Reputation Management is important. If you don't think so, consider these startling stats: According to media consultant BIA/Kelsey, small and medium-size businesses spent about $1.6 billion on online reputation management in 2011. BIA/Kelsey expects that by 2015, that figure will reach more than $5 billion. Recent Nielsen stats show that as many as 70% of online consumers trust online reviews when making purchasing decisions. If those statistics aren't enough to convince you, just ask any executive from Domino's or Nestlé to sha...

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Pricing for SEO services can be tricky. Do you charge by the hour? And if so, estimating how many hours a project will take is an art unto itself, often learned by (sometimes harsh and punishing) trial and error. Every time we put a search engine optimization proposal together we are faced with the same dilemma: charge by the hour or by the project: If by the hour, how do we factor in anticipated unforeseen tasks? If you do SEO for a living, you most likely know what we're talking about. SEOmoz recently conducted a survey among consultants and...

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If a website goes live on the Internet but it gets no traffic, does it exist? While a literalist would say it does, we would argue no. Having a website with no traffic is like putting on a play with no audience. It looks great, maybe sounds great. But there's no one to appreciate it. (And no one to spend money on your product or service.) So what does it take to get the kind of traffic that makes the investment in a website pay off? Strong keywords and keyword phrases Effective SEO Tenacious social media Homebound Links ...

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There's been a lot of buzz about niche markets lately. While you may be happy with where you fit in your current industry or market, you may not be making the most of your marketing efforts. This could be preventing you from getting first page Google results. Refreshing the keywords you use in your content often could uncover untapped markets for your product or service. SEO is a dynamic animal. Just as search engine algorithms change, so do customer preferences. The keywords you used when you launched your website may not be as effective in g...

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So your business is ready to launch. All that's left is to market it and ensure that online visitors find you. Sounds easy, but it takes a lot of time and effort to get get listed in Google and attract those visitors to your site and keep them there, and even more to get them to buy. While the "what" is rather time-consuming, the "how" is rather simple. There are basically 5 steps to getting listed on Google: 1. To get listed in Google, build a really great website. The first step to getting listed on Google is to build the best website poss...

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Businesses are taking full advantage of Google+ to promote their products and services. But you may be saying, "Great, but why should my business be on Google+ when I'm already on Facebook?" Comparisons between Google+ and Facebook are as numerous as the pages each display on the Internet. Here's why Google+ is better. 5 Ways Google+ kicks Facebook to the Curb 1. It's more flexible. You can create a page not only for your business, but for whatever product or service you want to promote. It’s important to note that Google won't automatically...

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Last year Google changed the marketing game by changing its search engine algorithms. And then changing them. And then…wait for it…changing them again. With all these changes it’s hard for marketers to keep up, but it’s imperative that we do. So let’s review. Content Is Still King for First Page Google Ranking One of the biggest changes post Panda is the effect content has on first page Google results. The mega engine brought the sickle down on content farms, and many sites have paid the price. Sites that filled their pages with irrelevant k...

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It seems recently that several social media sites have popped up attempting to defeat the king known as Facebook. Try as they might, these other sites have just not found the magic formula to dethrone the ruler. While it's important to maintain a presence on the other social networking sites, chances are you have more customers and followers on Facebook than any other site. Therefore, It's vital to make sure you're using all of the Facebook features to your advantage. As much as we bemoaned the Faceb...

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The year is fresh, and most likely you're thinking about the year ahead. As you plan and strategize your marketing plan for 2012, keep in mind that social media is ever evolving. While we don’t have a crystal ball to predict what the next big app or site will be, we can certainly speculate (and social media experts have) the manner in which we will use social media going forward. The Power of the People The best way experts can predict the future is to look at the past. In 2011, we learned how powerful social media can be: From Alec Baldwin u...

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Facebook recently caused a stir when it unveiled new changes to its website. It seems most users aren't happy with the updates. In fact, a poll done by SodaHeads showed that approximately 86% of the people don’t like the new changes. But regardless of how you feel about Facebook’s latest updates, it’s important to understand what they are and their effects on social media marketing. Facebook Timeline One of the most criticized updates on Facebook’s new site is the timeline, which replaces the traditional profile page. In the past, Facebook wo...

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Internet critics complain that Big Brother is always watching. They dislike the amount of information that is readily shared online and some have even raised questions regarding the legality of shared information. With all of the debate on user privacy and the Internet, one thing is for sure: Sites are starting to take notice. Recently Google announced it would be encrypting search results so that marketers and site owners can no longer identify what keywords logged-in users enter into Google before reaching your website. Basically, this means...

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Tune into any conversation lately on SEO and you’ll hear experts argue about link building. Some argue it’s still a tried and true method to increasing SEO, while others will say search engine algorithms are becoming sophisticated enough to throw out pages laden with links, therefore you shouldn’t bother with it at all. It can be difficult to determine who is right in this fight, so better to be safe than sorry. While link building can be costly, in many cases there are things you can do implement this SEO strategy and not break the bank. The ...

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Many of our posts focus on the importance of having a social media presence and keeping up with the various sites. But it’s just as important to monitor and analyze how effective your marketing efforts are. For example, do you know how much traffic your site generates from Facebook or Twitter? If not, how do you know your social media marketing efforts are working? As we all know, Web analytics are truly the only way to know where your site traffic is coming from. But getting accurate accounts of how much traffic is directed to a site has...

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Each generation has their own traits, and with those traits come certain buying behaviors. Many studies have been done to identify these buying behaviors, and the results of the various surveys describe who these buyers are to marketers. Our parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents are traditionalists (born 1927-1945). They are the least marketed to and therefore the least likely to try a new brand or business. Our parents (or perhaps you) were born during the Baby Boom (1946-1964) and tend to be the most skeptical of all generation...

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One of the greatest benefits of social media is the ability for businesses, no matter how small, to participate in the global economy. It allows companies to reach customers worldwide without the concern of borders and geographic constraints. While it may be true that social media connects all of us regardless of our location, for businesses it may not be so easy. Recently, the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office in Germany ordered that all businesses in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein cease using Facebook fan pages as well as the “L...

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Visit any of the popular social media sites: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and you will most certainly find large companies like Starbucks, IBM and Ford using these sites to their full potential and receiving accolades for it. Smaller companies? Survey says not so much. While small businesses make up more than half of the total market, a recent survey shows that most small and medium businesses (SMBs) are not using social media tools to their full potential, if at all. A survey was done by Zoomerang Online Surveys ...

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In case you haven't noticed, there's a new kid on the social networking block…well, sort of. While Google Buzz and Google Wave failed to make any buzz or waves, so far Google+ has received rave reviews. How Google+ is Different Many are already comparing Google+ to Facebook, which makes sense seeing as though Facebook has been the longtime front runner in social networking. However, those who have had a chance to explore Google+ have found the features to be a cut above Facebook. Here are some of those ...

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Experts agree that the +1 button, which in the future will be associated with Google+, is going to have a positive impact on SEO. Similar to the “Like” feature of Facebook, +1 allows people to recommend a website, business or service. The difference with Google+1 is the ability to have that visitor recommendation affect search engine results. According to a study done by Hubspot, websites that featured Google’s +1 had more traffic than other websites. “At HubSpot, we looked at data from our entire customer base (more than 5,000 businesses). W...

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It’s no surprise that search engines are getting more sophisticated as time goes by. This is obvious in the growing popularity of StumbleUpon, a discovery engine that is able to find and recommend web content specific to each user. While you may personally like the evolution of a tailored search engine, your client or targeted audience may not. Why? Because StumbleUpon basically puts users (otherwise known as “stumblers”) into interest-specific silos, making it difficult to penetrate a new audience. Example: Your client makes organic granola b...

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Being popular used to get you a date to the prom. Now it gets you sales. According to SEOMoz 2011 Ranking Factors Guide, search engines are weighing social media components more heavily than ever. The guide shows opinions collected from search marketers over a six-year span. And, just as in high school, their research shows that it’s not enough just to show up and have a social media presence. You have to be liked and shared as well. (You really never do leave high school, do you?) The Guide claims that Facebook is the top generator of relate...

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It used to be that search engines ignored videos—at least as far as rankings were concerned. But not anymore. According to Forrester Research, pages that contained videos were 53 times more likely than traditional web pages to receive a first-page ranking. If you visit Google and type the phrase “How to ____,” you’ll most likely see the first few results involve a video either on YouTube or eHow. A lot of businesses don’t think their sites are worthy of video. They need to think again. Videos enhance SEO, whether it’s a tutorial that shows an...

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We're all told that once a year we should have a checkup--take time to see a doctor to make sure our blood's okay, discuss any problems and get a rundown on what we need to improve. Inevitably, we'll walk away either happy we went or sorry we went. But whether the news is good or bad, it's still important to do it. Even bad news can save a life. A routine checkup can also save your business--just Google your site. Does it show up? If it does, you're doing well. If it doesn't, it may be time to consult a specialist. While the causes for this un...

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If you're an avid reader, you probably didn’t mind those summer reading assignments back in the day. You may have been one of those few people who had all of your required reading assignments done by the fourth of July. But if you’re like the rest of us slackers, you may have rented the movie, gotten the Cliff Notes or skipped the assignment altogether in favor of a rockin' party. The bottom line is this: Right or wrong, watching a video or reading a synopsis is faster, and in most cases easier, than reading page after page about it. We can f...

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As gas prices go up, we're all feeling the pinch of the pump. But regardless of how angry or frustrated we are, the reality is we need gas to get from point A to point B--except those who invested in electric cars that don’t require fuel, or at least less of it. They aren't as bruised as the rest of us. When electric cars first came out many were skeptical about its reliability. Plus the up-front investment was too much for most of us to bear. However, those who invested in an electric car early on have certainly reaped the benefits over t...

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With the economy crisis hopefully behind us soon, we have all learned the value of money. Businesses, in particular, have seen how fast money can slip away from their hands and how quickly they have to adjust. Many business owners have found that in order to survive and thrive in this economic landscape, you must find a way to stay lean. Cost-effective software options, like SaaS, can reduce IT expenses tremendously. In the last blog we got an overview of what software as a service (SaaS) is and why you should invest. While investing in SaaS is...

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Perhaps you've heard the term software as a service (SaaS). Or perhaps you use it and don't know its formal name. Regardless, over time software as a service has become more popular. And rightfully so. SaaS, aka on-demand software, allows businesses and users Internet access to tools and applications. Think of SaaS as a software distributor. A vendor or service provider hosts the applications, which are then accessed by the end-user (business or customer) through the Net. The use of SaaS has become more and more popular with businesses. Many e...

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Well-written web content laden with rich keywords can boost SEO, but many argue that the use of content targeting can shoot site traffic numbers into the stratosphere. But what is content targeting, exactly? Well for one thing, it’s not free. It's a form of paid inclusion, meaning search engine companies charge fees to add websites to their search indexes. The process involves matching keywords AND content with search queries. It’s one thing to research keywords and see what words or terms are most popular, but conte...

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We know what you're saying: "As if it wasn’t enough to worry about keywords, excellent content and links, now I have to worry about site speed?" And to answer your question: Yes, site speed does affect SEO. As Google is evolving and its algorithms change, the search engine is now taking into account how long it takes for a site to load. Site Speed More Important Than SEO Page Rank Let’s take Google algorithms out of the equation for a minute. (No pun intended) Consider this: You Google a phrase such as “Travel Agents in New Jersey.” On th...

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Every business owner is concerned the bottom line. No matter how passionate you may be about the product or service you are promoting, at the end of the day it's about making money. One of the key components business owners turn to when trying to increase revenue is sales and marketing. People in the business world spend money going to seminars and sales training trying to learn the best strategies and tactics to keep the money machine running, but will that work? Perhaps. Yes, sales and marketing are important. However selling on the Internet...

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Running a business involves numbers. You need to know how much revenue is coming in and compare that number against your costs. In order to be profitable you may need to make adjustments accordingly. How you make those adjustments depends on the analysis of your budget, what is coming in and what is going out.Just as you analyze your business budget to stay profitable, you need to analyze your website to ensure its effectiveness. Web analytic software measures how many people visit your site, how long they stay there, how they fi...

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Remember the Yellow Pages, that stone-age search engine? Once upon a time when one needed a product or service, one would refer to a book with yellow pages inside. In that book there would be names of local businesses with contact information and perhaps even an advertisement. With the invention of the Internet, businesses and consumers were not limited by geography, ultimately opening the doors for global commerce. Well, in theory that is true, however when it comes to SEO, geography can still be somewhat limiting...

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Headlines and subheads are perhaps your best weapon in the battle for SEO. They not only help organize your site and make it easier for your readers to digest your content, but may also help search engines bring your readers there to begin with. According to Stephan Spencer, founder and president of the SEO firm Netconcepts, the content you use for headings is very important. “Heading tags are given more weight by search engines than regular body copy,” Spencer writes. Knowing that search engines give more weight to heading tags mean...

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Tiers, like keywords, have an effect on your SEO. But it's not as complicated as you think!

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Tips for updating your SEO marketing plan for 2011.

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SEO: How To Advertise in the 21st Century SEO, aka search engine optimization, is a buzzword that has been thrown around in business circles for a while now. However, some companies still aren't sure what it means and why it is important. Well, marketing experts will tell you it's crucial.. Why is it so important? Consider this: It's 1967. The only computers known to man are called mainframes, and only universities and large companies have them because they cost $5 million. And in 1967 you have a business with a physical address. In orde...

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 Think of the brand-name products you’ve seen advertised through commercials in the past, like Nike, Wheaties and Coke.  What do these commercials have in common? They all used celebrity endorsements to help sell their products. Gone are the days when Michael Jordan, Bruce Jenner and Joe Greene  simply flashed a smile with product in hand to drive sales. Today it’s all about social media, and there is a new term in the blogosphere, Social CRM. And it has companies re-examining how they advertise.   Think about this: Y...

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Imagine your typical Monday morning:  You're on your way to your favorite coffee shop to get your caffeine fix before you start your day. Probably not a huge stretch, right? But remember, in this day and age, the business day starts well before you arrive at the nearest Starbucks. So there's no time to sit and enjoy your Caramel Macchiato because your CRM database is filling up with vital information that can help your business. You need to get to the office so you can sit down at your computer and log into the database to stay on top of t...

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Picture this, you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, and the person in front of you has about 300 items to be checked out. It’s gonna be a while. You have no other option to pass the time but to look at the tabloids in front of you. The headline you see is identical to one you saw about six months ago. How many times can Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie file for divorce, or Oprah plan her big wedding day? Putting stale information out there not only gets old, but the sources that put that information out there start to lose credibility. The...

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The more information you can provide on your site, the more traffic you will have to your site--and the more products and services you can sell.

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Although it’s free, the cost of Facebook membership in recent weeks proved to be costly thanks to a couple of clever hackers. But it ain’t just fun ‘m games sites like Facebook that can end costing you more than you bargained for. It can be that free software you just downloaded, too. According to a recent article by Dan Brody at Entrepreneur.com freeware, shareware, adware and even open source software have their pitfalls to be wary of. Brody writes that freeware and shareware may appear to be free, however, once you make those few initial c...

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Remember Chandler Bing’s job? Yep. The Friends friend was a data processor. And remember that no one—including himself—could accurately describe what he did on a daily basis? Well… In the digital age data processing—whatever that was—may have faded into distant memory, but the need to store data for future use is still very much alive. We now “warehouse” data to provide us with “business intelligence” with which we can make strategical business decisions based on our business history. (Anyone detecting a pattern here?) Which just goes to prove...

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Attracting customers to your website is a lot like sitting in a bar trying to find a mate. You have a basic idea of who you’re looking for, but it’s hit or miss. And if it’s a Saturday night in the big city, that competition is fierce. Think of the Web as Saturday night at New York’s Tribecca Grand after a world premiere. So you have to have a plan. A roadmap. Analytics provide that. As grisly as analytics are, it’s not just about hits and traffic anymore. As the Web grows, so does the competition. And analytics are the best way to stay ahead ...

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There are some truly heinous websites floating around cyberspace: the overly colorful, overly “flashed” and the overly textual. The sad thing is, the designers who create these god-awful sites not only get away with such bad design (they were uploaded, weren’t they?) but they were paid thousands of dollars to do it. As mentioned in Finding the Right Web Designer for Your Business, there are plenty of designers happy to show off their “expertise” by creating flashy websites that appeal to fellow design geeks, but these result in sites of very l...

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The economic challenges of the past couple of years have carved a new business landscape, opening new perspectives about the way we market our products and handle the many bits or bytes of information we need to operate our businesses. While economic trends may still fall short of expectations, recent technological trends have given us more marketing choices, improved CMS technology and more space in which to compete. More Web; less print. As budgets shrank and pressure grew, businesses discovered that online campaigns are less expensive, fas...

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 Working with a Web professional is a collaborative dance. You have steps you bring to the dance, and so does the professional you hire. If it’s the right fit, you’ll create a dynamic site that moves people to call, email and eventually buy. 

The trick is to find the right partner.

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Machus' "YOU Inc." is all about a presentation. This social generation, is all about us, YOU. So when you talk, your talking about ME. So why not have a website that says so. We invite creative people such as yourself to send your .ME domain ideas to us. It's new. What better way to get ahead of the curve on a brand new domain extension?! Be the first to own your name. "James.ME". Use it as a call to action, "Message.ME". Or social community, "TheWorldof.ME" Contact us and find out how YOU can get.ME.

Machus CMS Solutions will be creating skin packages with the following structure. Content blocks will have more than enough room to move around. There are times that some custom skins will require more or less but if we issue this pane structure to all then we don't give LESS than you need. Tell us what you think about the default. Any recommended modifications?

ABOUT TWITTER: Twitter is a micro blogging web application. You’re telling people what you did or will do or experienced like a blog, but micro because it only allows 140 characters. So people are using it many times a day. Sometimes up to 50 times a day. There are so many tweets from so many people that you can quickly get drowned out. So posting 1 twitter a day means nothing. It’s like driving a sports car on the autobahn at 5mph. HOW YOU USE IT: (For Marketing) Twitter is a marketing tool, used correctly, you can market ...

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James here. Just finished T. Harv Ecker’s Peak Potentials Training class, Guerrilla Business School. It was very close to data overload but we can handle it! We’ve taken notes from some BIG TOP players, Keith Cunningham, Christina Comaford, Bill Bartmann, Chet Holmes, Alex Mandossian, and of course Ecker himself. I felt blessed to be meeting these people. Keith had a good point, he said fix your life you’ll fix your business. It’s amazing to see how they are linked. I grew up in a poor community in Louisiana. We helped the elder...

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Yes, we are all fans of Mozilla FireFox. But Mozilla did it again! Flock is the new candy for social media addicts. It connects all your favorite web 3.0 tools together in one nifty area. Media bar - Pops out from the top of the browser to show you images or video of that page your on or a subscription. Photo Uploader - Are you a member of Flickr, or picasa or even you have people that look at your photos on Facebook or myspace? Photo uploader will open and allow you to connect to that media and upload using your credentials!...

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Hello to all. We’re excited to announce our first post to the Blog of Machus. You will see the title of the blog is “Machus Manifests.” I came up with that a couple of months ago when we added web solutions to our list of services. We can literally manifest any web application, client/server software, web site, well you get the picture, the list goes on. We have wonderful artists that can draw an interface for any of the above mentioned items. Machus Corporation Technology changes everything. Remember the invention of the wheel? Most re...

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I'd like to take this time to say Season Greetings, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my guys here at Machus Corp. Thanks for all your hard work this year! Without you none of this is possible. I know at times, it's been about the deadlines, but I felt it was important to take this time out and tell ya'll, we appreciate you and look forward to 2010 with growth and opportunity in sight. We will continue to grow in knowledge, maturity, and number. This year we: Completed Phase 1 of a 3 year project (Pinnacle SeamLESS) ...

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