Web Design, SEO & Online Reputation Management in El Paso TX | The AGIMS Blog

BlueRiseMedia.com wrote an excellent blog on why Internet Marketing is so important to the success of businesses:

Here are the top 10 reasons why Internet Marketing is so important to the success of businesses:

1. Online Branding

The primary reason for beginning an Internet Marketing campaign is to increase product awareness. As they are browsing the web or performing internet searches, consumers may come across the business name or logo and become interested in what the company has to offer.

2. Meet Changing Demands

Television, radio and print ads still have their places in the marketing industry, but with technology on the rise, more and more consumers have access to the web. By beginning an Internet Marketing campaign, businesses can keep up with this ever-changing technology.

3. Consumer Preferences

Online purchases have been increasing sharply over the last several years. This is due in part to busy lifestyles and the convenience of getting information and ordering products via the Internet. Business owners can capitalize on this convenience by providing consumers what they want—instant access to products and information.

4. Cost Efficiency

Internet Marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods of advertisement. The costs associated with starting a website, and then, using marketing articles or Social Media to establish an online presence is minimal when compared to the costs of traditional forms of advertising.

5. Increase Website Traffic

The use of articles or Social Media as a marketing strategy will undoubtedly drive traffic to a business’s website. The more people who visit the website, the better the likelihood of closing more sales and generating more interest in the product becomes.

6. Increase Sales

By providing consumers with the opportunity to purchase products online rather than physically driving to a location or sending an order form by mail, impulse purchasing power increases. This results in more revenue for businesses and an excellent return on their investments (ROI).

7. Always Available to Consumers

Work schedules and certain lifestyles can have an impact on consumers’ abilities to physically go shopping during normal business hours. By using Internet Marketing techniques, businesses can give consumers a 24-hour outlet for finding the products they want and need.

8. Customized Offerings

Advertising online is a very effective way to provide customized offerings to a very targeted demographic. Internet Marketing strategies will usually call for advertisements to be placed in such a way that the target audience will see them and respond.

9. Maintain Communication

As part of any good Internet Marketing campaign, it is important to include landing pages on the website in which consumers can enter their email addresses to subscribe to newsletters. These newsletters keep consumers interested, even after they have purchased a product from the business. They also work to help close sales when consumers may be unsure of their next move.

10. Improve Credibility

Maintaining an online presence via Internet Marketing is a great way to keep up with the times and provide consumers with all of the opportunities they need 24 hours a day. With a bit of time and effort—and very little investment—business owners can realize success beyond their wildest dreams.

by Amanda McMullen, Demand Media

With the rise of social media, many small businesses have had to alter their operational strategies to adapt. Social media affects business of all sizes in several different ways. Because of social media, businesses must make their brands more personal, market their products differently and communicate with customers in new ways.

About Social Media

Social media websites and applications allow users create online communities to share content, such as videos, personal messages, pictures, ideas and other information about themselves. Most forms of social media accept individual users as well as organizations, such as businesses and nonprofit groups. A business’s social media profile may include links to its website, contact information and pictures of products or services the business offers.

Marketing

Businesses are constantly finding new ways to implement their marketing strategies through social media. Prior to the development of social media platforms, businesses relied on fliers sent through the mail, television commercials and word of mouth. While these marketing tactics are still useful, businesses can now use social media to instantly inform consumers about sales, the arrival of new products and exclusive promotions. Consumers can connect with their favorite retailers online to stay informed about new developments.

Communication

Social media also affects the way many retail businesses communicate with their customers. Instead of calling the store, writing a letter or sending an email, many customers prefer to communicate with a business using its social media profile. Customers may send private messages to the business, or they may post information publicly. Customers use social media to provide both positive and negative feedback about products or customer service. If a customer posts this information online, it can affect the opinions of other consumers who are connected to the business’s profile. It’s important for small businesses, especially, to be aware of reviews and other details posted online. Responding quickly on Facebook or Twitter, for example, to resolve a customer problem can actually foster loyalty and improve the company’s reputation.

Branding

Social media affects the way customers perceive a business’s brand. Before social media became popular, most customers considered businesses to be impersonal entities. However, social media opened up a new level of dialogue between a business and its consumers. The type of consumers who connect with a business using social media influences the way other potential consumers perceive the business’s brand. For example, if a business that sells sporting goods connects mainly with consumers in their 20s, other consumers are more likely to associate the brand with that particular age demographic.

Article Source: http://bit.ly/1676AKy

SEO is short for search engine optimization or search engine optimizer.

Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.

SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site. The higher a website naturally ranks in organic results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user.

SEO is typically a set of “white hat” best practices that webmasters and Web content producers follow to help them achieve a better ranking in search engine results. Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO explains the ranking factors in more depth, in a tutorial providing tips and advice on implementing them.

Article Source: http://bit.ly/xOFpV

So what the heck is Inbound Marketing?

Rick Burnes wrote a great piece on HubSpot’s blog that clearly explains what Inbound Marketing is and why it’s important.  Everyone is talking about creating content, SEO, and social media.  Inbound marketing ties these pieces together in a cohesive and meaningful way.  Not rocket science, but well conceived and articulate article.  Here’s Rick’s definition of Inbound Marketing:

Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.

Full post is here:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4416/Inbound-Marketing-the-Next-Phase-of-Marketing-on-the-Web.aspx

Article Source : www.53tech.com

Video Production

The driving inspiration behind AGI’s creative team is to create dramatic visual art that creates extreme results for the client. By doing so we are constantly pursing the excellence needed to create work that cuts through the clutter. We use the latest technology for the highest quality production.

Search Engine Optimization

Here at AGI we know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process that improves a website’s visibility in the organic search results. When your website comes up in the first few spots in the search results, you have a much better chance that people searching will visit your site. The more visitors you get, the more potential customers you will have. SEO is very important if you want your website to be found. We have the tools you need to get started and improve your website’s visibility.

Online Reputation Management

At AGI Online Reputation Management (ORM) is just what it sounds like, managing your reputation online. It is vital to your business to know what is being said, whether it is good or bad. Comments and reviews have the potential to be detrimental, and it’s important you are aware of them, and handle them properly. When a potential customer does a search and stumbles upon a bad review, they are very likely to skip over you and move to the next. We possess the knowledge that you need to manage your online reputation and make sure you don’t get left behind.

Public Relations

AGI Marketing publicity involves promoting a product or service through the mass media. By writing feature articles, customer testimonials, and new product releases and getting these placed as editorial in consumer or trade publications (online and print), brand awareness can be built over time and a large quantity of superior leads can be generated.

We’ll start by talking about having a professional web design project  Having a useful and functional website, regardless of complexity, is becoming increasingly important to the success of business. I say that because nearly 100 percent of business interactions begin online. Consumers are making buying decisions before they walk in the door or pick up the phone. Regardless of your motivation, chances are you too search online for solutions to problems.

Let’s face it, if you want to be found online as the solution to a problem, you need a sound website which likely includes a professional web design project at some point. The cool thing is a business doesn’t need a website with robust functionality to solve a consumer problem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to discourage you from creating a website with high quality content that provides value to the general public. The remarkable thing about being on the web is that you can have a very simple web presence that helps grow your business.

There are two benefits of having a professional web design:

It gives a business digital presence where consumers can find it

Provides a voice that the business can control

Presence

As I mentioned, the first benefit of a professional web design is that it gives your business a strong presence on the internet. It makes it possible for your business to be a part of the conversation. The inherent benefits in a website are 24/7 availability and worldwide distribution. Your website presence enables your business to start a conversation with consumers.  More importantly, your website enables you to be the answer to consumers’ questions.

Through the internet, billions of conversations take place every day. Every time a person reads, watches, or listens to content on a webpage, a conversation takes place. Without a solid website, your business isn’t a part of that conversation.

Voice

The second major benefit of a professional web design is that it gives the business a voice that it controls. The business has control, to some extent, on the brand and what it stands for. A good website adds value by providing information that helps solve a problem. Each business is unique, but at the end of the day, the reason someone visits your site is because they think your business can add value.  Whether they need to buy a product, book a service or are just looking for information, people generally look online before taking any offline action like a buying decision.

The key attributes of controlling the voice of your business website is that it informs, builds credibility, helps generates leads, provides insights via visitor data, potentially creates new revenue streams and it gives people a medium to continue the conversation with your business that doesn’t take place in the public eye.

I believe that every business should have a solid and functional website. A good website can take your business to the next level.

One of the main components that helps determine the success, or failure, of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is your keyword selection. Although this may not appear like much, choosing the right keyword to use for your website is one of the more grueling parts of the entire SEO process, especially if you aim to find one that will be most effective for your site’s search engine optimization.

When using keywords for SEO, you just need to follow a few simple steps in order to properly find the right keyword that will do the job. However, many website owners never stop to think about what their customers might be tapping into Google to try and find them.  In my experience, it takes awhile for new marketers to learn to think like the customer.  We will be going into this in depth in the Total Immersion Courses which are all about immersing you in this way of thinking so that it really sinks in and becomes part of you.  There are also a couple of things that you need to look out for in order to avoid any problems when trying to optimize your web page.

Make a list

The first thing that you should do if you want to be able to use keywords effectively is to start out by making a list of “key” keywords or phrases that are relevant to the content of your site, and by doing this, it can actually lead you to create or discover more keywords or phrases that may blossom from the original one that you have chosen.

Select key phrases or words

Once you’ve made a list, try to select ones that contain a “key” keyword or phrase that can help you identify your site’s content. Let’s say your site’s content is all about cars, using cars as a keyword won’t put you high up in the page ranking of search engines, especially since a lot of sites or pages have that as a keyword. Try to avoid using words or phrases that are too general, as this will not help improve your page ranking. By adding other key terms to your chosen keyword, such as “second-hand cars”, or “second-hand sports cars” will actually help improve your chances of going up higher in the page rankings. Just make sure that these are relevant to your site’s content.

Check your competition

It also helps if you took the time to search for keywords or phrases that your competition are using so that you can narrow down which ones to use, and which ones to avoid. There is no sense in using a type of keyword or phrase, such as “cars”, which a lot or most of your competition are using as well, and if their site’s are ranked high up in the search engine’s index, then you might have a difficult time going up against that.

Use your location

You can also improve your chances of getting a much better page ranking result if you incorporate your location to the keyword or phrase that you are trying to use. Let’s say your business is located somewhere in El Paso, by simply adding the word “El Paso” to your keyword selection (“El Paso second-hand sports cars”), you can fare better in your page ranking. However, this type of method usually entails that people are planning on seeing you in person when they do searches like this, so make sure that you only utilize this technique if you are open to the idea of them visiting you in person.

Use your niche

Always try to choose the keyword that you specialize in, or at least the one that offers you with the most profit. Keep in mind that you want to offer the keyword that best describes your business, but if the search volume of users is leaning towards one that isn’t your main product, then you can actually opt to use that keyword instead, just as long as that keyword is still related or relevant to your site’s content.

Quality social media content can set you apart from competitors,  keep your brand in customer’s “top of mind” and enhance your positioning as a leader provided that content is the center of your online marketing strategy. Setting clear goals through different aspects of social media content management is a prerequisite for a successful online strategy.

Platforms

Blogposts, status updates, videos, contests, tweets, poll questions, info graphics and photos… Choose responsibly the ideal social media channel and always consider your business objectives. Monitor your audience’s presence and activities so as to avoid creating an account to every available social channel without a clear focus.

Audience

Define your audience by asking: Why, when, who? When you know the answer you can create your brand’s online personality and communicate your point of view as you interact with your fans/followers accordingly.

Topics

Stimulate interest through a varied, yet focused topic selection: education, entertainment, inspiration, promotion or a combination of all. Use how-to suggestions, questions, links to valuable sources, other people’s sources and promotional content in a valuable mixture.

Tone of Voice

Establish yourself as a leader through selective content and gain followers’ trust. Stay in consistence with your brand’s vision, image and character and always be original.

Advertising

Social platforms-networks are channels for promotional-advertising content that should only be expressed in a subtle and intelligent manner. Focus finally on a constant user-engagement by stimulating reciprocal activity attracting users to share life experiences in connection to your brand.

Important note: Always be true and original when it comes to your social media content!

There is a new and upcoming buzzword in the SEO industry – Online reputation management. Unlike the other marketing services such as email marketing, article marketing, search engine optimization, and social media optimization, online management of reputation involves tending to the damage caused by some online marketing campaign that has the ability to reach a lot of potential customers. This kind of campaign may be initiated by the customer when your product or service fails to meet their requirements.

There is a famous adage that it takes years to build a good reputation for yourself but it takes just a few minutes to gain a bad one. Remember, it is true even in the case of online reputation of your company. You may get employ different seo strategies in order to build a good ranking of your website but just a few bad comments or a dedicated campaign by a customer to express his dissatisfaction over your product or service. In today’s market, internet is huge thing and has a huge impact on the customers. You need to pay attention to what is being said about your business on the different news sites, blogs, forums, message boards, and other networking sites.

Importance Of Online Reputation Management

Though handling your online reputation may prove to be quite tricky sometimes, yet it has to be done as it has to be done to build goodwill for your company. The importance of online reputation management can never be undermined. It can be illustrated by following pointers:

A bad online reputation can make the customer lose confidence in the company. This may create a bad impression in the minds of your clients regarding your products and services.

You need to have a positive brand image on the internet to attract more customers. This is because in today’s world, most of the world trust web to research about the product they want to buy.

A positive online reputation management program helps in building trust, sales and confidence among the customers which will in turn increase the profitability and the revenue growth for your company.

These are the reasons online reputation is so important for your company. However, managing it can prove to be quite difficult at times as bad comments can creep up from any corner of the world wide web. In order to help you in the same, there are some tools that you can employ that will help you in knowing what is being said about your business online. One of the most popular reputation monitoring tools is the Google alerts tool. In addition, there is also a tool that provides alerts on an hourly basis through email regarding what is being said on the twitter. Thus, the best way to understand online reputation management is to see the dissatisfied customer as villain, out to destroy the victim or the company when the online marketing company who is the hero saves the day by removing the threat from the search engines that act as battleground.

What is Internet Marketing and How Can Online Marketing Work for Me?

What is Internet Marketing?

Depending on whom you ask, the term Internet marketing can mean a variety of things. At one time, Internet marketing consisted mostly of having a website or placing banner ads on other websites. On the other end of the spectrum, there are loads of companies telling you that you can make a fortune overnight on the Internet and who try to sell you some form of “Internet marketing program”.

Today, Internet marketing, or online marketing, is evolving into a broader mix of components a company can use as a means of increasing sales – even if your business is done completely online, partly online, or completely offline. The decision to use Internet marketing as part of a company’s overall marketing strategy is strictly up to the company of course, but as a rule, Internet marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of nearly every company’s marketing mix. For some online businesses, it is the only form of marketing being practiced.

Internet Marketing Objectives

Essentially, Internet marketing is using the Internet to do one or more of the following:

Communicate a company’s message about itself, its products, or its services online.
Conduct research as to the nature (demographics, preferences, and needs) of existing and potential customers.
Sell goods, services, or advertising space over the Internet.
Internet Marketing Components

Components of Internet marketing (or online marketing) may include:

Setting up a website , consisting of text, images and possibly audio and video elements used to convey the company’s message online, to inform existing and potential customers of the features and benefits of the company’s products and/or services. The website may or may not include the ability to capture leads from potential customers or directly sell a product or service online. Websites can be the Internet equivalents of offline brochures or mail order catalogs and they are a great way to establish your business identity.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which is marketing a website online via search engines, either by improving the site’s natural (organic) ranking through search engine optimization (SEO), buying pay-per-click (PPC) ads or purchasing pay-for-inclusion (PFI) listings in website directories, which are similar to offline yellow page listings.
Email marketing, which is a method of distributing information about a product or service or for soliciting feedback from customers about a product or service through Email. Email addresses of customers and prospective customers may be collected or purchased. Various methods are used, such as the regular distribution of newsletters or mass mailing of offers related to the company’s product or services. Email marketing is essentially the online equivalent of direct mail marketing.
Banner advertising, which is the placement of ads on a website for a fee. The offline equivalent of this form of online marketing would be traditional ads in newspapers or magazines.
Online press releases, which involve placing a newsworthy story about a company, its website, its people, and/or its products/services with on online wire service.
Blog marketing, which is the act of posting comments, expressing opinions or making announcements in a discussion forum and can be accomplished either by hosting your own blog or by posting comments and/or URLs in other blogs related to your product or service online.
Article marketing, which involves writing articles related to your business and having them published online on syndicated article sites. These articles then have a tendency to spread around the Internet since the article services permit re-publication provided that all of the links in the article are maintained. Article marketing can result in a traffic boost for your website, and the distribution of syndicated articles can promote your brand to a wide audience.
Social media marketing, which can involve social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and social bookmarking sites like Digg.
Internet Marketing and Home Business

Of all of the components of Internet marketing, prospective customers and clients expect a business to have a website. In fact, not having one could raise a red flag to a prospect. Online usage has become so pervasive today, many prospects might easily choose to do business with a company that they can get up-to-date information on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Even a business that only has very local customers, such as a single location restaurant or shoe store can benefit from having a website and engaging in online marketing. And, those businesses whose customers are not restricted to a geographical area might have a difficult time finding an alternate method of attracting customers that offers the reasonably low expense and worldwide reach of a Web presence.

Because of the “virtual” nature of most home businesses, websites, if not an absolute necessity, can certainly provide benefits to a home business operator. Since most home-based businesses don’t have a physical location, a website provides an inexpensive means for prospects to get to know what you do or what you sell and can even be a “storefront” for selling goods and services directly.

The Internet has greatly enabled home businesses to prosper because of the reasonably low cost to start and maintain a web presence. Therefore, Internet marketing should be part of your business plan and your marketing strategy.