Business online has changed from five years ago.  Website visits used to be the only way to measure online interaction with your brand.  Today, we have social networks, externally-hosted blogs and other interactions with our brands that occur away from our carefully-crafted websites. So is measuring website visits enough?

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Who needs a large sales force when your company website can do the hard work for you? Both B2B and B2C companies are realizing the need to make their websites more effective and optimize them to generate qualified leads.

So where can you start your optimization efforts? These seven universal optimization techniques will vault your online lead generation efforts into overdrive.
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“Content marketing” might be a new buzzword, but it isn’t a new concept.

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When I talk to marketing prospects, the conversation eventually turns to landing pages. “Landing pages” are often confused with pages that anyone can see on your company web site, like the homepage.

This blog post focuses on what a landing page is and how it’s almost always better to use them in your online marketing efforts.

Using landing pages in your marketing campaigns is almost always more effective than sending people to your homepage from an ad, so it’s important to make the differentiation. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately, I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about marketing lead generation. For many companies, the economy has really caused slumping sales. Some are responding by stepping up their sales efforts, and the most intelligent companies are improving their web sites to generate more leads.

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Lots of businesses are using social media these days to promote their products and services. From Facebook to Twitter and more, businesses are embracing social media. Many small, local businesses are starting to understand the impact social media can have on their bottom lines, yet many others are skeptical.

I recently interviewed Monica Horsley, owner of By Invitation Only, a local business here in the Richmond area. I discovered Monica and her business on Twitter, and like many small business owners that rely on attracting local foot traffic into her retail location, she is using social media to her advantage.

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