Blogging is becoming an increasingly popular tool for marketers to broadcast messages, videos, ideas, tools, and even make money. After reading other blogs from my E-Marketing class from school, I thought to myself what makes a blog successful or what draws traffic to certain blogs. I found an article published on February 13, 2012 that outlined 7 E-Marketing tips to be a good blogger. After reading the article and watching a YouTube video about successful blogging, I have tried to shorten and elaborate on these tips with my own input.

1. Care about what you blog– Passion for a topic can be easily extracted from good writing. If you care about a topic, chances are your post will reveal that.
2. Be concise yet descriptive– you don’t want to loose the reader in extremely long text, however you want to say enough to engage the reader and potentially seek additional information about a certain area. Readers enjoy reading the point of the blog at first glance. If an article is too long, perhaps you can make it into 2 posts.
3. Be analytical– this refers to an analysis of your blogging topic. Readers like your own opinion because it promotes outside of the box thinking and provides avenues for further analysis.
4. Stay focused– this refers back to tip #2 about being concise. No one can be an expert in every aspect, so stay focused on the main subject you are blogging about.
5. Stay up to date– whatever you’re blogging about; it’s very important that you are up to date on the latest news on the area of focus in order to add value to your posts.
6. Be persistent– I think this is one of the key success factors of a good blog because it gives your readers a reason to keep reading and shows personal interest. Many people start blogs but very few actually continue blogging.

Over the past week I have been analyzing our clients website for our in class E-Marketing project. The company is Rod’s Exotic Auto Spa, which is an auto detailing business specializing in luxury vehicles. By navigating through the home page and photo gallery section, I noticed many photos that where either too small to portray what the owner was intending or very pixelated. I recently came across an article (linked below) about the importance and correlation of high quality online images and higher sales. In the retailing sector, a survey concluded that 80% of online shoppers stated that they where “very to somewhat” influenced by content quality when making purchasing decisions.

Improving product images on e-commerce websites

Here are 4 Tips to optimize product images on a website:

1. Use thumbnails to entice the customer, then provide more options- do enough to initiate the first click, once they are on the site they can choose to enlarge the picture or view it from a different angle.

2. Zoom in on the product- especially useful when the product is very detailed.

3. Show your image to Google- when you don’t use the “alternate text” tag in your code for an image, you have effectively made your image invisible to Google and other search engines.

4. “Knock it out”- this term refers to showing pictures in isolation of any background clutter.

These tips can be applied to many different businesses that are trying to improve their search engine optimization.

The youtube video link below, “The Social Media Revolution 2012” broadcasts the success of the Internet and specifically social media sites in generating user traffic. It poses the question whether Social Media is a fad or the biggest shift since the industrial revolution. Some interesting statistics from this short video include:

• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment.
• Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, and Panama.
• Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the US.
• Facebook attracted 200 million users in less than a year
• If Facebook where a country it would be the third largest country in the world

Social media is increasingly becoming more popular in the business community with regards to online marketing efforts. The enormous network size provides an incredible platform for business owners to target specific markets. However, Social media doesn’t directly generate cash for businesses, but it enhances a company’s online presence to help build relationships, create awareness, connect with users, and increase consumer interactivity to stimulate growth.

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The Social Media Revolution 2012

An article published by PR Web on January 5, 2012 outlined the top 10 Internet marketing trends of 2012. Below is the summary of these trends and how they can potentially change the world on online marketing. These trends provide opportunities for companies to take advantage of their online market to increase leads, sales and profitability. Longer descriptions can be found at <http://news.yahoo.com/national-positions-names-top-internet-marketing-trends-2012-081046108.html>

Number 1: Value Based Marketing. Companies will demand an Internet marketing strategy that shows tangible results. It’s not just about rankings and traffic; it’s about leads, sales & measurable results that prove ROI.

Number 2: Rich Snippets. Google will provide more information about your website to searchers without them having to click to the site. This hurts your marketing efforts because it reduces page views and makes your sales funnel a bit smaller.

Number 3: Vanishing Data. Google will hide more information about your website in Google Analytics.

Number 4: Mobile Marketing Grows Up. Customers are now using mobile search to do their shopping, especially for local products and services.

Number 5: The Rise of Local Search Marketing. Google will continue to make local results a more crucial component of its search algorithm. As a result of so many mobile users looking for local products and services, mobile and local are intertwined. Thus, a new marketing strategy called “MoLo.”

Number 6: Social Media Merges With Search. Google+, the search giant’s new social network, will impact search engine rankings. As a result, Google+ is going to be a key part of your company’s SEO strategy in 2012.

Number 7: Video Content Matters. Video is more important as the web moves mobile and becomes more interactive.

Number 8: Don’t Let Others Tarnish Your Reputation. As the Internet becomes more valuable, so does your company’s online reputation.

Number 9: Nurture New Leads, Don’t Waste Them. As your online market becomes more competitive, leads are harder to come by and more valuable. Every lead must be nurtured via email marketing.

Number 10: Your Linking Strategy Must Evolve for SEO. Linking remains a pillar of your search engine exposure, but link diversity is now more crucial than ever. Simple anchor text links must be replaced with varied anchor text links to look more natural and gain the approval of the search engine crawlers.