Many people who start blogs of website businesses have really good ideas and a lot of motivation, but they simply don’t understand how important it is to bring a high volume of visitors to their website on a daily basis.

If you think that you can just design a blog or business website, and that people will automatically find themselves on your pages amongst all the millions of other sites that are out there, you are in for a rude awakening. The key to a successful online endeavor is learning to buy targeted web traffic at just the right time.

If you’ve never heard of the option to buy targeted web traffic before, you might not be aware that there are specific marketing and advertising tactics that have been shown to be successful at driving people who are already interested in your product or service to your web pages, where they will be likely to make a purchase.

One of the best reasons to buy targeted web traffic instead of trying to generate it yourself is that inexperienced web marketers can often fail to realize that a multitude of different tactics are needed to create a comprehensive marketing program. Professional web marketers can put together a package of tactics for you that are much more likely to be successful.

A proven way to buy targeted web traffic is to use a marketing service that can offer you click through keyword placement. This tactic means that when you supply a marketing service with a list of keywords that you have decided are relevant to your site, they will immediately place links using these keywords all over their network of sites, driving unique traffic to your pages for a low price.

Although you might think that you don’t have the budget to buy targeted web traffic, you’ll probably be surprised at just how affordable it can be if you work with the right marketing service.

Are you ready to take your website traffic to the next level, but aren’t sure if buying targeted web traffic will work? You can learn more about targeted web marketing services here.

No matter what kind of a web site you’re hoping to turn into a successful business opportunity, you’ve got to have a solid plan for web site promotion if you’re going to get noticed by the important member of your target audience.

Many people think that all they have to do to accomplish successful web site promotion is to add their web address to the bottom of all their marketing materials, and to mention that they have an online presence when they are presenting to customers. However, if you’re truly going to get noticed in your niche market, you’ve got to make sure that the major search engines are on your side.

In case you’re not really that familiar with the subtle techniques of web site promotion, it can sometimes be helpful to turn this project over to the marketing professionals that have been doing it successfully for years. These people can help you construct a comprehensive campaign that will address all necessary elements of marketing.

One of the most important things that need to be addressed in any web site promotion campaign is a proven method for securing a high volume of back links to your site from sites that already enjoy their own high levels of traffic. This will help to drive valuable page views to your site.

Another thing that you will want to look for in any web site promotion package that you are considering is an element that addresses the incredible marketing power of social media and social networking outlets online.

Always know that even if you don’t have a very large advertising budget, there are still web site promotion services that you can afford. Even if it seems like a large investment at first, you have no idea how this promotional push will help you to earn more brand awareness amongst your target audience in the future. Pay attention to the package that you purchase, and learn about the essentials of maintaining the visibility that you will achieve.

Do you want to have a more recognizable presence on the internet, but don’t really know how to get started? Learn more about valuable web site promotion by clicking here.

The internet is a great medium for entrepreneurs because it is almost a level playing field. Anyone can create their website, come up with a business plan, and start making money if they know how to use smart web site advertising to get them noticed on the web.

Unlike the real world of brick and mortar businesses, where if you have more money, you can build a fancier store front and set your prices lower, the internet doesn’t show favorites to those that have more money to throw at web site advertising. However, it will reward you handsomely for using those tactics in an intelligent way.

The key to using web site advertising in the most efficient way is to build links with other websites that will help to direct traffic to your pages. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, because usually other sites are loath to give up real estate to help someone else out.

This is why it can be helpful to work with an experience internet marketing firm that will be able to plug you into their already existing network of commerce and information websites. This is a smart type of web site advertising because not only will you get valuable links, you’ll be able to target your exposure to the audience members that are most likely to make a purchase.

If you are aware of your need for web site advertising but still unclear about how having additional links to your business on other websites is going to help you to be more successful, you’ve got to think of the web like a highway and your site like one of millions of exits.

Every time you have a link to your site placed on another website, it’s like adding the number of exits that will take people to your pages. The more people that travel through your pages every day, the more chance you have to make as sale and hit the goals that will make you successful.

Don’t allow your business to plateau at a low level of exposure! Click here to learn about proven web site advertising techniques that will increase your visibility and your success.

Too many people think that because they’ve managed to generate interest about their products or services through word of mouth tactics, or simply print and television advertising in their particular region, they are doing all they can to build a brand awareness about their company. However, without web marketing, you are leaving out a very important piece of the puzzle.

If you’re just now starting your web based business, you have to understand that web marketing is even more important for you than it is for traditional brick and mortar businesses. This is because the internet is your lifeline to your customer base. If you’re not making use of it, you can be sure that your competition is.

If you’re trying to decide whether or not you really need to invest in web marketing, you have to ask yourself how big you eventually want to grow. If you want a big tomato bush, with lots of fruit on it, you can’t keep it in a tiny container on your kitchen counter forever. Internet marketing gives you access to the biggest audience of all: the millions of people who are searching the internet right now.

Neglecting the need for web marketing just puts your business at risk for complete obscurity, meaning that you might have a great product or service that many people would be interested in, but because you don’t show up in the relevant search results, they have no idea you exist.

If you’re interested in utilizing web marketing to help grow your business, but aren’t really sure the best way to get started, you should know that there are many qualified internet marketing firms that can provide you with comprehensive packages that will work for you.

When choosing a web marketing firm for the first time, make sure that they offer a wide variety of services for you to pick from. This means that you should have your choice of website linking, email advertising, and social bookmarking, as well as banner ads.

If you’re scared that you might not be doing enough to connect with your online audiences, web marketing could be the tool that you’ve been looking for. Click here for more information on services that could propel you to success.

Many people don’t realize how integral web linking is to the success or failure of a particular website. In order to build a successful brick and mortar business, people will ask their friends to spread the word via personal communication, or they will put up signs or take out an ad in the newspaper. In the world of online business, web linking is the same type of strategy.

One of the most important factors to getting noticed by thousands, if not, millions of viewers on the internet are web linking. And this is a term that is used to imply how popular you are amongst viewers, other sites that have strong web traffic, and most of all, how well you are ranked in the search engines.

If you’re going to leverage web linking as a tool that will help to increase the popularity of your site, you’ve got to create a strategy for getting other sites to include links to you on their most popular pages. This can be hard, as all sites know that it is more advantageous to have an incoming link than an outgoing link.

Another thing that you have to think about when you are building your web linking networks is that you only want to build back links on sites that have something to do with the product or service that you’re offering.

The major search engines will notice if you are getting web linking from random sites that have nothing to do with your mission, and they will drop you down in the search results as a punishment for this sloppy tactic.

The best way to execute a web linking strategy is to hire an internet marketing firm that has experience promoting sites and businesses like yours. This way, you can be sure that you will get targeted exposure that will deliver the traffic you need.

Traffic is the lifeblood of a healthy website, and if your numbers are struggling, it’s time to try something new. Click here to learn about how web linking can increase your profits.

Sounds like a sensationalistic headline, but if you read Morgan Stanley’s latest series of reports on the Mobile Internet, you’ll walk away with the same impression.

Morgan Stanley’s global technology and telecom analysts documented the rapidly changing mobile Internet market to provide a framework for emerging trends and direction.

To set the stage, Morgan Stanley forecasts that the mobile Internet market will be at least 2x the size of desktop Internet when comparing Internet users to mobile subscribers.

According to the report, Apple’s iTunes + iPhone/Touch ecosystem has created what “may prove to be the fastest ramping and most disruptive technology product / service launch the world has ever seen.”

For marketers, Apple has reset the market by empowering brands and developers to mine an entirely new channel to reach existing and potential customers, advocates, and influencers. You can expect to see brands increasingly exploiting popular apps as well as creating branded experiences in the Apple, Android and eventually in the Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Palm platforms as well. VW’s launch of its new GTI exclusively on the iPhone and iPod Touch as an app was as groundbreaking as it was telling.

Morgan Stanley also predicts that smartphones will out-ship the global notebook + netbook market in 2010E. And, smartphones will also out-ship the global PC market (notebook + netbook + desktop) by 2012E. Driven primarily by 3G and a rich ecosystem of anytime, anywhere wireless capabilities, many consumers are finding their mobile online activity rise dramatically due 24×7 access to ‘cloud-based’ content and applications.

In reviewing the report, it appears that consumer usage of wireless data (including video + images + content + communications) continues to grow rapidly and this growth is expected to run its course for the foreseeable future. In addition, Morgan Stanley sees three platforms demonstrating especially strong momentum that combines consumer and developer adoption and interest.

1) Facebook (which is increasingly becoming a desktop + mobile communications hub);

2) Mobile (clearly led by Apple’s iPhone / iTouch / iTunes ecosystem)

3) The web (as online usage of products / services continue to gain share vs. offline counterparts and growing wireless usage expands market opportunities).

Social Networking Drives Growth

According to the report, Facebook represents the potential to serve as a communication platform and engine. With the smartphone, Facebook becomes a unified communications and multimedia creation tool and network that fits in your pocket and goes with you anywhere you go. While it already connects over 350 million users, Facebook’s market leaderships will extend as more consumers embrace more powerful mobile devices with video, photo, and high-speed wireless access. Also mentioned, and quite an interesting opportunity if you think about it, Facebook will offer easy and compelling voice and video chat functions and those capabilities will connect mobile and desktop users in new mediums and introduce new capabilities in the process.

Morgan Stanley views Facebook and Apple driving independent yet overlapping platforms that are forcing innovation in social and mobile connectivity and communications. Essentially, they are driving growth and ingenuity for one another while setting the stage for a new era of social networking.

Geo-Local and Augmented Reality

Similar to the recent Forrester report containing 2010 predictions for social computing, Morgan Stanley excluded Geo-local applications such as Loopt, FourSquare, and Gowalla as well as the bevy of Augmented Reality apps that are rolling out at an increasing pace.

Mobile does indeed symbolize the future of communication and collaboration, representing one-third of The Golden Triangle.

In addition, social and real-time (plus geo-local and augmented reality) applications will only fuel adoption and innovation, creating a bridge between online and offline interaction. Most important, the fusion of these technologies will fundamentally change how we communicate with one another as well as how we purchase products and services. Mobile Internet combined with geo-local and augmented reality applications and networks just may represent the last-mile in the ever-elusive local advertising and marketing markets.

Other key takeaways include:

Material wealth creation / destruction should surpass earlier computing cycles. The mobile Internet cycle, the 5th cycle in 50 years, is just starting. Winners in each cycle often create more market capitalization than in the last. New winners emerge, some incumbents survive – or thrive – while many past winners falter.

The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and Morgan Stanley believes more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years.

Five IP-based products / services are growing / converging and providing the underpinnings for dramatic growth in mobile Internet usage – 3G adoption + social networking + video + VoIP + impressive mobile devices.

Massive mobile data growth is driving transitions for carriers and equipment providers.

Emerging markets have material potential for mobile Internet user growth. Low penetration of fixed-line telephone and already vibrant mobile value-added services mean that for many EM users and SMEs, the Internet will be mobile.

Read the Full Reports

The Mobile Internet Report Setup – 92-slide presentation
The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes – 659 slide presentation
The Mobile Internet Report – 424 page report

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The Socialization of Small Business

From intent to purpose…

Good friend Jeremiah Owyang recently wondered whether or not the real-time Web was fast enough to keep pace with our insatiable appetites for information and connectivity. As such, Jeremiah introduced the emergence of what he refers to as the “Intention Web.”

With event planning features, like Facebook events, upcoming.org, we’re starting to see people make explicitly public remarks on what they want to do, when, and with who.  Welcome plancast.com a startup by Mark Hendrickson formerly of Techcrunch who created this simple website that allows people to broadcast what they plan to do next using Twitter or Facebook.

Owyang summarized the true opportunity for the Intention Web as follows…

Bottom Line: Intention Web will provide consumers with contextualized experiences. People will work together to share their information about what they plan to do, and improve how they work or organize. Expect Social CRM systems (Salesforce, SAP), Brand Monitoring vendors (Radian6, Visible Technologies), and Search Engines (Bing and Google) to quickly try to make predictive models on what could happen, and what are the chances. Businesses that have a physical location like retail, events, or packaged goods can use this data to anticipate consumer demand. They may offer contextualized marketing, or increase or decrease inventory or store hours to accommodate. Don’t be surprised in the future and you walk into a store with your preferred items, meal, or drink already nicely packaged for you.

His reference to Plancast is indeed representative of an emerging medium to publish future activities and intentions. And as such, they trigger a social effect that introduces new opportunities and incites potential activity among those within an immediate social graph as well as those defining the friends of friends network. While Plancast is a new service, Facebook events, Upcoming, as well as travel services such as TripIt and Dopplr, among many others across multiple verticals, have long represented an emerging category for the publishing and sharing of planned activities and goals. These activities serve as social objects and as such, they reveal information that can transform activities into relevant content and experiences that are presented to us in the near future.

The Predictive Web

Social Media becomes less about a move-and-react strategy and sets the stage for engendering meaningful interactions as well as building more tuned business infrastructures to support anticipated activity based on the intelligence and insight extracted from online behavior.

As 2010 begins a new decade, we also usher in a new genre of context and personalization in the evolution of an intelligent and semantic Web – a Web that Tim O’Reilly, refers to as Web Squared. Among the hottest trends taking place in and around The Golden Triangle of social, mobile and digital innovation is the emergence of geo-local networking (such as Loopt, FourSquare and Gowalla), augmented reality, and social filtering.

In the Future of the Social Web, I discussed the materialization of technologies and applications that would introduce a new era of social context in 2010. The reality is that these capabilities have existed for quite sometime, however, the iteration of new products and underlying algorithms have matured to a point where we can consider solutions for mainstream applications.

After several years of harnessing the power of participatory media, the wisdom sourced from crowds proves that crowdsourced insight is not an exact science. As Andrew Keen author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Amateur once observed, “Sometimes the Wisdom of the Crowds is not so wise after all.”

On the other hand, the idea of collective intelligence is extremely promising as it registers and converts activity and interests based on how we as individuals interact with content and objects within a site or community and as patterns and paths emerge, the algorithm adapts to create more efficient passages.

Jack Jia and Dr. Scott Brave of Baynote are fusing crowdsourced intelligence with social sciences. As such, they built a sophisticated platform that transcends mob rule into swarm intelligence – a form of artificial intelligence based on the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems.  Ants, for instance, wander randomly until food is found and returned. In the process, ants leave pheromone trails which eventually lead other ants to following and eventually optimizing the path. The greater the concentration of ants who pick up the trail in shorter periods of time, the denser the pheromone trail becomes. On the contrary, if other ants do not pick up on the path, pheromone evaporation occurs and over time, the path is lost.

Baynote uses swarm intelligence to employ a type of ant colony optimization that enables an online system to automatically learn from organic behavior to personalize and enhance the online experience – reducing click paths and surfacing relevant content to connect people to relevance expeditiously. If you were searching for a particular product on Zappos.com, for example, you may have to sort through product after product until you finally matched the result with your choice of keywords. If Zappos.com integrated Baynote, as users replicated the activity, the system would automatically identify the pattern and reorganize the content based on keywords and clicks to match products to people faster and more efficiently.

Social Intelligence

In many ways, we click aimlessly today, and as we search for information, people, and social objects, we do so until we stumble upon something that captivates our attention. We then react, save, share with others, but without movement on a mass scale, the direct path to the content or the experience is erased. To help, meme trackers (or trend watching) technologies such as Tweetmeme, TechMeme, Blogged.com, among others,  help create direct paths to the data online that enchants us en masse within fixed periods of time.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it does grow on Tweets

In a recent issue of MITSloan Management Review, the writers observed,

There’s a new tool that can help companies predict sales for the coming weeks, or decide whether to increase inventories or put items on sale in certain stores. It’s Twitter.

The post captures something that I believe represents the defining spirit for excelling in what is shaping up to be an online Darwinian survival of the fittest.

In a new era of socially conscious and responsible businesses, we will manually observe and maneuver the adaptation and streamlining of products and services as well as the customer experience based on online social activity. A majority of these events will follow the path proven by the likes of Baynote to herald a coveted, predictive Web that surfaces personalized focus and value.

If we review a basic model of a tag or word cloud, not unlike the ecosystem that tracks and pools “trending topics,” we can visualize the most commonly used keywords related to most online activity. As Huaxia Rui, Andrew Whinston, and Elizabeth Winklery wrote in the MITSloan Management Review,

We believe executives can make accurate predictions about sales trends by analyzing tweets that mention their products or services, and we have created a model based on Twitter’s keyword-search function to help them do that.

I call this trendcasting, the ability to spot themes and pinpoint opportunities to deliver a solution to a need that either exists, is emerging, or is on the horizon based on the concentration of social conduct.

But as we see in technology similar to Baynote, we can surface trends without the need for manual search, and I believe this technology exists today and will soon become prominent. Imagine improving the experience within social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and in turn, within every stop along a sales cycle, to ensure that in each instance, we’re presented with content that matters to us at the right moment, in the appropriate context.

Improving the Signal to Noise Ratio

While improving the signal to noise ratio is a never-ending quest, in social media, noise is amplified exponentially.  In an era of the predictive Web, platforms will emerge that present people and content based on who we are, what interests us, and how we navigate the Web.

During the proliferation of RSS feeds and the feelings of being overwhelmed by  those who over-subscribed to their favorite sources, services such as AideRSS (now PostRank) and also mSpoke created platforms that organized feeds based on our preferences, implied explicitly (something we say or do) and implicitly (how we interact with what’s presented.) The goal was to organize feeds to prioritize the content each system formulated would best match what we should read.

Recently, My6Sense (note, I’m an advisor) recently launched a new iPhone app that channels social streams into a river of relevance. The app takes social and RSS feeds and analyzes content based a sophisticated algorithm (dubbed digital intuition) to serve tweets, updates, and posts without requiring manual input of preferences. Essentially, it predicts what you would find most interesting as determined by how you react to your content normally. Through a “top messages” function, you are presented with qualified content. It improves the more you use it and quickly, you’ll realize its potential for expediting the future of the predictive web.

What if the technology powering My6Sense was built into your attention dashboard (Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or Tweetie)? What if digital intuition powered CNN or Techmeme, presenting only the stories, comments, and reactions across social networks that aligned to your interests?

From Estimation to Prediction

Suddenly the predictive Web comes into focus. The innovation that materializes into products and platforms creates an ecosystem that wires the individual human algorithm to the technology that will work on our behalf to mine and present data, content, products, people and companies that match what interests us based on who we are – not solely derived from what we have in common. Just because we viewed a common item, purchased a product or service based on our click patterns or share contacts within networks, doesn’t imply, nor does it guarantee, that we share interests, ideas, and ambitions. Therefore, the ability to predict is only as accurate as the technology that focuses on who we are defined by all we do.

Make no mistake, the web will evolve from social chaos to genuine social “ME”dia to personalize experiences and solutions. Attention is a precious commodity and it is not to be taken for granted. Our attention only thins with every new and interesting object that traverses across our horizon. As such, technology will help save us from our insatiable appetite for information and eventually predict what it is that interests or benefits us before we may realize the need or desire.

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