First and foremost, SEO is definitely not dead. You shouldn’t give up on that yet. But it has changed in the last five years.

For instance, if you are out prowling for links and looking for high PR do-follow links, then you are probably wasting your time. But if you are focusing on placing your unique articles on high profile, high traffic websites where they will be seen, then that is a much better way to go about link building in 2012.

Social media is another online marketing tactic that isn’t going away. However, don’t just sign up for a bunch of social media websites and forgetting about them. Stick the large sites with current traction and high traffic. For most businesses, that means Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. If there are niche-specific sites that you can focus on, join them too.

Whichever social media websites you decide to join, stay active.

Video marketing and mobile marketing are two other online content strategies that are gaining ground and look to be effective in 2012.

Online marketing hasn’t changed much in the last five to ten years, but it has changed. Make note of the changes and keep promoting your content far and wide.

• Notifying bloggers that you are not a spammer
• Making your name and website more brandable
• Easily identifies you as authentic everywhere you go
• Unifies your blogging, commenting, and social media presence across all channels

Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. It’s easy to set up. You just head over to Gravatar.com and upload your photograph or image – the one you want to be associated with a particular e-mail address. It’s important to note that if you own several websites and have different e-mail addresses for managing those websites and often comment on blogs, forums and social media sites under your various names, then you can have more than one gravatar. You can have one for each e-mail address you own because the gravatar is associated with a single e-mail address.

Every time you enter your e-mail address into a comment form, your gravatar will appear beside your name. This makes you recognizable to other commenters while branding you online and shows that you are a legitimate poster, not a spammer.

I highly recommend that you set up your own gravatar – especially if you blog regularly and comment on other blogs regularly.

First, more and more companies are moving some of their marketing budgets to online marketing tactics and strategies. Those companies that are already using online marketing channels are beginning to spend more on those channels. There is a reason for these trends. Online marketing works.

However, there are quite a few online marketing channels that may or may not work for your business. It’s important to focus on the tactics and strategies that have the greatest potential.

When you plan your Internet marketing strategy, focus first on the least expensive tactics that historically have the greatest return on investment. Obviously, if you don’t have a website, then you’ll need to focus on website design before anything else. But then what?

Your next step should be to improve your website’s search engine optimization. A well optimized website can give your business a boost that lasts for years.

Pay per click marketing is another online marketing channel that delivers results. It might cost more in the short term than other marketing tactics, but you’ll often see more immediate results, which can be very encouraging if you are new to Internet marketing.

The idea is not to make a big bold leap from off line marketing to online marketing, but to gradually shift your marketing dollars from staid old ineffective strategies off line to better, more effective strategies online. By integrating your online marketing efforts with your successful off line marketing efforts, your overall marketing strategy should be stronger and more effective.

I like the last paragraph of the article cited above:

If the Harvard Study is right and “peer influence is virtually nonexistent,” that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the social media towel. All it means is that you may need to adjust your thinking. Instead of pushing to bring new lambs into the fold, sell to the ones you already have corralled.

First, it’s long been a business principle that it’s easier to upsell to current clients than it is to sell to prospects. Nothing new there.

But the study that says that people become friends because they are already interested in the same stuff more than people interest their friends in new things isn’t really new information, is it? I mean, isn’t that how it works in the real world? You become friends with people who have similar interests. You may, once in a while, talk a friend into taking an interest in something new on the basis of your existing relationship. So what?

The so what here is that, though rare, social influence does happen. While it might be savvy marketing to put some money into that influence, there are more cost effective online marketing techniques. And they’re not hard to find.

1. Paid search still packs a powerful punch – I don’t care where you live, paid search has the greatest potential to drive targeted traffic to your website fast. And then you can reap an ROI that is difficult to match anywhere else. I’d say paid search is better than TV and radio – especially for effective local marketing.
2. You can’t separate local from mobile – Mobile marketing has arrived in full force and if you think about it you’ve likely seen people use their cell phones to find businesses to shop in as well as to find products to purchase locally. While people may use the Internet to research purchases, they still would rather purchase locally. Mobile marketing makes that so much easier.
3. Localization and local awareness - The big trend is for big businesses to customize their marketing for local geographic markets. Modern online technology makes that possible. A huge part of that effort is with local smartphone apps. Location-based apps make local marketing easier and local shopping better.

Online marketing is getting a lot better for small businesses and making the world a better place for consumers.

Unfortunately, some businesses – big businesses, in particular – are still trying to play the mass media game. But it doesn’t work. Not in conversations.

The Internet allows consumers and marketers to enter into a conversation where they can mutually agree to terms that benefit both parties. That’s what commerce has traditionally been based on. Both parties receiving a benefit in exchange for a benefit. And that’s what the Internet fosters as well. You and your clients can enter into transactions that lead to mutual benefit. But it starts with a conversation.

Online, conversations generally take place through social media.

If you’ll open up accounts at the popular social media hot spots – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ – then you can enter into conversations with your customers, or prospective customers. Then you can take those conversations to your blog and ultimately to your internal communications – videoconferencing, phone, e-mail, etc.

Don’t overlook the power of conversational marketing. It is a two-way street that offers untold benefits in the digital age.

The sponsors of this movement – American Express – are offering free in-store signage and e-marketing materials. Of course, today is the day so it might be too late to take advantage of some of these offers. But there’s always next year.

Meanwhile, the page was set up to help small businesses take advantage of holiday shopping. Other resources available through the page include:

• Share An Offer – Which allows you to create an offer for your small business that shoppers can take advantage of.
• Create A Facebook Page – Free.
• Create A Video
• Get Twitter Followers
• Create A Buzz On LinkedIn – One of the best bets for small business owners.

You can also join the Small Business Saturday e-mail list and forum. That might be a good way to promote your business today, especially if you do any online marketing.

The event is sponsored by American Express. If you accept American Express, why not take advantage of Small Business Saturday. If not this year, then look for it next year.

Let’s take a look at the functions (purposes) for each of these efforts.

Search engine optimization – The purpose for SEO is to get your content to rank in the search engines so that you can increase your website visitor traffic and convert it into sales. That’s obviously an important task, but if all you did was SEO in the way of marketing your content and your website, then you’d be woefully undershooting your target.

Online branding – Online branding has a much wider reach. It can, and should, include SEO. But it should also include your social media initiatives and everything else you do – online and off line.

If you think of online branding as a part of overall reputation management strategy and your overall business strategy, then it is far more important than SEO, which is simply part of your overall marketing strategy. Granted, it’s an important part, but it’s not the only part worth considering.

In terms of online marketing, everything you do is a part of your branding effort. That includes SEO.

Here are 5 incredible sources for website traffic no matter what kind of business you are running online:

1. Search Engines – Search engines are still the No. 1 driver of traffic to most websites online today. That’s why we always recommend that you dedicate a portion of your online marketing budget to search engine optimization.
2. Pay Per Click Advertising – PPC ads are immediate. You can start a campaign today and see business results today. Yes, you pay for the clicks. But if you do it right, it will be profitable. And the results are instant.
3. Newsletter - An e-mail newsletter is one of the most profitable investments you can make. After more than 20 years, it’s still one of the most effective online marketing tools. You can take e-mail subscriptions right from your website and deliver your newsletter electronically more cost efficiently than any other kind of online marketing.
4. Videos – Online video marketing is just as effective as TV advertising and much more cost effective.
5. Social Media Marketing - The best thing about social media is it allows you to build relationships off site, then you can drive that traffic to your website for the close.

Use these five online marketing strategies together for incredible traffic generation results.

With phone call tracking, you can track your incoming phone calls no matter where they come from. You’ll never miss another phone call. You can block the calls you don’t want to get. And you can calculate your ROI, record your phone calls, and track local as well as international calls. All at no additional cost to you.

Never wonder how effective your Internet marketing campaign was ever again. Whether you want to implement a PPC campaign, a social media campaign, or a video marketing campaign, you can track your incoming phone calls.

Inbound call tracking allows you to measure the results of your Internet marketing campaigns and determine if they are successful or not. If your marketing efforts succeed, then you can re-run them another time. Or learn from your mistakes.

Try inbound phone call tracking today. Use an 800 number and measure your total ROI so that your online marketing efforts can be more effective.

In the early days of online marketing, you had directories and search engines. There were these things called web rings, which on one uses any more. And there were display ads and articles, which was mostly about SEO. But that’s about it.

Around 1998, things began to change. Google was born. SEO took on greater prominence – for about five years.

In 2003, things began to change again. Blogs were becoming popular, social media was gaining ground, and PPC was big and strong. PPC was not about SEO It was about reaching your target market quickly and effectively. It still is.

But in the last couple of years we’ve seen the growth of mobile apps, QR codes, e-book readers, and a number of other emerging technologies that threaten to expand the Internet marketer’s reach outside of traditional online strategies like SEO, link building and social media. And I believe these opportunities are going to grow more prominent.

When it comes to online marketing, focus on what’s important for reaching your target market. SEO is important, but it’s one channel. Don’t get wrapped around a tree looking for the forest.

The big question is, what exactly does it take to build a Web business? What components are necessary?

Here are 5 necessary components to building a Web business in 2011.

1. A website – It can be a simple website or a huge monolith. Either way, you need a website. Your first step in building a Web business is to design a powerful website.
2. Search engine marketing - SEM is a multi-component endeavor that includes paid search marketing and organic search marketing. With organic search you could be building links, which we call off-site SEO, or you could be increasing your on-site content value through blogging, articles, or other on-page content.
3. Social media – Promote your content through social media where you’ll build inbound links and your relationship.
4. Video marketing – Video marketing has become a mainstay of building an online business too. If you do it right, it will pay huge dividends.
5. App development – App development can refer to iphone and other mobile apps or social media apps like those you find on Facebook. Either way, app development is becoming a huge marketing channel online.

What ways do you use for building your Web business? Do weigh in.

One online prospector likens the process to gardening. Here’s why:

• Prospecting is like “growing,” not “killing” – a reference to the war analogy
• You can’t control everything. Embrace uncertainty because when you are a gardener you deal with Mother Nature and no one controls Mother Nature. You can’t control your prospects either. Nurture them instead.
• Prepare to be disappointed and surprised. Sometimes what you think is a sure thing turns sour while other things you didn’t think would happen turn into huge successes. That’s cool.
• Take out the weeds. These are bad employees, worse customers, and other things that can kill your business.
• Things change. Embrace the change. You can get by without that “necessary” component of your business. Be prepared for the worst and deal with it in reality.
• Be persistent. Gardening is a little-bit-every-day thing. Never give up on it. If you do, your garden will die (and so will your fruit). Your business is just like a garden. Be persistent.

When you consider that prospecting for new clients is more like gardening than war, you’ll spend some time nurturing your prospects and treating them like a harvest.

1. Your blog and website – I’m assuming they’re one entity. Your blog can be on the same domain as your website, but if yours has its own domain, then that’s two channels.
2. Search engine organic listings
3. Article directories
4. Knol pages
5. HubPages
6. Squidoo lenses
7. Pay per click ads
8. Twitter
9. Facebook
10. LinkedIn
11. Google+
12. YouTube – Video marketing has reached its time.
13. Article directories
14. Foursquare
15. Google Places
16. Bing Maps
17. Groupon
18. Forums
19. Niche online communities
20. Website and blog directories
21. Mobile apps

Not all of these marketing channels will be for you, but you can certainly find a dozen or so that you can employ effectively for your business. Your first step to finding the right online marketing channels is to analyze your business and determine where your customers are. Where you’ll find your customers, that’a good place to start.

Get a consultation with a Web marketing expert today. Discover the best online marketing channels for you.

When it comes to looking up phone numbers and addresses, many people today will go online before consulting the traditional Yellow Pages. And a website, of course, is a wonderful thing to have for lots of reasons.

Traditional marketing collateral like business cards, brochures, billboards, and radio and television advertising are still very effective in reaching the right market. But often, the most effective off line marketers are marrying these tactics up with successful online marketing campaigns that include but not limited to

• PPC advertising
• Website development
• Video marketing
• E-mail marketing
• Search engine optimization
• and social media marketing

When you combine effective traditional marketing efforts with effective Internet marketing, you increase your own branding and marketing power exponentially.

Many TV advertisers, for instance, plug their websites and social media profiles in the ad. You can do the same in your radio spots and other offline marketing materials.

Don’t give up on traditional marketing just yet. Just add it to your online marketing efforts for greater effectiveness.

With postage expected to go up to 45 cents at the end of this year, direct mail marketers can’t afford to cling to the paradigms of the past. It’s high time to move into the future.

And what is the future? Well, I think we can safely say it is now.

Internet marketing is here to stay, and it’s replacing the old paradigms. If you wait 15 years before you start on your plan for marketing online, then your business will be as dead as the U.S. postal service. You should be online right now, and you should be marketing your business online right now – even if you still use direct mail marketing.

Smart marketers measure the times as much as they measure their own efforts. It is clear that the U.S. postal service, and direct mail, are moving into the past. The question is, what are you going to do about it – for your business?

Here are the steps you need to take in your online marketing campaign. Some of the steps can be performed in any order while others should be performed in the proper order stated. I’ll let you know when it’s OK to veer into a different direction or rearrange the order.

• Competitive research – Start with understanding where your competition is and what they are up to. Someone was in your space before you. Find out who they are and what they’ve done and are doing.
• Keyword research – You should include keyword research along with competitive research, but it does extend beyond competitive intelligence. You want study the competition’s keywords, but you also want to do your own independent research.
• Pay Per Click – PPC advertising will be your first test of your keywords. It’s fast and gets you the information you need quickly, plus you can drive instant sales with PPC.
• Search engine optimization – Next, take what you’ve learned from your competitive research, keyword research, and PPC and build a solid SEO campaign. You can do SEO before PPC, but I recommend performing PPC first so you can us it to test your keywords.
• Social media marketing – You want to save your social media campaign for later in the game. It’s a lower threshold type of marketing. It’s good for branding and building relationships, but you want to get your SEO and PPC going first so that you can use them to test your keywords and strategies.
• Video marketing – With videos, you can market with them before social media or after. It makes little difference, but you don’t want to start your video marketing campaign before SEO or PPC.
• Link building – Other forms of marketing like articles, blogs, and link building efforts are ongoing. Start them as soon you get your SEO campaign going and don’t ever stop.

But there is hope. Online marketing is less expensive and, if done right, is much more effective. That’s why so many businesses have transferred their marketing and advertising budgets to online.

Here are 5 online marketing methods that are outpacing their offline counterparts:

1. Pay Per Click – Pay per click advertising is the online equivalent to some forms of print advertising. The difference is you pay only when a desired result takes place. It can be less expensive and deliver a higher ROI.
2. Social Networking – Offline, you go to business functions. You often have to buy dinner, pay for transportation costs, business cards, and other incidentals. Online, you just show up. And talk to people. Make friends and contacts. Sell them stuff. The time commitment is higher, but it’s a lot easier on the budget.
3. Video Marketing – Liken it to TV advertising. Do you really want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on 30-second spots that disappear with the money? Instead, pay for one video and it stays live online forever.
4. Website Design – Call them online billboards. Just like outdoor advertising, you have a limited space – your prospect’s browser window. Unlike outdoor billboards, that space can be expanded. And you can build many websites for less than the cost of a handful of billboards.
5. Search Engine Optimization – Sorry, but there is no offline equivalent to search engine optimization. Yet it’s still the most effective online marketing money can buy.

Try just one or incorporate them all into your marketing plans, but online marketing is where it’s at.

It’s not as simple as it may seem. Local online marketing and global marketing actually have a lot in common – online, at least.

For instance, both employ search engine optimization. You can also market both a local business and a global business through social media. You can also drive traffic to a local website as well as a global reach website through pay per click advertising. Virtually any type of online marketing tactic that can be used for one can be used for the other.

All of that said, however, local businesses do have other options that global businesses don’t. Online Yellow Pages is one example of an opportunity that local business have that global businesses can’t leverage. Craigslist classifieds is another marketing tactic that seems to work better for local businesses.

And there are global marketing tactics that can be used for local online marketing but that may need a little bit of creative tweaking for effectiveness.

When you’re ready to build your website and take the online marketing plunge, find a consultant who can help you decide whether local or global is more appropriate for your situation.

The first lesson is that you can use negative news to make a positive statement. What is Al Qaeda’s “negative” news? Our leader is dead. And the positive news is? Even in death, he’s going to stick it to the enemy.

You don’t have to agree with the message to note its effectiveness. The evidence of its effectiveness is the fact that it made international news.

When any organization has something to say about public events, that’s effective marketing. And the fact that this message was delivered by video makes it even more powerful. Note: Video marketing can be ten times more effective as traditional content marketing.

Another lesson we can pull from Al Qaeda’s attempt to remain in the public eye is that you have to act fast. It hasn’t been that long since the U.S. killed the terrorist leader. Ayman al-Zawahri wasted no time in getting his organization’s message out to all who are interested.

Finally, keep telling your story. No matter what. Al Qaeda could very easily have hung up their hats when their charismatic leader was vanquished. Instead, they’re continuing to tell their story. You should too.