International SEO Strategy To Boost Your Business Abroad!

If companies and businesses in Canada planning to reach the rapidly expanding abroad, increasingly sophisticated international internet audience, they must get smarter about international search engine optimization.

I don’t mean the traditional and domestic SEO, I am talking about international version boosts the likelihood that a particular website will rise to the top of search results, thereby enabling increased conversion rates.

The challenge internationally is to sketch out a clear plan and select the right SEO strategies for an enormous number of locales, cultural norms and languages. For those creating and implementing an international SEO program, it’s helpful to adhere to three key principles.

Know the international SEO needs before publish it abroad.

International SEO is instrumental in helping businesses get found online and ensuring your visitors or potential visitors stick around once they land on your site. 

Don’t make your international SEO strategy as step two. It should be part of your planning process from the moment you decide to expand internationally.
That planning process begins with keyword research. Determine what keywords your target customers are likely to use. Will they search for your products using the exact translation, or are there local slang terms you need to know?

This information is essential to developing an international website that is optimized for the key factors evaluated by search engine algorithms: meaningful, fresh content that is keyword-specific; descriptive tagging; rich media; social media distribution plans; and internal and external links.

Don’t make global SEO a follow-up item on your globalization to-do list. It should be embedded in every step of the marketing and sales strategy.

Monitor and update your content periodically and continuously.

You should pay close attention to content that is changing regularly and to keywords used in your business website. If you’re not seeing any results, means there is something wrong and you need to consider updating your keywords and track the impact the changes have on your rankings. Make sure you re-submit your website for indexing every time you make a change to ensure your changes are captured by the relevant search engines.

Align your SEO strategy with social media activity.

If SEO and social media work in different directions and don't communicate nearly enough, they can't form a well-coordinated, comprehensive International marketing plan. Therefore, it's extremely important that SEO is integrated into social media activity. What follows are some specific tactics that can be used to increase the impact that your social media activities have on International SEO performance.

To break into promising regions in the Americas, Europe and Asia, companies need to focus on above principles to all of their electronic communication points with customers and therefore maximizing their prospects for success

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How To Drive Your Website to Achieve Your Business Goals

One of my friends (Heather) is working real estate managing director in Canada. She had worked with a team to redesign company project. The website launched with lovely look and whistles that created by a company graphics designer – but his call was relating with an issue that impact company’s website and was calling me to help with a problem. !!

The problem is - Her beautiful new website wasn’t getting many visitors!  - Please Yasser we need your suggestion.

“Why don’t people want to visit our lovely website and check the properties list and other promotions we have there?” Heather wailed, genuinely puzzled that the results of her intensive efforts weren’t as rosy as she had expected when the redesigned the website.

From the first glance I knew what the problem is, but I couldn't point out where is the defect and I had to soften the impact, and gently explain what went wrong.

Together, we quickly checked the site’s ranking on Google for her top 50 keywords.  They weren’t anywhere in the top 10 results. Or even 20.  You see, the not-so-apparent reason for the ‘failed’ website was the lack of something essential for both higher search engine rankings, and to enhance the visitor experience which can convert a prospect into a customer.  What’s that, you ask? 

Heather’s company new website, though visually appealing and technology-rich, was sorely lacking in a well-planned information architecture and website structure.  But you will ask what “information architecture” is? And how does “website structure” differ from design? 

I would define “information architecture” The art and way of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities, and web plugins to support usability and fundability.”

To understand this better, imagine you strip the website from of all its clothes and look at it as skeleton, shorn of flesh and skin. Focus on the basic fundamentals of building the page from shapes and strengthens it.

In computer engineering school, trainees begin by learning about computer hardware. Knowing what makes up the computer works (and later treat) hardware-software integration that not only focuses on how computer systems themselves work, but also how they integrate into the larger picture.

 

Think of your website like a cake your links, paid search, and social media acts as the icing, but your content, information architecture, content management system, and infrastructure act as the sugar and makes the cake. Without it, your cake is tasteless, boring, and gets thrown in the trash.

At the heart of understanding website structure, and planning your strategy for information architecture, lies a need to know about terms like semantic search, latent semantic indexing and SEO automation.

Semantic search is an attempt to improve search accuracy by predicting the intent of a searcher. The shift from blindly matching keywords typed into a search box against a massive database, to a more “intelligent” form of search that attempts to understand what those words actually mean to the user, has serious implications on strategic SEO for many business owners.

Latent Semantic Indexing is an indexing and retrieval method that was designed to identify patterns in the relationship between terms and concepts within any text.

By providing unique context for each search term or phrase, it ensures that a search for ‘Apple’ computers will retrieve pages with iMac or iPad on it, while a search for ‘Apple’ fruit will pull a different set of results on gardening and growing apples.

I would say, your information architecture must be based on the best ways to serve your visitor, based on an intimate understanding of ‘user logic’. For instance, good SEO begins with good keyword research. After all, if you don’t know the ways people are seeking your content, it’s pretty hard to ensure that your content “speaks” to them using the words they search for.

So for this company’s website, the primary way of organizing information was by target part of segment not by audience and by type. Because of this, I asked Heather (my friend) to modify the primary navigation and relevant page interlinking on the website. I did not discount the keyword research data. I just used the keywords in the right context.

I explained to her and to the team, that search engine optimization is optimizing a website for people who use search engines. Understanding searchers, their contexts and environments, behaviors, and intentions is just as important as understanding how search engines work.

In my opinion, if SEOs are optimizing websites without considering query classification and searcher personas, then they are optimizing more for search engines than for searchers (technology-centered optimization). Keyword classification is crucial for long-term search engine visibility and conversions.

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Do you Know What Resources You Need For Your Business Strategy?

Can you summarize your organization’s strategy or your company business’s strategy in 20 words or less? If so, would your colleagues or your partner put it the same way?

From my experience, I would say that very few executives can honestly answer these simple questions in the affirmative. And the companies that those executives or managers work for are often the most successful in their industry.  Why? Because those executives know what is long-term business planning and how they can work to achieve organization objectives. Companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the sorry category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or, worse, those that they think they have one! This in turn, has a negative impact on frontline employees, and all those in between are frustrated because no clear strategy exists for the company or its lines of business.

The kinds of complaints that abound in such firms include:
“I try for months to work in creating new online marketing campaign to our company, and then it is shut down because ‘it doesn’t fit the strategy.’ Why didn't anyone tell me that at the beginning?”

“Why are we hiring or selecting this vendor again? The vendor submitted an offer last year but did not abide on supplying, and I thought it is not worth it to waste our time and repeat same scenario."

“Should I cut the price for this customer? I don’t know if we would be better off winning the deal at a lower price or just losing the business.”

For instance, I have an experience in IT industry and digital marketing media field; I would therefore talk through this perspective and sketch out the role of IT on company strategy.

Information Technology has become a key business function for almost every organization and most have great expectations of their investment in IT for the future benefits to the business – expectations that will enable the business to:-

-Reduce costs;
-Standardize processes;
-Enhance productivity;
-Improve workflow and communications;
-Sustain repeatable service levels;
-Implement new business strategies;

Despite the growing trend towards building solid business and adoption right concept of strategic tools in a company, there are still real opportunities for IT to make a difference. But the IT contribution is less likely to take the form of the ‘killer’ application that gives specific competitive advantage – it is far more likely that the principal benefit will be derived from having robust, but adaptable, technology throughout the organization, thus facilitating an agile business strategy.

This also includes the digital marketing part and its role in company business strategy especially when we the company plans to grow the business and build up a solid reputation, for instance building a digital tools for trust-based marketing to match company’s objectives, and understanding the role of customers or target audience as a stockholder in business growing

But, if our strategy is not clearly visible – how can we ever hope to align anything with it, let alone the IT function? The answer is that we must move beyond the conceptual level of most strategic thinking, towards a practical, physical expression of the alignment process.

Quite simply, we need a tangible alignment plan that will help us to realize our ambition of complete harmony between our IT and business strategy / or our digital tools and business strategy. ( As mentioned earlier from IT and Digital Marketing aspects)

I would say, organizations that have been able to successfully integrate technology and business strategy have created significant business returns.
Information Technology (IT) and Digital Marketing has become an important enabler of business strategies in such areas of mass customization, competitive differentiation, quality improvements, and process automation and improvement.

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Direct Your Content Marketing To Be Authentic .. It is Time Now!

Last week I was lucky enough to be on of attendees in a session that hosted by Meetup group E-Business to discuss the fundamentals in the field of digital marketing and its effect in and business. And while the entire talk was informative and entertaining, one bit really stood out. He asked a good question about social media “Whether or not it’s a good idea to outsource social media”. One of the participants unequivocally said no, and pushed the need to be authentic. That idea of authenticity struck me. That word used to mean something and it seems has real impact on business. He mentioned the authenticity is still vital for a successful social media campaign, and anyone worth their salt should be striving to present an authentic voice through their social channels.

Content is a king and acceleration for the business growth!

I opened this piece with a story for a reason. I believe you will ask why Yasser Al Mimar needs to go through this part of story to open the subject. I would say, readers like to be able to connect with content, and content is still one of the best ways to keep your online marketing authentic. After all, you are producing and creating the fodder for this form of marketing, so you imbue your content with your personality and voice. It’s as close as your audience can get to talking to you, without really talking to you. That is why I believe that content is still the primary focus for social marketers.  Simply put, content is what your customers are looking for. Specifically, people want detailed and in-depth information that supports their decision to buy something from you. If you can provide this, then you have your foot in the door. Or you’ve got their feet in yours, however way you look at it.

A survey by Social Media Examiner found that 58% of marketers still rank content as their most valuable social marketing tool. Yes, there are SEO benefits to content marketing, but it trumps visuals, audio, and curated posts for reasons beyond search engine ranking – it’s an authentic representation of your voice, and a good reminder for your audience that a living, breathing, thinking person is behind the profiles that they follow.

It can be hard for any business to cultivate its voice. After all, your company isn’t a celebrity and sitting on the throne of stardom in the market place! But your brand does have a voice. And it is that voice that sets you apart from your competitors. People will follow you through your various social channels because they like that voice. So you need to work to cultivate it, and keep your presence authentic.

Good content, quick responses and an actual person to monitor and interact through your feeds will do wonders for your social marketing campaign. Authenticity isn’t just a pointless corporate buzzword– it’s the very keystone to your company’s social success.

In that day, I had discussion with one of keynote speakers and other participants. I had clarified very important point that relates with my work and business.  As webmaster and digital marketing experience, I mentioned: “Content is King.” And everyone in web marketing knows that. A website's content, even more so than its products, is what attracts visitors. People are coming to your website need to have the sign kind of interest to get wherever you are giving and delivering. 

There are two important aspects of web content. For simplicity's sake, I'll call them Quantity and Quality.

Quality means that the content should be well written and be free from those embarrassing typos that make visitors wonder if your website really knows what it's talking about. For our purposes, however, it also means that content should be rich in keywords, informative and interesting, so that the visitor feels they've learned something. Such is the power of Quality content.

Quantity, on the other hand, means that your website should be updated regularly with new content added. A visitor may return to an informational article once, or even two or three times, but if your website's content never changes, eventually, there will be no reason for him to return.

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Business Positioning And Winning Customers in Highly Competitive Markets

You know that your business is offering a great service or product, and you believe that you and your company are special, but your potential customers won't know unless you tell them, Think about it? And they won't care unless they can see how your special angle directly makes their lives easier. In the same time, you need to make sure you know how your product or service works to get customer satisfaction.

It's more than just showing the features of your products or services; you've got to explain the benefits, for instance, if your business is in the educational sector or in the technology services it’s best to slice out specific benefits that will distinguish your products or services in the market.

Therefore, a brand's "position" is where it stands relative to its competitors in the minds of customers. An important aspects of a brand's position in a products or service category is how similar or different the brand is perceived to be in comparison with other brands in the product category.

Positioning has long been acknowledged as a core branding activity (DiMingo, 1988). Positioning is the act of designing an organization's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the target market's mind (Kotler, 2000). For example, Samsung is positioned as the industry leader in technology. Panadol is positioned as the painkiller medicine. Walmart is positioned as lowest possible prices for retailing. Each of these brands holds a distinct position in its product category and the organization's product, promotion, distribution and pricing strategies are designed to communicate and support the brand's unique position.

I would consider the positioning decision as crucial strategic decision for a company or a brand because the position can be central to customers' perception and choice decisions. Further, since all the elements of the marketing program can potentially affect the position, it is usually necessary to apply the positioning strategy as a focus for development of the marketing program. A clear positioning strategy can ensure that the elements of the marketing program are consistent and supportive.

I have a good experience in educational sector, and for this reason I would like to input my example at the level of the higher education to clarify the role of positioning in this business.

A university that has a distinct position is able to convey to prospective students what it is and what it stands for (Lowry & Owens, 2001). By directing all of its marketing efforts towards a desired position, a university maintains a coherence and unity in its activities and establishes a specific image (Lowry & Owens, 2001). Effective positioning focuses in what the target market perceives is important and not necessarily what university administrators believe is significant (Lowry & Owens, 2001).

For instance, AUS (American University of Shariah) is one of the organizations in Middle East that offers services which is not intended to make a monetary profit. AUS one of the top universities ranking in the region and it jumps to 390 in world university rankings.

Positioning results from the specific way in which the four key marketing variables of product, price, promotion, and place (referred to as the 4 Ps) are managed (Lowry & Owens, 2001). In a collegiate environment, product becomes academic programs and services, price is tuition and financial aid, promotion is the communications program, and place refers to the delivery system for academic programs (Lowry & Owens, 2001). The size of a school, class sizes, and the student faculty ratio are important elements of the academic delivery system (Lowry & Owens, 2001). The advertising, public relations, admissions materials, and other promotions of the institution should be coordinated to make a unified positioning statement (Lowry & Owens, 2001).

Based on that, the university works to create its position in terms of student’s quality, community, faculty and staff qualification and skills, program, service and facilities. I have sketched out below a diagram with positioning map that has three categories (competitors, attributes and segments)

The most frequently used positioning base is associating the brand with a particular attribute, product feature, or user benefit. For example, Columbia College of Chicago positions itself on the attribute of innovation in the arts with its positioning slogan "create ... change"

Organizations are often tempted to position themselves along multiple attributes. However, positioning strategies that involve a number of attributes can lead to a diluted brand position and confusion in the minds of consumers.

In the positioning map I drew for example, 

GS Style layers are always looking for excellent benefit which includes “Academic Program and Services “. Parents or Guardians of students don’t focus on the price (tuition and fees) versus quality and services; also they prefer safe place with sustain environment to enhance their children for optimal use of energy and learn how to live healthy and sustainable. In the contrast we see UOWD also contain GS segment because some parents are usually seeking for moderate tuition and fees and moderate quality of education

One more important thing which is considered a key element in positioning your business in the market place, it is to monitor the organization's position over time and make adjustments to the marketing strategy as may become necessary. In some instances, companies find it necessary to reposition their brands when either the company fails to achieve the desired position in consumers' minds or when the positioning base is no longer important to consumers. From my perspective American University of Shariah needs more work to market its product or service to its customers or clients. In positioning, the marketing department creates an image for the product based on its intended audience, and this is what AUS should do to enhance its position in the educational market place and differentiate from its competitors 

To sum up, I would strongly say if a university is able to establish a distinctive position relative to its competitors, it enhances its ability to maintain or increase enrollments.

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Going With Fresh Content is A Key For Successful SEO

In 2003, engineers at Google filed a patent that would rock the SEO world. Named Document Scoring Based on Document Content Update, the patent not only offered insight into the mind of the world’s largest search engine, but provided an accurate road map of the path Google would take for years to come.

Google Team have came up with Google’s Freshness Update, which places greater emphasis on returning fresher web content for certain queries. Exactly how Google determines freshness was brilliantly explored by Justin Briggs in his analysis of original Google patents. Justin deserves a lot of credit for bringing this analysis to light and helping to inspire this post.

Although the recent Freshness Update received a lot of attention, in truth Google has scored content based on freshness for years.

How Google Scores Fresh Content

Google Fellow Amit Singhal explains that “Different searches have different freshness needs.”

The implication is that Google measures all of your documents for freshness, then scores each page according to the type of search query. While some queries need fresh content, Google still uses old content for other queries (more on this later.)

Singhal describes the types of keyword searches most likely to require fresh content:

-- Recent events or hot topics: “occupy oakland protest” “nba lockout”
-- Regularly recurring events: “NFL scores” “dancing with the stars” “exxon earnings”
-- Frequent updates: “best slr cameras” “subaru impreza reviews”

Google’s patents offer incredible insight as to how web content can be evaluated using freshness signals, and rankings of that content adjusted accordingly.

Understand that these are not hard and fast rules, but rather theories consistent with patent filings, experiences of other SEOs, and experiments performed over the years. Nothing substitutes for direct experience, so use your best judgement and feel free to perform your own experiments based on the information below.

1. Freshness by Inception Date

A webpage is given a “freshness” score based on its inception date, which decays over time. This freshness score can boost a piece of content for certain search queries, but degrades as the content becomes older.

The inception date is often when Google first becomes aware of the document, such as when Googlebot first indexes a document or discovers a link to it.

2. Document Changes (How Much) Influences Freshness

The age of a webpage or domain isn’t the only freshness factor. Search engines can score regularly updated content for freshness differently from content that doesn’t change. In this case, the amount of change on your webpage plays a role.

For example, the change of a single sentence won’t have as big of a freshness impact as a large change to the main body text.

3. The Rate of Document Change (How Often) Impacts Freshness

Content that changes more often is scored differently than content that only changes every few years. In this case, consider the homepage of the New York Times, which updates every day and has a high degree of change.

"For example, a document whose content is edited often may be scored differently than a document whose content remains static over time. Also, a document having a relatively large amount of its content updated over time might be scored differently than a document having a relatively small amount of its content updated over time."

4. Freshness Influenced by New Page Creation

Instead of revising individual pages, websites add completely new pages over time. This is the case with most blogs. Websites that add new pages at a higher rate may earn a higher freshness score than sites that add content less frequently.

Some SEOs insist you should add 20-30% new pages to your site every year. This provides the opportunity to create fresh, relevant content, although you shouldn’t neglect your old content if it needs attention.

"UA may also be determined as a function of one or more factors, such as the number of “new” or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time. Another factor might include the ratio of the number of new or unique pages associated with a document over a period of time versus the total number of pages associated with that document."

5. Changes to Important Content Matter More

Changes made in “important” areas of a document will signal freshness differently than changes made in less important content. Less important content includes navigation, advertisements, and content well below the fold. Important content is generally in the main body text above the fold.

 Boilerplate Changes Count Less for Freshness      "…content deemed to be unimportant if updated/changed, such as Javascript, comments, advertisements, navigational elements, boilerplate material, or date/time tags, may be given relatively little weight or even ignored altogether when determining UA." 

6. Rate of New Link Growth Signals Freshness

If a webpage sees an increase in its link growth rate, this could indicate a signal of relevance to search engines. For example, if folks start linking to your personal website because you are about to get married, your site could be deemed more relevant and fresh (as far as this current event goes.)  That said, an unusual increase in linking activity can also indicate spam or manipulative link building techniques. Be careful, as engines are likely to devalue such behavior.

"…a downward trend in the number or rate of new links (e.g., based on a comparison of the number or rate of new links in a recent time period versus an older time period) over time could signal to search engine 125 that a document is stale, in which case search engine 125 may decrease the document’s score."

7. Links from Fresh Sites Pass Fresh Value

Links from sites that have a high freshness score themselves can raise the freshness score of the sites they link to.  For example, if you obtain a link off an old, static site that hasn’t been updated in years, this doesn't pass the same level of freshness value as a link from a fresh page – for example, the homepage of Wired.com. Justin Briggs coined this FreshRank.

"Document S may be considered fresh if n% of the links to S are fresh or if the documents containing forward links to S are considered fresh."

8. Changes in Anchor Text Signals may Devalue Links

If a website changes dramatically over time, it makes sense that any new anchor text pointing to the page will change as well.

For example, If you buy a domain about automobiles, then change the format to content about baking, over time your new incoming anchor text will shift from cars to cookies.

In this instance, Google might determine that your site has changed so much that the old anchor text is no longer relevant, and devalue those older links entirely.

"The date of appearance/change of the document pointed to by the link may be a good indicator of the freshness of the anchor text based on the theory that good anchor text may go unchanged when a document gets updated if it is still relevant and good."  

9. User Behavior Indicates Freshness

What happens when your once wonderful content becomes old and outdated? For example, your website hosts a local bus schedule... for 2009. As content becomes outdated, folks spend less time on your site. They press the back button to Google's results and choose another URL. 

Google picks up on these user behavior metrics and scores your content accordingly.

"If a document is returned for a certain query and over time, or within a given time window, users spend either more or less time on average on the document given the same or similar query, then this may be used as an indication that the document is fresh or stale, respectively."

Conclusion:

The goal of a search engine is to return the most relevant results to users. For your part, this requires an honest assessment of your own content. What part of your site would benefit most from freshness?

Old content that exists simply to generate page views, but accomplishes little else, does more harm than good for the web. On the other hand, great content that continually answers a user's query may remain fresh forever.

Be fresh. Be relevant. Most important, be useful.



Source: Cyrus Shepard to Advanced SEO

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Attracting High - End Clients By Applying Promotion Frameworks

Many of my friends who have a business ask me different questions about how to promote their business and what is the fastest way to find new customers and attracting high - end clients?  In this post I am going to explain the most important secret to attracting high - end clients. This could be the most important article you’ll read in your business (sure, everyone says that), but from my perspective I strongly say the logic says 1 plus 1 equal 2 and in my math I would add when you master the art of attracting high - end clients, you’ll transform your whole business.

Everyone wants to attract more clients. But I think it’s even more important to set your sights on attracting more high - end clients. What do you think?
I have sketch out a new framework about the high - end clients. And I define high - end clients in the following three ways: 

1- They are “ideal clients.” That is, clients you can really make a difference with and whom you love to work with.
2- They are “long - term clients.” These are clients with whom you can offer programs and services for a year or more.
3- They are “high - paying clients.” They understand the value you offer and are willing to pay you more than average clients will.

Today, there are many forms of promotional media. Some marketers also refer to them as "touch points," since they are every place where people encounter your brand. I'll describe a one of most important technique (which I know best) that helps many businesses to boost revenue in a positive direction. Keep in mind, what works for one industry or brand may not work for other industries and brands. This is simply to provide you with an idea of the options; it's imperative that you adapt the medium to what works best for your brand, your stakeholders, and your goals.

An advertisement would be effective only if the media audience accepts that message and is motivated to take the requisite action. The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he/she will look at the advertisement and start to read it; which will then interest him, so that he/she will continue to read it; then to persuade him/her, so that when he/she has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement. 

AIDA Model

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. It is an acronym used in marketing and advertising, which helps marketing managers develop effective communication strategies and communicate with customers in a way that better responds to their needs and desires. AIDA describes a common list of events that occur when a consumer views an advertisement. Each letter in the acronym stands for the following:

The "A" represents attention or awareness, and the ability to attract the attention of the consumers. Without attention, I can hardly persuade them of anything. Your marketing messages, materials, marketing strategies and sales processes need to communicate the message that you offer higher - end services. Perception is essential. Every impression you make should communicate: “I offer high quality, pay attention to details, follow - up professionally and produce great results.”

For instance, When I write blog posts, I like to split the title into two parts: what I’m talking about (the feature), and the result of it (the benefit),  just look at my last few blog post titles here:

- Build Your Income By Creating Your Own Online Business
- Balanced Scorecard Your Tool to Translate Business Performance
- Putting Information Technology on Track and Why it Matters for Marketing!

The "I" is interest and points to the ability to raise the interest of consumers by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising). Once I have their attention, I will sustain that attention by getting the other person interested!

You can bolster interest with offers and compelling reasons why you’re better than your competitor, and how you can solve customers’ problems. Features and benefits weigh heavily in this level, and social media can help you kick their interest into high gear.

For instance, you’ve got my attention, but I’m not ready to buy your product yet. And even if I was, I need to know you can actually UNDERSTAND and SOLVE my problem… which is why you need to tell me what problem I’m having and how can you really help me solve it.

The "D" represents desire. The advertisement convinces consumers that they want and desire the product or service because it will satisfy their needs. I believe once they are interested in my business and what I offer.

In the “interest” stage you’ve already done the clever storytelling… now you need to tell me what it is you want me to buy:

Social media can help bolster desire through communication and engagement, but to fully satisfy someone’s desire to buy, you need to have a site that is streamlined and optimized. Take the time to go through your site and optimize the presentation and the shopping cart experience. Testimonials gathered from linkable social profiles are a great asset. Take the customer from interest to desire with a clean, easy to navigate, info rich, and functional site.

What’s the exact name of your product and what’s in it?
What’s in each module, why is each module important and why is it given in the order you show it?
What bonuses are you giving me?

The "A" is action, which leads consumers toward taking action by purchasing the product or service. I would add, this is the magic stage when they take action on their desires and actually do their purchase and buy my products or services.

In small-business marketing, AIDA helps owners communicate more effectively with their customers. I would to say, the AIDA is like a tool we can use it to convince others not only in business or promote the product, I believe it's door key which persuade others to achieve the desired goal.

In this regard, AIDA has become a sales-driven tool that is strategized to lead the potential buyer towards an end suggested by the advertiser.

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Start Your Business And Stand Out In The Market!

If you're thinking about starting or creating a business, you (hopefully) have an idea that will fill a void in the current marketplace, and when you plan to start this business you should ask yourself “What is it the business that would make customers buy from me instead of my competitors?"

Growing your business without understanding your competitors is risky, in simple terms; the competitors can be identified as those companies or business that offers similar products or services to the same customers at similar prices. These can be either direct or indirect competitors. 

On the other hand, knowing and understanding customer needs is at the center of every successful business, whether it sells directly to individuals or other businesses. Once you have this knowledge, you can use it to persuade potential and existing customers that buying from you is in their best interests. As we know customers now have a wide range of information and experience at their disposal and have the means to research which product is good or bad and might be provide the best value for their needs and wants.

The more you know about your customers, the more effective your sales and marketing efforts will be. It's well worth making the effort to find out Ten things we should know about our customers

Who they are
If you sell directly to individuals, find out your customers' gender, age, marital status and occupation. If you sell to other businesses, find out what size and kind of business they are. For example, are they a small private company or a big multinational?

What they do
If you sell directly to individuals, it's worth knowing their occupations and interests. If you sell to other businesses, it helps to have an understanding of what their business is trying to achieve.

Why they buy
If you know why customers buy a product or service, it's easier to match their needs to the benefits your business can offer.

When they buy
If you approach a customer just at the time they want to buy, you will massively increase your chances of success.

How they buy
For example, some people prefer to buy from a website, while others prefer a face-to-face meeting.

How much money they have
You'll be more successful if you can match what you're offering to what you know your customer can afford.

What makes them feel good about buying
If you know what makes them tick, you can serve them in the way they prefer.
What they expect of you

For example, if your customers expect reliable delivery and you don't disappoint them, you stand to gain repeat business.

What they think about you
If your customers enjoy dealing with you, they're likely to buy more. And you can only tackle problems that customers have if you know what they are.

What they think about your competitors
If you know how your customers view your competition, you stand a much better chance of staying ahead of your rivals.

From my perspective, I find it is difficult for small-business owners to clearly define what makes their businesses different and even more difficult to communicate this to potential customers. Businesses that are able to differentiate themselves from the competition have a much better chance of success than businesses that bring nothing special to the market.

If you want to improve your chances of having a successful and growing business, spend time identifying what makes your business special. Determine what you need to do to make your business stand out among your competition in the minds of your customers.

For example, some businesses stand out by bringing innovative solutions to their customers. These businesses spend a great amount of time researching the wants and needs of their target markets and developing new technology and products.

Using marketing mix model (product, price, promotion) have helped the business to differentiate effectively in the marketplace and your business is being something remarkable. That's how it will get noticed, get publicity, get word of mouth, get new customers and create loyal fans.  I would say being different is desirable. It's a good thing. Not only do you want to be different in order to stand out from your competitors, you want to be radically different. You want to be the "only."

For instance, such businesses are known for solving problems and improving the quality of life for their customers. Samsung is a good example to introduce in this post, it is a company that regularly brings different technologies to the market and has developed a loyal following of enthusiastic customers, who many times can't wait to get their hands on the latest Samsung products because of the product itself, price and promotions they offer. Am I right?

I would like to give another example about the marketing mix model that adopted by a well-known company in the world that deliver their products or services to customers economically, quickly and conveniently. Their efficient operations produce consistent products at reasonable prices. Businesses such as McDonald's have mastered this concept and serve millions of customers each day, customers who return because they know what to expect and how it will be delivered.

Other think we should keep on mind to differentiate from competitors is Reputation. Your reputation is what other people think about you. It may be based on a number of factors: the quality of your products or service, how you treat others (including business partners, workers, and the environment), and most importantly, your values as an organization and how you express them. While you can shape your voice or design, your reputation ultimately resides in the minds of other people. 

They make the final decision whether they admire you, fear you, respect you or love you. Microsoft, the U.N., Calgary City, Real Madrid, the Catholic Church, and other institutions can do many things to shape how they are perceived, but they can't completely control that impression.

One's reputation also differs in the minds of different people: your mother probably does not think of you the same way your boss might. 

It's also important to remember that your reputation is affected by who you associate with. For example, tobacco companies might be highly profitable, but they do not attract many partners. Other companies try to associate their brands with certain geographical locations (consider Swiss chocolate, German engineering, or Hollywood movies). And yet others try to associate with charities and causes to improve their reputations. Consider the reputation of this school: how would you define it?

When defining the reputation of a company, it's important to research what other people think about it, NOT what the company says about itself.

Know what makes your business special and make sure your customers know it, too.

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Your Strategy to Sell Your Image Through Content Marketing

Everyone is talking about how content is so important (which is true) but no one is really talk about WHY content is king and WHY content is critically important. The buzz words these days are content marketing. But what exactly does it mean and how can a business implement its use to bring value to their customers?  Basically, content marketing is publishing information through various media outlets that will educate your customers.

Some of the biggest companies in the world today didn’t exist just 10 years ago. Companies like YouTube, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to name a few. And the one thing that all of these huge companies have in common is their product: information. Welcome to the Information Age. (Also referred to as the Digital age) 10 years ago, if you wanted to do research on any given topic, you would find yourself traveling to a library. Not today. Today we have an entire world of information at our fingertips

Nowadays, words have shifted from being on books, magazines and billboards to living on computers, smartphones, laptops, televisions and tablets. First of all, great content is something that can be easily read by a person browsing your website. But that’s not where it ends. In fact, that’s where it starts! 

The benefit of publishing good content is that your targeted audience will come to rely on you as an information resource for their decision making.  It is important to understand that content marketing is more than just information about your products or services. It includes relevant and useful information that will be used to develop opinions about your business and help build a relationship with your customers. 

Great content serves a very important purpose: it informs the reader about the topic of the page. When great content is smartly developed and used strategically, it easily accomplishes the following tasks:
1- Helps people understand the topic
2- Demonstrates your unique expertise or angle on the subject
3- Makes people want to come back and read it again
4- Makes people want to link to it so other people can access it from their website, blog, social network feed, etc.

5- Let people buy something on the site
6- Let people download a document, a file, or an app
 

Great content is what the Web was originally designed to facilitate. Write what you know, make it compelling, and people (and search engines) will respond accordingly. It may take time, of course, but even viral content starts with an initial post. For instance, Expact Women website did not reach hundred thousands of people by accident. Its founder was smart, or more importantly, had smart strategies.  When I was doing my research on some articles in expatwomen, I found out that the blog wrote one article last month that generated more links and shares than 46 of their posts from 2013 combined.  This post is about effective blogging, and going beyond the the strategy that built a big community of audience.

Think about how often you search for information before making a purchasing decision. Your customers do the same, so it is important to position yourself to be a credible resource for them.

 
But How Do You Create Great Content? 

Great content is, well, great! Of course, that can also be a relative thing. It’s like the old story of being in the woods with a bunch of your coworkers when you accidentally encounter an ill-tempered bear. When the chase begins, you personally don’t need to outrun the bear (good luck with trying that). You only need to outrun the other people you’re with.  Sure, that’s a grizzly (pun intended) tale with a morally ambiguous message, but that’s why I made the other people your coworkers. Business is business, after all!

I’m sure you’re thinking “sounds like a great idea, but how do you go about publishing relevant content?” As usual, it takes some planning and the first thing you need to do is develop your content marketing strategy.  There are four main areas to consider: audience, media, timing and topic. 

Audience
Who is your intended audience? This relates back to who your target customer is.  You need to understand your customers, what their needs are and purchasing patterns are. I tell my clients that you need to know your customers like you know your mother. What do they like and dislike? Who do they go to for an opinion prior to making a purchasing decision? Where are they located? What is their age, income and education level?  Once you understand your target customer, it is easier to determine what media to select, when you should publish content and what topics would be of benefit to your customers.

 
Media
Where does your target customer go for information? Would they read a newspaper, look for online reviews, articles, videos or blogs? Do they reach out to their friends and families for recommendations? Would they like to get their information in an online newsletter?  If you are not sure, ask them when you see them or send out a small survey. Or just research the various social media resources and see who’s using them. By “Googling” the various types of social media for statistics on who is using them you can determine the best media to use for your target customer.

 
Timing
How often should you publish? The medium you’re using will dictate how often you need to publish your content.  Twitter and Facebook could be several times a day, blogs at least weekly, LinkedIn can be every couple of weeks, and online newsletters can be monthly or quarterly.  Realistically, think about how often you can develop content and publish it. This is a big task and often it needs to be delegated or shared among several people. Starting a weekly blog may seem like a good idea at first, but remember there are 365 days in a year. 

Topic
Most important, where are you going to find relevant content? After publishing for a while you can run out of ideas to write about.  Places to look for content are trending topics, newspapers, blogs or your customers’ tweets and posts. What are they talking about and interested in? This is where you can find topics for content that will be of interest to your target audience.  Remember, developing and implementing a content marketing strategy is a lot of work and requires planning, but the rewards can be tremendous.

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Balanced Scorecard Your Tool to Translate Business Performance

In most big or small organizations whether they are profit or no profit sector, managers are implementing different strategies to measure the organization performance. For example, executives may introduce new strategies and innovative operating processes intended to achieve breakthrough performance, then continue to use the same short-term financial indicators they have used for decades, measures like return-on-investment, sales growth, and operating income. With all these calculations and doing their own maths, we can see these managers fail not only to introduce new measures to monitor new goals and processes but also to question whether or not their old measures are relevant to the new initiatives. 

Also most organizations dutifully complete strategic planning on a regular basis. However, there are several studies suggest that fewer than 10% are successful in implementing the strategies created. Based on that in 1992 Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton came up with new effective measurement tool that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.

“You can have the best strategy. You can even frame it and put it up on the wall, but if you’re not executing … it’s just artwork," management expert Tom Peters says. 

The scorecard allows managers to look at their companies and approach links strategy to measurement by asking firms to consider their vision, critical success factors for accomplishing it, and subsequent performance metrics. Here's an example of how the Balanced Scorecard adapted in E- Business or Marketing these perspectives 

1. Learning and growth perspective: innovation, employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and business improvement. Key question: How can we continue to improve and create value?

2. Business process perspective: internal business processes or operational priorities. For instance, key applications for digital strategies include the development of collaboration tools, document management, content management, online project management. These applications are more successful when accessed through the Intranet, and perceived by the employee to be part of the Intranet, rather than a standalone application. 

3. Customer perspective: customer focus and customer satisfaction. Key questions: How do our customers see us? What can we do to increase our brand awareness? In Digital Marketing for example using the customer perspective to develop digital strategies should be the most lucrative aspect of the digital strategy. The customer perspective elements of the Digital Strategy include providing information through the website, sales enablers including eCommerce applications, customer self-service where customers can manage their own portfolios through extranets, building communities of value where customers can network and engage with each other, crowd-sourcing initiatives so that the customer can help the organization design products, using social media such as blogs to educate the customer, social tools to create and retain relationships and a host more applications. I would say, satisfied customers drive business success – and business success enables investment to satisfy customers!

4. Financial perspective: financial-related data, such as risk assessment and cost-benefit data. The Financial perspective is satisfied when we are able to capture financial information to report on the period. In general key questions: What revenue and profit do we want to achieve? What costs do we have to cut? For instance in Digital Marketing, we determine which numbers we will be interested in seeing at the end of the financial period and how we will quantify the success of the implementation and applications. 

Scorecard Benefits 

1- Obtain timely information to update its strategy. 

2- Balance long-term and short-term measures and evaluate every part of the firm and how each contributes toward accomplishing selected goals. 

3- It helps firms leverage their relationships with partners and supply chain members. 

4- Go beyond financial metrics in measuring many different aspects that lead to effective and efficient performance. 

5- Creates a long-term perspective for company sustainability Forces companies to decide what is important and translate those decisions into measurable outcomes that all employees can understand. 

6- A great communication tool because employees can use the scorecard as a guide to coordinate their efforts. 

7- Support employee evaluation in that individual performance can be tied to successful outcomes on the metrics. 

8- A way to measure intangible as well as tangible assets. 

To sum up, I would say “All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they are now getting. If we want different results, we must change the way we do things.” .. Tom Northup

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