Black Hat SEO is one marketing technique used by various businesses and companies today. With the aid of the available tools via the Internet, one company may market its’ products and services getting higher rankings on search engines with little sweat.

JCPenney.com recently took this route getting them a lot of negative attention and losing them a lot of ground against their competition after being caught by search engines like Google.

This strategy sounds too good to be true, and for good reason — with the unethical ways in the Black Hat world, you should be aware of the consequences that may arise.

Love placing lots of keywords on your posts?

Too much keyword stuffing is one negative online marketing technique. Search engines will definitely read your posts and create your rankings, but these results are not for good. With unnecessary keywords littered around your site, thoughts on your articles will sound redundant and seem beyond abnormal.

If we will add too many keywords on an article about CAKES, it may sound like this:

Cakes are sweet. The way of creating cakes is by the method of baking. Cakes are baked and cakes can be formed into various shapes and sizes. One cake can be a number of layered cakes, tall and round, and some cakes can just be a layer of cake, filled with sweet treats on top.

Hide those texts.

One way of adding keywords on the site without sounding like a redundant robot may be including them by the method of “hiding” the texts.

To hide is to match the color of the hidden texts with the website background. In this way, no one would recognize the hidden words, unless those will be highlighted. Unfortunately this strategy also provides short term effects. Search engines like Google has found its’ way in recognizing these hidden keywords and eventually, blocking the sites. Of course, you definitely wouldn’t go to a blocked site, right?

Hate SPAM?

The Spam in Black Hat SEO is not the one which is canned, flavorful and loved by many. In this article, we are referring to something annoying and definitely a no-no in web marketing.

Spamming is a way of flooding the engines with irrelevant information about your website. It can also be consisted of relevant ones, but the frequent use and too much sending of information is one annoying way which could irritate the web engines.

If you would frequently receive one message about a product you do not know and even need; and one which you did not even inquire for, how would you feel? Clicking the delete button on your inbox may sound easy, but the irritating and frequent receipt of the same email message over and over again will let you lose your patience. You will mark such item as a spam or you may even block the senders’ email address.

Aside from the strategies listed above, there are other online marketing techniques which are considered black hat. If you want fast and easier ways of promoting your website, hence, increase your web traffic, such black method is a sure thing. On the other hand, if you are a business who believes in the importance of ethical marketing, and who is looking forward in achieving long-term results, you will use the “white” techniques instead.

In late March, this video popped up on YouTube and spread like wildfire. The video portrays Rachel Sequoia pitching her groovy business plan to a group of venture capitalists. It’s almost immediately clear that Rachel is either (a) an insane hippie, or (b) the star of prank.

What helped the video reach viral status was the fact there was little connection to any company or brand. If this was a viral marketing prank then who was it for? Causing further confusion was the fact the event actually took place.

As TechCrunch pointed out, the entire thing was a sham – Raj Abhyanker of Trademarkia (a company that helps you file for a trademark-”ia”) and Dan Carlson of Spiral Moon (a video production company) put the whole thing together. There intentions still aren’t fully understood, but it gained them attention (and it’s most likely that was, in fact, the intent).

The video posed one flaw though — it wasn’t necessarily clear it was a hoax. Although that may be the exact reason it went as viral as it did, it’s “punch” (the pay-off for the creators) was minimized. Most people would watch it, pass it on and forget it.

The key to maximizing the potential of a video-gone-viral is engaging the audience instantly. Just like pitching to a group of venture capitalists in a room, you have moments to gain their attention before they make a decision. If you expect to gain anything from your work on a video you need to present it in easy-to-swallow pill form.

Even when someone convinces themselves they’re “ready to let go” this isn’t the end. From our experience, the thought or feeling of moving forward doesn’t mean you’re ready and it defiantly doesn’t mean you’re doing it right.

There’s a willingness to want change but an unwillingness to let that actually happen. As an agency we encounter this more times than not but it wasn’t until paying attention to a famous television chef that we realized how problematic it is.

If you watch any episode of FOX’s “Kitchen Nightmares” (or, for that matter, BBC’s “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”) you’ll notice a systematic pattern:

1. Restaurant is struggling and wants help,
2. Restaurant wants Gordon Ramsay to help their business,
3. Owner agree to do anything to save their business,
4. Ramsay recommends change,
5. Owner is reluctant to change.

It’s like clockwork. The restaurant owner, in one way or another, explains that they are willing to do whatever it takes to save their business. When the “whatever it takes” is defined as changing a lot of their business they try to bring the whole process to a halt.

We’ve had trouble pinning down what this exactly is – fear of the unknown, fear of leaving a comfort zone or fears of letting someone else define their business –whatever it actually is, its fear. We recognize this. For an agency that works with small business this can be a huge struggle. When dealing with large businesses the structure of the company is allowing individuals to define aspects of the company already and the person bringing us in is in charge of a certain aspect. When you’re a small business you have a full grasp around the entire business and everything that goes into it. Letting go is the hardest addiction to drop.

Our Tip

Let go. There’s no simple way to rid yourself of this fear and that’s why it’s our number one roadblock in starting a relationship with new clients. You simply must talk to yourself and see the bigger picture. You need to understand that marketing is the one aspect of your business that you can’t predict or analyze as much as other.

Marketing is the process of gaining your (potential) customer’s attention. Customer are human beings who operate based on emotion. So, marketing must be emotional. Emotion is not something that can be analytical. Marketing, just like emotion, is based on time, patience and feelings.

Over the past few years Red Bull stepped in to bring the same type of marketing to their brand. Wherever an “extreme” sport is being played, a Red Bull logo probably isn’t far. Everything from air racing to downhill BMX biking is sponsored with the Red Bull logo (Red, White and “Bull”). Again, like Coca-Cola, this isn’t just brand awareness marketing. It’s strategic.

The point to this method of marketing is psychological. Coca-Cola began this type of marketing years ago with Christmas. Santa Claus drinking Coca-Cola and all the memorabilia attached reminds you of Coca-Cola when you think of Christmas and Christmas makes you happy. Coca-Cola continued this with sporting events – things you remember, things that make you happy. These happy memories will be sponsored by Coca-Cola and when you think of Coca-Cola it brings back those memories.

When Red Bull entered the mainstream in the early 2000s they brought with them the same marketing technique that worked for Coca-Cola but matched it to their brand. Red Bull is “exciting”, just like “extreme” sports. Red Bull has since aligned themselves with sports like Snowboarding and Motocross. These are exciting, high-energy… just like their product.

The lesson the marketers from these beverage companies have taught us is to align ourselves with our audience. While Coca-Cola and Red Bull do this on large-scale sponsorship, you can do this locally within your own town or city if you’re a small business.

Why Businesses and Companies Choose to Advertise?

1. Increased sales.

2. Branding and maintaining an identity.

3. Communication with the consumers.

4. Introducing a new product or service.

5. Product or service recall.

There are several means to advertise. However, an advertiser should know which one works best on his or her type of business.

Print Advertising

Print advertising involves advertisements on newspapers, magazines, brochures, and other printed materials. This media is common since it can target both lower and upper class markets. At the same time, whether you are a start-up business or an established corporation you can easily find ways to advertise in print.

Why Print Advertising?

If your ad is graphic or visual and works around emotional aspects then print will work for you. This may be a great step in forming your own identity and introducing your own brand.

Broadcast Advertising

Broadcast advertising includes the television and radio. These are often costly with rates varying based on market, time of day, the outlet’s market share and more. Radio advertising is limited on ads which we can hear and not the ones we could see or read. This leads to creating a “theater of the mind” and the listener has more freedom to perceive the ad in their own way which can greatly differ from your intentions.

Why Broadcast Advertising?

Television is a very popular advertising medium — it’s a fact. However, not all businesses can afford such an expensive way of advertising their products and services. Even with advertising locally on a cable provider, costs are reduced but may still be larger than what you’re willing to commit. Broadcast advertising is also more efficient in building brand recognition rather than creating a call-to-action. While a single commercial on television or radio may be inexpensive, to fully develop a campaign you would need to be repetitive and consistent which means advertising often for an extended period of time.

Web Advertising

Web advertising is a part of Broadcast advertising, but advertisements online is cheaper than the previous two (ads on Google, for instance, start at less than $1.00/click). Internet nowadays plays a huge role in a business. You can get leads and prospective clients with a few clicks on the computer, you can communicate with your clients over the internet, you can set up meetings or discussions over the web. Last but not the least, you can advertise online even for free by creating positive word of mouth and developing your core fans! That is really helpful especially for a tight-budgeted business.

Why Web Advertising?

With web advertising, you have the ability to create an advertisement at a relatively low cost. There are thousands of users over the internet, which can serve as your target market. It will really depend on your type of consumers, but nevertheless advertising on the internet is the easiest and cheapest place to start. Whether you are currently a start-up business, or an established corporation, you can advertise your products and services online.

Outdoor Advertising

Like Print Advertising, Outdoor Advertising is also a graphic medium which focuses on the overall appearance of an advertisement. This medium can be seen in various billboards, signage, bus ads, and many more. Outdoor Ads are often big in size, and at the same time, more expensive than other advertising.

Why Outdoor Advertising?

This medium works best on an established company. Although the ads are really huge, your target market will have less of the possibility that they will be able to read and absorb all of the details of your ad, since these advertisements and various signage are posted on areas such as roads, highways, etc. Establishing a brand recall (recognition) would be quite difficult for small or start-up businesses.

Now that another year is about to end, have you ever considered looking back and checking out what the past year gave you and your business? Did you gain or did your business experience a loss? Do you think a slight “reinvention” in terms of marketing your business would give a huge impact?

Whether your company won this year’s tough market or not, here we are counting down a list of proven steps in line with promoting and selling your product. In order for a business to stay and keep going, it must be profitable. In order for it to be profitable, the product must sell. Thus, in order to sell, you must market.

Fortunately, if you got the right strategies and the right formula, you can actually take control of the business and make it on top. If you have the right product which is actually sellable, then the strategies will be simplier than expected.

For the upcoming year, your resolution should include the following:

Know the right target market for your product or services.

While sales are important in a company or business, there is no need for you to push yourself in selling to almost everyone. Offering what you sell to someone who does not need it is just a waste of time, money and effort.

There are customers who are easy to transact with and are willing to try your product. In this way you will not have a hard time marketing your business. However, there are clients who want to purchase but are not willing to spend or a client who is willing to purchase but does not know what he really wants. These types of customers often become bad clients in the long run.

Save yourself some energy and don’t give yourself the headaches, seeing that you will not gain anything. Focus on the best customers instead.

Do not overspend on advertisements.

Although advertisements are really helpful in promoting a product or service, it is not right to throw a huge amount of money, especially for a start-up business.

One way of advertising without the need to spend that much is through the internet. There are a lot of inexpensive ways of postings ads on the web. Through those you will be able to market your business and also choose the right market where your ads will be placed. You will not only be known in your local area but also will generate traffic from different countries worldwide. It will not be easy at first and it will need a lot of patience in order to get to the top pages of the searches, but once huge traffic has been generated, web visits and sales will increase.

Stick to your proven campaign.

If you already have a proven campaign why change it just because you are bored with it? The mistake of many businesses often make begins with them getting bored with their old campaigns. For some reasons campaigns are changed into entirely new ones and most of the time, the new campaigns end up unsuccessful or not as successful as the old ones. Not only do these businesses throw a lot of money toward this but also the time and effort spent in the recreations.

Use “I” instead of “WE”.

Most businesses nowadays use the word “WE” when pertaining to their companies. What’s wrong with a one-person business? Don’t you think that it will be more of an advantage if you will use the word “I”?

Before purchasing a product especially online, customers check the “About Us” section of the webpage first; opting to know more about the seller or the company. However, there are a lot of bogus sites and businesses today and indicating that YOU own the business is quite an advantage; finances are handled personally same as with the supplies and transporting of products, or delivery of services.

Moreover, there is nothing wrong on being honest.

Just be yourself.

Whether it’s a personal selling, web marketing, an online business or something else, there is no harm in just being yourself. Business is built on relationships, and marketing your business should not be too formal — that it would seem that it’s not a human to human transaction at all.

In some aspects, the degree of formality should be noted, but most of the time, it’s the warmth, humor and laughter that sell. If you want your customers to return and purchase your goods again, build friendships. Your business should not be a burden, but a fun, loving thing to do.

It takes so many steps and factors to win a business and be on top of the competition. Thus, it takes a lot of patience and trials in order for you to become a real successful entrepreneur. Nothing can be done in a snap. Every fruit should be planted and taken cared of until it is sweet enough to pick.

This is the holiday season and if you’re a business owner or manager this is likely the most important 28-days of your business’ life.

We’re past the rushing crowds of retail’s Black Friday so we’ll focus on what you can do during the remaining days until Christmas to grab the attention of customers and maximize your ability to generate income this season.

The “door-buster” sales I mentioned earlier have one purpose in mind – to get people in your store. Get everyone talking about your business; get them thinking about how to get that item from you. While this is a dubious method of getting attention it may not hold it in the long run. This may get hoards of people in but it may not hold their attention. There are lots of competitors and you need to do your homework.

When selling goods one of the methods of selling value is with added-value – services. When giving gifts the idea of service guarantees, warranties, return policies – these all go out the window. If someone is getting an eBook for someone, they don’t necessarily care about the warranty it has. It’s not as personal to the person making the purchase. I mention this to take emphasis away from the typical ways of thinking about marketing during the holidays. Everything you traditionally know about marketing must be thrown away and we need to focus on what’s important to consumers during the holidays.

What’s Important To Consumers During The Holidays:

1. Price
2. Convenience
3. Delivery

Topping the list is typical, it’s price. Since consumers are buying products for someone else, they’re price shopping. These aren’t items they’re doing research on, products they’ll be spending time with and using. These are items for other people and sometimes for different consumer segments than their own. This is a process of people buying items they wouldn’t buy for themselves. They just learned somewhere that this is what someone wants and they’re going to get it. No research, no service options — just a gift receipt. The typical shopper is seeking the item they need to purchase and looking by price. Unless you have leniency with suppliers or distributors, you may be limited here.

Where you will have some opportunity is starting with our second item, convenience. More and more consumers are turning to the internet for their holiday buying because of the perception of convenience. I say “perception” because the idea is “I go online, I click buy, it comes to me and I wrap it.” If you interrupt this method of thinking by limiting or stopping it, you’re also limiting your sales. It’s also important to make sure you have this process setup for yourself. Ask yourself:

• Do I have an ecommerce site (a “shopping cart” and checkout with shipping and payment)?
• Is my website easy to navigate (by browsing AND searching)?
• Is my pricing easy to understand?

The last point about pricing is very important. Basing our thinking on the first priority from above (price) you need to understand how important laying out your pricing is. For example, Amazon.com clearly lists the item’s price and shipping for any order total over $25 is free. Simple to understand. Evaluate your website and see if your method is this simple. Do whatever you can to limit the sticker shock at checkout after taxes, shipping and handling are added. If a consumer is coming to you for a great deal but after adding all the fine print the outcome is way more than they anticipated, you just lost a customer (and maybe repeat business).

Also as part of “convenience” is where to purchase your products. If you’re creating products try to make sure your distribution is wide open. Your products should be available with outlets such as Amazon or Overstock so people can purchase your item along with others and combine orders. This will add to the consumer’s convenience is finding products and getting them, which leads to the final point.

I briefly mentioned the importance of shipping methods above which goes to show how important delivery really is. Delivery is not only a box with postage, it can also be in-store pickup or some type of download. As an example, last year my wife purchased an MP3 player for me for Christmas. It didn’t arrive in time and my box was filled with a note explaining it’d be here soon. I was thrilled, probably not as thrilled as I could have been holding a new MP3 player and my wife was deflated because she didn’t have something tangible to give me. Delivery failed. It left a bad impression with her for the future (she won’t be going to that company again for my, or anyone’s, gifts this year) and I was left with knowing that company failed to get the product out in time. Bad for me, bad for my wife and bad for that company.

Delivery is about making sure the item(s) are in your customer’s (and more importantly, their gift recipient’s) hands for the day it needs to be. If it’s not, you failed and it’ll be remembered by all. If it comes down to a 100-mile drive on Christmas Eve to personally deliver the last item that didn’t make the UPS truck, do it. Going above-and-beyond during the holiday’s isn’t just a great gesture (and great PR), it’s also about lasting impressions to your customers and that story they’ll tell to everyone that morning – about how you made sure they had this gift to give.

A great solution for small business

With the kind of technology we have today, various forms of Marketing Strategies are present. Let’s say your company or business owns a website. What would you be need to be successful? Simple — A lot of traffic. A huge number of people visiting your website, clicking your posts and your blogs, and most importantly, purchasing your stuff.

Now stop and think; “Is it possible?”

That is what Facebook is most helpful for; building traffic and making friends with other people. Of course, if that will be for your business, “friendship” would mean traffic, and traffic would mean sales, and sales definitely means money.

So, what’s with Facebook?
Why are millions of people around the world addicted to this a website?

That is the best part of it; MILLIONS of people around the world are addicted to this website. Thus, that huge number of people will be your inspiration in creating a Facebook page.

With your Facebook page, you can:

1. Build your own network of followers and generate leads,
2. Post your photos and product images, and easily design your page,
3. Easily update and post the latest information about your company,
4. Advertise your company or page for a very affordable price,
5. Upload videos and share those within your network,
6. Join other groups with the same or of different industries and increase your network,
7. Easily share your page with your blog or current website via html codes,
8. Easily track the number of visits to your page,
9. Easily interact with other people by means of comment or wall postings,
10. And best of all, save money. Facebook is FREE!

Certainly there are a number of ways to market your business, but there is only one most effective way to do so. Hence, this aspect should also include the cost-saving ways of promoting and gaining sales.

Nowadays, with the help of computers and the internet, businesses and entrepreneurs have found an easier way to market their brands. With just a click, anyone can be known throughout the “webland”. When it comes to marketing, online advertising is a lot cheaper than traditional media. Not to mention the free methods that you can use in order to get known and sell.

There are various forms of marketing on line. One of which is what we call Social Media Marketing.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) revolves around the use of Social Media in order to promote and sell.  However, in order for this form to be effective, Social Media Marketers have their own strategic ways to promoting on line through various SMM sites and methods. Professionals Web Marketers create strategic marketing plans in order to boost a product’s exposure, and of course, increase the sales.

To help you out with your start-up marketing plan, here is the list of some of the important aspects of online marketing:

Know your product well – by knowing more about your product, what you sell, or what services you offer, you will be able to carry your product well enough. You will clearly discover your target market.

Maximize the use of Internet – although you will asked to pay for the monthly charges for your broadband connection, an additional effort in finding ways to market online would not hurt. Build a website. Post your products online (even for free!).

Take advantage of tools - Yahoo, Google and Bing offer free search engine submission tools. Just type in your website and submit. This tool will help you in increasing your site’s traffic. To achieve better results, you can also make use of the paid search engine optimization tools.

Lastly, a little professional help can provide bigger results. Try to seek some expert advice and start growing your business! You will then be amazed on just how helpful internet is, and find out that there are always a new way to market your product with just one click.

CoTweet

CoTweet is a cross between CRM and Twitter (/Facebook if you opt for the pay edition). The platform’s concept is simple — it allows you to manage “conversations”. If someone sends a tweet toward you about something they don’t like about that product, you can track that conversation. There’s also room multiple users where you’re allowed to assign tweets to certain people and even automatically add a user-tag (A tag, usually “^AB” to show who wrote a certain tweet).

CoTweet is built on that concept of managing customer service with little else as far as features. You have automated tweets, bit.ly integration and little details like saved search but it’s short on features.

www.cotweet.com

Social Mention

Social Mention is a versatile tool for monitoring anytime your name, brand or product (any keyword really) is mentioned in the social eco-sphere. This includes Twitter and Facebook but also blogs. It’s a real-time capture of who’s talking about you, and that’s pretty important. It’s so powerful that it can be a distraction from what it offers. When you try to drill down to the specific sources for what you’re looking for it can get a little obscure.

Social Mention offers e-mail notifications which can come in handy as a daily diary of where you’re being mentioned.

www.socialmention.com

SWIX

SWIX is actually one of our secret weapons. While Google Analytics monitors your website and Facebook Insights offers you details on your page’s stats, SWIX combines everything (and we mean “everything”). SWIX will gather information from a variety of sources including Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Feedburner and many more (the list goes on). Combine all these stats into easy to digest logs, graphs and statistics. For anyone looking for a simple tool to show their influence across social media, we highly recommend SWIX.

SWIX starts at $9/month (per “project”) but offers a 30-day free trial to start.

www.swixhq.com

TweetDeck

Still leading the pack it’s our old friend TweetDeck. The little Adobe AIR app is still powerful and there’s not much else to say. The ability to connect to every major social network (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google Buzz, LinkedIn and FourSquare), an easy to navigate display, powerful searches, alerts… it goes on. If you haven’t tried TweetDeck, just do.

www.tweetdeck.com

If there’s one we missed, let us know in the comments.