images and its pinboard style interface.

• Pinterest also has a special ‘Pin It’ button where members can click from different websites to populate their theme boards.

• Media items can also be uploaded by users from the hard drive of the computer and shall be called ‘pins’.

• Pinterest also features a follow activity option where a user can check the pin boards of other users and follow their activities. Users can easily trail their most favorite projects, designs, recipes and more.

Pinterest for iPhone

An application is also available for iPhone users to download via the app store.

Because a lot of Pinterest users have expressed that the site has been a source of inspiration for creativity,  Mashable and CNN iReport have launched a new project where Pinterest users can realistically bring to life their most favorite ‘pins’ and projects.

• All the users need to do is ‘pin’ their favorite projects of whatever genre. It could be a recipe, an origami piece, an architectural project, a clothing design or a favorite web design.
• After pinning the project, follow the procedures of the task and recreate it in real life.
• It is important to take photos along the process.
• Upload all of the pictures that you took together with the original ‘pin’ to iReport and follow the instructions.
• Twitter users can simply submit their projects through tweeting the link of the ‘pins’ and putting the hashtag #pinstoprojects.

February 17 will be the last day of entry submission.

One of the recent developments in Facebook is the addition of profile banners. If you are currently using the old Facebook style, then the profile banner is the series of pictures that you see at the top of your profile. These are usually the recently tagged pictures of the user.

Developers have found a way to make those few pictures into a banner for the profile. It could be a series of photos that will form a big photo or a caption that will be read clearly once placed side by side. A lot of applications will allow any user to do this like FB profile banner application, Banner profile application and Profile Banner FB application.

Recently, Facebook has announced that it will be implementing its newest profile look in the hopes of retaining its top rank in social media sites. The new profile will be called Facebook Timeline. One of the features of the timeline is the cover photo which will take up most of the topmost part of your profile. Just like profile banners, cover photo banners can also be customized with the help of a few applications that developers and Facebook users have developed themselves. An example of this service is Pic Scatter.

Pic Scatter will allow the user to create a profile banner that will showcase his or her friends or likes. Timeline cover maker by Timelinecoverbanner.com is also another tool that will help you customize your own cover photo. This app will allow users to upload a potential cover photo and draw on the image before posting it.

Cover Canvas is another tool in customizing a profile banner. There are a lot of templates to choose from. Now that Facebook has decided to apply timeline to all profiles soon, you might want to try these tools to make your profile look better.

Privacy and online reputation go well with each other. Once your privacy has been invaded, your reputation goes down with it. Even if privacy settings have been introduced by networking sites like Facebook, twitter and Google +, most of the people don’t really understand how it works.

Online reputation is critical especially when you are looking for a job. According to surveys, around 59% of hiring managers take a look at your online profiles. So how do people protect their social media reputation? Here’s how:

• You can try to search yourself in search engines and check how your profile looks in public. Being able to see the information that is shared publicly will help you know what data needs to be removed.
• Go over the settings of the social media site and edit your preferences. There are already settings where in only you can see them or your friends and family too. You can choose to approve photos first before they show up on your profile.
•  It is also good to keep a separate personal profile from a business profile. When you are into marketing or real estate, you don’t want to post picture of your nightlife clubbing to your customers right?
• As much as possible, make sure that the information you post on these networking sites are harmless.
• Proofread statuses before hitting the ‘post’ button.
• Do not share any kind of photos that could be detrimental to you, your friendship with others, and your career.
• A fundamental way of posting is post something as if it were public, even if your settings state that they’re private.
• Do not post any pornographic content or things that give out a similar vibe.

Social reputation should also be protected by businesses since 52% of consumers believe in what other people has to say about the company. At the end of the day, privacy and reputation is your own responsibility. You have to control whatever information you share on social media sites.

Google+ Page

A Google plus page is basically similar to a Facebook fan page where business owners can share their service and products online, and interact with their customers too. With the introduction of this feature, there is an expected increase of Google plus sign ups in the next coming months including entrepreneurs and customers alike.

But is this new feature good enough for businesses to make an account in Google+? The answer is yes. Google+ is a social networking site, a venue where people connect, communicate, share ideas and meet new people who are potentials to become customers.

Google+1 Button

Google also introduced the Google +1 button. This button is very powerful and does not necessarily equate the “like” button in other social media sites. This button is not only a recommendation from the user but it actually optimizes the post’s visibility not only to other people but in Google search as well.

The system is intricate so the direct impact of the Google+1 button and SEO optimization is still a bit of a blur but there is definitely impact between the two. The more +1’s the post or the site receives, the more visibility it gets in Google search engine. This means that there are more users endorsing this site and other people should be able to see it too. This button is particularly important in businesses as it can optimize the business website’s SEO score and people will be able to find your product.

Google Plus also has a step ahead compared to other social networking sites as it is directly connected to Google search, Gmail, and Google webmaster tools. Although most people think that Google is releasing this as a gimmick, it is a potentially good gimmick for entrepreneurs and business owners who can use Google as a platform for marketing.

This 2012, there are five marketing techniques and developments that would continue to be part of the trends. There would be no much different as compared with the past few years.

Marketing Through Mobiles Phones

There would be various developments on the mobile applications. More and more people will continue to utilize smartphones and tablet personal computers. The innovation continues throughout 2012. These gadgets will not only be for messaging, e-mailing, or calendars. Expect for more area based services, gaming, apps, and event-based mobile marketing. This year marketers will surely enjoy this latest development in the marketing industry.

Integration of Social Marketing

Social media has been proven to be an effective marketing tool. In 2011, companies from all around the globe maximized the use of Facebook and other social networking sites to promote their products and services. This year, integration of social media will surely be part of the marketing strategy. From customer service and management of brand, this tool will also be used in collecting inputs from the consumers to get to know what are the products and services they are interested in.

Weakening of Traditional Marketing

It is near to impossible to stop the trend created by the World Wide Web. Everyday millions of people continue to go online to find answers to their queries and look for products and services that they need. Purchasing online has been skyrocketing. These and more reasons would be enough for the marketers to shift to the innovative way of advertising their products. The cost is much lower and most of all it is interactive. Budget for traditional marketing will be slashed in favor of online promotions.

Consumers Will Be After the Product Value

Because of the worsening economic condition, consumers want to get the best value of every single cent that they spend. This means that business owners have to make sure that what they offer to their clients have great values for the consumers to be convinced that their products and services are worth buying.

Good Relationship With the Customers Equals Sales and Loyalty

Customers can make or break your business venture. Establishing a good relationship with them is a must. Let them feel that they matter to you. Provide them the best customer care and without much effort you will earn their loyalty which will eventually be converted into sales.

Online marketing includes the following:

• Website Marketing

In today’s generation, having website for your business is a must. Possible clients normally search for providers of the services and products that they need online. Your presence on the web will enhance your credibility.

• Content Marketing

Words can spell the success of your business. Simply put, words could be converted into cash. To entice possible clients, you need to provide your followers with quality content.

• Search Engine Marketing

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the name of the game if you want your website to be searchable on Google. Customers visit the World Wide Web to find information about the services or products that they wish to know. To be on top of the rank, you need to learn the basics of search engine marketing.

• Affiliate Marketing

Hundreds of companies have already vouched that affiliate marketing played a vital role to their success. This kind of marketing is absolutely safe and has been enjoying the limelight for how many years now. Business owners and affiliate partners are in a win-win situation because they both make money when a product or service is sold.

• Social Media Marketing

Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other popular social networking sites are the latest trends. Marketing experts found these platforms to be the fastest and cheapest way to promote products and services as long as you have the time to do socializing, which is basically the only investment that is required of you. Its interactive feature would be helpful in reaching out your target customers. If you understand how social media work, you can capitalize on its strength, and make your business grow.

Establishing Relationship

The success of your venture blossoms on strong relationships with your target customers. You need to establish a solid relationship first if you are aiming for long term victory in business industry. You need to excel in building a real relationship. You need to be an expert in relationship marketing.

Helping Others

There’s a new business concept to follow in 2012. Help other business to prosper without anticipating receiving any benefit in return and you will eventually be able to launch your own business.

Quality Products and Services

You need to earn the trust of people for you to be granted a business. Be known as an individual or company that provides excellent products and services for you to be liked by the consumers.

Superior Content

People tend to search the web to find answers to their queries. For your existence to be noticed in the virtual world you need to have quality content. Search engine marketing contributes a lot in enhancing your business.

Proper Positioning

This a traditional marketing strategy that will help your business trademark in 2012. Find out the benefit of being a leading mover. Learn how to catch perception of your prospects.

Business Passion

It is imperative that you are knowledgeable about your business. You should be passionate enough about your venture so that people will be interested to do business with you.

Naming the Business after You

Creating a personal brand is a nice idea. Since you are promoting it with your own name you will always be reminded the need to build a better business.

Social Media

You need to take advantage of the power of social media. Create a fan page that could be liked by your customers. Facebook is a social platform that will give you likeable business.

PPC

It stands for pay per click. And it’s not a free method of generating traffic to your sites. You have to register and pay Google, MSN and Yahoo to be able to place ads on their search networks.

If you think you don’t need PPC, perhaps that might be true. But there are cases wherein it can be a valid and worthy investment.

Here are a few good reasons why it may be an excellent idea to give PPC campaigns a try:

1.)   … if you want to diversify your traffic sources – making sure you have optimized this aspect of your online business. Some may be satisfied with the results their SEO campaigns are giving them, but a lot of potential is to be had with PPC. You can always start with small campaigns and adjust accordingly after you see the results they bring to your business.

2.)   If people search for your brand name or company name, you may get the highest spot in the search engines. But what happens if people search for a product you’re selling? You may not always get the 1^st spot in Google. Thus, in this case, you may actually need to use PPC to compete with other sites offering similar products/services as you do.

3.)   If you are into affiliate marketing: we now know that Google ranks affiliate sites lower than those sites who are the manufacturers of the products you are promoting. Reseller sites only come second. So with PPC, you actually get your affiliate site or page seen by many, allowing you to compete with authority sites.

Where To Advertise:

Most people go to Google Adwords and for very good reason: the overwhelming market share. But to be safe, try others who offer PPC advertising. There have been reports that clicks from Yahoo! Search and Microsoft adCenter also tend to convert better – and they’re cheaper.

So diversify your PPC campaign to include these other providers.  You’ll never know – you might just find very good prospects there that will become loyal buyers of your brand.

Three types of searches:

1.) Navigational: when someone is searching for your official site; 2.) Informational: when someone is searching for information to learn about a subject; 3.) Transactional: when someone is looking to buy something, download a file, etc.

In navigational search, Google will show the main website of the person or company being searched. For informational search, Google will show the web page with the best, useful information – so having an authoritative information  on the site will work well. Then for transactional search, Google gives priority to reliable, credible vendors – so affiliate sites are not first priority.

Traditional Versus Modern Search Engine Optimization

In traditional SEO, it was mainly about getting to the top of the search engines. And it was understandable at that time – because it was the easiest way to measure success.

But there was a problem to this approach: there was no business strategy behind it.

And what made it more complicated during that time was that there was no analytics software. So most marketers were blind as to what keywords their visitors used to get to their websites.

And perhaps worsening the situation then was Google’s general directive to “build better pages.” This didn’t help much – but just created more confusion for many website owners.

Let us now move on to the present time – the birth of modern SEO.  Analytics software is already available. Web owners can track which keywords bring visitors to their sites. They can monitor which sites send targeted traffic, and check which pages are converting well.

Now, the context of SEO don’t just mean being number 1 in search engines.

There is now talk about conversions – turning visitors to buyers. Sales. Profits. These can be measured with the help of analytics.

So now, web owners have a business strategy behind their SEO efforts.

This is modern search engine optimization – going beyond the aim for just getting to the top of Google, but measuring as well what could be more important  for anyone’s web business– and that is Conversions because that is where money comes in.

Aimless writing will lead you nowhere.

Read on and take a look at some tips that can help you in your SEO efforts.

Tip #1:  Do keyword research

You want to plan ahead the keywords you like to rank high on. This will help you focus on good keywords and not waste time on others that you know will not work for your case. You can choose primary keywords which have high volume searches and write posts for these. You can then proceed writing for secondary keywords which still have considerable search volume but with lesser competition.

Tip #2:  Write a killer headline

While you are doing SEO writing, don’t forget that you are still writing for your readers. And a wonderful way to get them to read your blog posts and articles is by writing a killer headline. How will you write one? Put in benefit… even better, add curiosity. A combination of this two is the best.

Tip #3:  Make your content interesting

Make your articles interesting by making a strong stand on a subject. You will not get read if you don’t stand for something because you’ll be no different from most websites out there. Offer your readers a perspective they’d either love or hate. That’s the way to get people to regularly visit your site.

Tip #4:  Include Images

By putting images in your blog posts or websites, you’ll be a notch higher than many sites out there. So it will work well for you if you include relevant, attractive photos and pictures. Of course, don’t forget to put in labels and html tags.

Tip #5:  Use bullet points

What make bullet points great? It makes it easier for your readers to scan through your content. Studies show that most web visitors are scanners. So give these majority of readers what they want. And even for non-scanners, others will also appreciate a clear content structure. They will also understand your message better. So the next time you write a post, try using bullet points.

Here you have it. SEO writing that makes the big difference for your online projects.

Understand that writing for the web is not only for search engines… and not only for your readers. But for both. Focusing on one without the other will not get you the results you need to succeed online. Getting the right combination will set you apart from your competition, giving you a better chance in succeeding.

Source: Seobesttips.com