Canadian Business’ Paul Brent recently suggested in Dewing It Alone that the power of social networks could render traditional marketing departments obsolete. It certainly seems to be putting the nail in the coffin.

Marketing spend is rapidly shifting online as businesses are realizing they can get more bang and reach through the Internet. To be sure, the Internet has already killed the old music institution and transformed TV. Case in point: the appeal and effectiveness of traditional 30-second commercials are fading fast, and new players and methods are taking over.

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Adding a blog to your website is a simple and affordable way to enhance your online marketing efforts. By following a few guidelines, you can create a blog that helps strengthen your connection with both current and potential clients, while improving your search engine rankings.

Add personality to your brand. A regularly updated blog introduces your website visitors to the real people behind your business. Since blogs are often written in a casual, conversational style, you can let your personality shine through. Don’t be afraid to express your professional opinion on new developments in your industry, offer useful tips, or share something entertaining in your blog posts.

Demonstrate your knowledge. Blogging can also help you establish yourself as a source for information on current developments in your industry. If your blog content is relevant and well researched, your visitors will view you as an authority and keep coming back for more. They might even share links to your blog with their social networks, increasing your visibility among potential clients.

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You want to grow your business, and raising its profile in the community seems like the perfect strategy to get more visitors to your website. But, be warned, if you launch a public relations campaign prematurely you could be doing more harm to your business than good.

Before you start pitching to media outlets and bloggers, there are a few things you need to consider:

First Impressions Matter

Studies show you have just a few seconds to make a positive first impression on the Web. Your website must have engaging web copy a friendly, pleasing design. Anything less and you’ll lose potential visitors. Installing a user tracking system like Google Analytics will help you determine your visitors’ behavior. Heed the results. Pay attention to how long people are staying on your website. If your current visitors aren’t engaging with your website, why would media outlets and bloggers bother to stick around?

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Google, Facebook, MySpace have all done it. Now another player, Yahoo, is dipping its toes into the self-service ad industry.

Yahoo recently unveiled its self-service option for display advertising aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses. The display ad solution is called Yahoo My Display Ads, and according to Yahoo it “puts display advertising within reach for businesses of all sizes.”

Should small businesses jump on board and start advertising with Yahoo My Display Ads?

To get the scoop on Yahoo’s latest venture, we chatted with Tamara Brooks, co-owner of Vancouver-based October 17 Media. Tamara is a seasoned marketing professional, having working in online marketing and the branding industry for roughly 12 years. With her business partner Brenda Cadman, October 17 Media has worked alongside clients such as Future Shop, Fitness Town, Canadian Gene Cure Foundation, Leahy Music, the District of West Vancouver, Homeworks Services Inc, Pennzoil Quaker State US, NAPA Canada and DDB Canada.

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So, your shiny new website marketing copy is finally in place. Congratulations! Even better, that same marketing copy is starting to bring in business. (Must be all those precise keywords and cleverly phrased calls to action.)

Before you amortize your investment, consider how those carefully crafted words can work for your business in other places. Repurposing your website marketing copy will:

• Reinforce your brand identity
• Establish consistent messaging
• Increase customer recognition

It will also give you more than your money’s worth.

Here are 10 possible ways to repurpose your website marketing copy so it works overtime for your company, online and offline.

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A prospect this week asked us “what’s really the difference” between an optimized website and a non-optimized website. He figured it was a bunch of ‘cyber hype’.

I explained the difference is between the two is actively promoting and just existing.

Optimized Websites

A search engine optimized website is a virtual ambassador that promotes organizations 24/7/365. It works tirelessly without the need for breaks or benefits. And considering approximately 85% of all new traffic to websites arrive via search engines (namely Google), an optimized website is likely to be your most productive and valuable salesperson.

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Personalized Internet marketing equals profits. Online shoppers are drawn to ads that relate to them, according to a new study released by ChoiceStream.

Up to 58% of frequent web shoppers are more likely to click on a customer-centric ad, and the more they spend online—the more interested they are in personalization.

Results from a webinar panel survey released by ChoiceStream last year indicate approximately 90% of ecommerce professionals believe personalization can increase sales, This information gives business owners a compelling reason to rethink their online content.

Both organic and paid search results can increase your revenues dramatically. But which is worth more?

Recent earning reports reveal Google-owned websites (mainly search results) generated revenues of $3.40 billion in the first quarter of 2008, equating to $37.7 million per day. This reflects what it’s worth to be listed on Google’s first result page.

Meanwhile, an iProspect study indicated 72.3% of Google search engine users choose natural search results over paid search results. Why? Organic search results are deemed more relevant and trustworthy.

In fact, studies by Enquiro and iProspect revealed that 60.5% to 70.0% of users trust organic results, compared to just 30% to 39.5% of users that trust paid results.

Both organic and paid online marketing are powerful tools. But with web users trusting and clicking organic search results much more often, organic search results have greater value.

Don’t get lazy with search engine spiders, or they’ll bite you.

A long-time client contacted Webcopyplus to find out why their high rankings went downhill. In a matter of two months, they went from page one to falling off the radar for a couple of lucrative search terms. Their Google PageRank, indicating Google’s trust in their website, also dropped from 5/10 to 3/10.

We reviewed their web writing and meta data, and both checked out. Their inbound links were also relatively stable.

Upon further inspection, it was discovered that they were using duplicate web writing on many blog posts.

Google doesn’t like duplicate content. It’s considered a spam or black hat SEO tactic, and can result in dropped rankings, or even elimination from the search engine altogether.

A simple way to find out if your website has been penalized is to search for your domain name on Google. If your site doesn’t appear as the first result, there’s a good chance you’ve been penalized.

And if Google can’t find any page of your site if you search for “site:yourdomain.com” then it’s almost certain your site’s been knocked off its index.

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Blogging is a great way to increase your search engine rank because it packs your site with relevant keywords and gives reason for Googlebots to return and feed on your fresh content.

Getting incoming links is also one of the best ways to raise your blog profile. Here’s how:

Comment on Other Blogs

Pick ones with authority that are as relevant as possible to your content. Leave your URL and be complimentary to entice reciprocal comments.

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