When you use video on your website, you have a powerful tool that can increase the popularity of your web pages. Whether you want to earn money, share your knowledge or increase page views, you can use video to create a dynamic web site the attracts and keeps visitors.
1. Use Video to Enhance Your Website
Use video to turn a static website into a dynamic, interactive destination. There are many types of videos you can use to enhance your website, including:
A promotional video that explains who you are and what you do
A website tour that tells visitors what they cdan find on the website, and where it is
A virtual tour that lets web visitors see what your physical location is like
2. Use Video to Demonstrate a Product or Activity
How-to videos are some of the most popular videos on the web, and businesses can use them to educate customers. There are many ways to use video to educate customers on how to use your product, and also save time and money on customer service.
Use video to demonstrate how to install or set up your product
Use video to show your product in action
Use video to train clients and staff remotely
3. Use Video to Share Your Expertise
Many businesses have created a marketing niche for themselves by using video to establish their expertise on a particular topic.
Create educational videos that provide visitors with in-depth information related to your industry
Produce a video newscast updating viewers on the latest headlines in your field of work
Aggregate and publish other expert videos related to your topic
4. Use Video to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Search engines love video, and with proper video SEO, you can use video to drive lots of traffic to your website.

Business branding is more essential today than at any point in history. If your business lacks a recognizable brand image, then your customers have no idea that you even exist.

What is business branding? How do you develop a business brand? Your brand is your business identity.

For instance, when you think Microsoft, you probably think Windows in the same instant. When you think Intel, you think computer processors. What do your customers think when they hear your business’ name?

Branding your business is essential, but it can also be very confusing, particularly in the case of a small business. Small business branding needs can be more difficult than larger companies, simply due to the scale of the companies involved.

Chances are that a large company is well known for a range of products or services, or they sell something that everyone needs (such as the case with Microsoft, mentioned previously).

To help you with issues concerning branding your business, you will find several business branding tips below:

Business Branding

Your Logo

While you might think that your logo is simply an obligatory thing, you need to ensure that it is on all of your communications, on your website, on your company’s sign if you have one and more.

While having a professional logo is a nice thing, it’s far more important that your customers equate the logo you do have with your company.
Connect with Your Customers

Another essential ingredient of business branding is to connect with your customers. In the past, this was rather difficult to do, but you have numerous advantages in the modern world.

In addition, if you own a small business, you have advantages here, as well. For instance, blogging is a great way to connect with your customers.

Why bother with a blog? Creating a blog for your company helps give it a public “face”. When your customers read your blog, they feel that they are making a personal connection with your company.
Choose a Niche

Your niche is essential. If you are trying to be everything to everyone, your company will fail, and not just in its branding, either.

However, if you choose a niche and stand firm, you will begin to develop better branding. Strive to be the best possible at that one thing, or two things that your company does. Do not overextend yourself.

Build your reputation on excellence, innovation and quality, within your chosen niche.

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Use Modern Technology

As with blogging, the Internet holds many opportunities for business branding strategies. For instance, you can make use of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to promote your company and generate better rapport with your customers.

You can host webinars, create podcasts or offer a newsletter through your website. Each of these can be tremendous tools in your quest for better business branding and more success.
Have a Website

While it was once acceptable for companies not to have a website, that is no longer the case. Having a website is one of the best ways to establish your business identity and create the right feel for your company.

Without a website, your company is lacking a powerful tool that can be used in myriad different ways to help with business branding and securing success in your chosen niche.

When comparing social media traffic to other forms of traffic, such as search engine, the numbers typically are going to look rather bleak. While you’ll hopefully see a spike in number of visitors and pageviews, that will often be accompanied by higher bounce rates, lower pageviews per visitor, and a lower average time on the site. With stats like this many bloggers wonder if social media traffic is even worth the time and effort.

Despite the tendency of many social media visitors to quickly exit your site and move on to the next one, there are still some very convincing reasons why you should care about social media and why it is worth your time.
1. It’s Free

Unless you’re paying for a consultant or a link bait specialist (both can be good options), marketing your website with social media is free. It will cost you some time, but that pales in comparison to the value of the traffic that you can get in return. There are countless ways to market a website or blog. Just about all of them involve spending money (which isn’t a bad thing), and of the ones that don’t involve money, the vast majority of them are a complete waste of time. I’ve never tried any other type of free marketing that brought even 1% of the results I’ve gotten with social media at my primary blog. Most bloggers are on a tight, or non-existent, budget when it comes to marketing. If this is the case, social media is for you.
2. Quick Results

Building a successful website takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Search engine rankings, for instance, can take years to build in a competitive niche. On the other hand, with social media you can develop content and be seen by thousands of visitors within the same day. For this reason, social media is a great option for getting a new website or blog noticed right away .
3. It’s Flexible

There are so many different social media websites that just about every imaginable niche is covered in one way or another. There are social news sites, bookmarking sites, and general networking sites. Whatever your needs and your audience, there should be an option to use social media for your benefit.

Also, you’re not stuck to using the same social media sites over and over. If you’re not getting results in one place there’s usually other options that you can try out.
4. It Gets Easier with Time

If you’re new to blogging and social media and you feel like everyone else is getting traffic but you, understand that it takes some time and effort, but it will get easier. Once you have established a bit of a reader base and you’ve hopefully attracted some social media users to your blog, it will be much easier for you to get votes and ultimately get more exposure. The more you use social media the more you will understand about how it works and how users will respond.
5. It Will Lead to Other Valuable Sources of Traffic

Although visitors from social media sites may be less responsive than other types of visitors, success with social media will likely increase the number of inbound links you receive. Links will boost your search engine rankings and they’ll also drive click-through traffic your way. Both are generally high quality traffic sources.
6. Building Links with Social Media is Safer than Buying Links

If you plan to cut out the need for social media by purchasing links from other sites, you’re running the risk of being penalized or banned by Google. For some, this is a risk worth taking, but in most cases I would strongly discourage taking this chance. Personally, I focus on building links for my primary blog through the combination of content and social media.
7. Social Media Users are Predictable

The whole concept or link bait or Digg bait wouldn’t even be possible if social media users were unpredictable. But the truth is you can usually have a good idea of what is likely to draw a response and what is not. This will come with time, and of course there is no 100% guarantee. However, once you know a social media audience pretty well, you can cater content to their preferences with a pretty high success rate. What you learn about social media can easily be duplicated to your other blogs or to serving clients.
8. It Doesn’t Require as Much Time as You Might Think

Personally, I use social media every day, but on a very limited basis. If you think that you have to spend all day on Digg or Stumbling pages to get some results of your own, you may be surprised. With the right approach you can get fantastic results with just a few hours per week on social media sites. To be a top Digg user you’ll need more time than that, but being a top Digg user isn’t necessary to draw social media traffic.
9. Branding Through Social Media is Possible

One of the great benefits to the exposure that you can get through social media is the result it has on the branding of your blog. Branding is key to building a success blog in the long-term, and social media is an excellent, free option for helping visitors to see your blog in a particular light. (For more, see my post at ProBlogger A Blogger’s Guide to Branding with Social Media.)
10. Links Can Help Your Search Engine Rankings Rise Quickly

Earlier I mentioned to social media can provide instant results. Well, in addition to sending loads of traffic directly, the links that result from social media success can get your new posts ranking very well with search engines almost immediately. It’s not uncommon for me to see a very respectable number of visitors from Google searches to a brand new post that just drew a lot of links through social media. While it will take a while to build search engine rankings as a whole, it is possible to create specific posts to rank well right away.
11. It Allows You to Leverage Your Existing Traffic

Do you already have a solid blog with a steady flow of traffic? If so, chances are you could leverage that traffic to draw even more visitors with social media. You may want to use voting buttons on your posts or ask some of your readers and friends to give you a vote occasionally.
12. Some Visitors Will Be Targeted

The biggest knock on social media traffic is that it’s not targeted, and that is typically true. However, visitors from niche social media sites can be very highly targeted, and on top of that, a portion of visitors from general news sites will be targeted as well. For example, if you get 25,000 visitors from a post on the Digg front page, maybe only 5,000 of them will have much of an interest in your site. Still, that’s a quick 5,000 visitors that you wouldn’t have had without social media. Just because a smaller percentage of the visitors will stick doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant.
13. The Future of the Internet is Social

Social media and social networking aren’t going away any time soon. The major players and the types of social sites may change of the course of time, but this is a trend that online marketers need to adjust to. Without finding ways to build a website or blog through social media you could be left behind by your competitors.

Our entrepreneur, we’ll call him Bob, runs a computer repair business. His services allow him to provide his clients with his expert advise, either in their offices, by email, or on the phone. Because of this, Bob has a large potential market, both locally and internationally.

Bob has a great brochure, filled with all his features and benefits; he attends as many networking events as he can; he advertises in the local newspapers; and he has a huge ad in the yellow pages. But, Bob doesn’t have a website. Why?

“I don’t need a website, do I?” asks Bob. “I do everything else possible to market my business and I also get many customers by referrals. Why would I need a website?”

Glad you asked Bob! Let’s see if we can’t outline some of the benefits of having a website… both locally and internationally…

Your website is a live brochure that is available for anyone to see from anywhere, no matter if they are 5 miles away or 5000 miles away.

For potential local clients, they may first find your company in the yellow pages but, if they are looking for more information about you and the services you offer, the Internet is one of the first places they will look to do their research.

Many potential long distance clients may be in different time zones or would rather not make a long distance call. Because of these factors, the Internet is where they would go for more information. Having a website enables your information to be available anytime and, by including your email address on your site, they have a cheaper and more convenient of contacting you.

Your website allows you to create and show much more of your information than a print ad or brochure. The more information you provide, the more likely a potential client will be to buy from you as they can see everything they need to know. You can even include a little something extra, such as tips and resources, to help your clients see your dedication to providing topnotch customer service.

Your website also allows you to be more creative in how your present your information than with something that is in print. You can add bells and whistles (but not too many) that show that can be creative in your efforts.

Many people use the Internet to find out more information about products or services that they are in need of. Your website is a means of offering information to those who may be researching online before buying. If you don’t have a website, how are they going to even get a chance to see what you have to offer?

In the same respect, if a potential client has heard about you but can’t find your business card, they may turn to the Internet to try and locate your contact information or to learn more about you.

Your website opens the door to a larger market of prospective clients. Even if your service is normally only preformed locally, there is always the potential to expand. And, you are more likely to increase your local client base if your website is available for them to research your service.

Even if you cater to only a specific clientele, your website can be a place for them to visit or where they can point others to who they are referring to you.

Your website is the one piece of marketing material that is easy to change without a huge cost. So, if you have a special event coming up or you want to include more information on a certain service, you simply have your web designer make the change. And, almost instantly, your information is fresh and visible, without the costs of re-printing new marketing material.

We could go on and on about the benefits of having a website. In short, having a website is the ‘way to go’ these days and, if your company does not have a website, are you losing customers? Are they finding your competition when using the Internet but not you? Are they wondering why you do not have a website when all of your competition does?

Your website is your company’s 24 hour advertising medium. Why wouldn’t you consider having one? Bob?

There is no question about it, all enterprises which are trying to sell or at least promote their stuff on the internet need social media marketing as an integral internet marketing tool. The exact nature of the social media marketing campaign adopted by the particular internet enterprise largely depends on characteristics such as company profile, the products, and the company.

Some of the potential benefits of social media:

build brand awareness and loyalty
strengthen relationships with: audience, clients, potential customers, influential people in your field, etc.
improve customer service and customer interaction
drive more traffic to your website(s)
improve your search engine rankings
generate sales

Your web site should be easy to read

The most important rule in web design is that your web site should be easy to read. What does this mean? You should choose your text and background colors very carefully. You don’t want to use backgrounds that obscure your text or use colors that are hard to read. Dark-colored text on a light-colored background is easier to read than light-colored text on a dark-colored background.

You also don’t want to set your text size too small (hard to read) or too large (it will appear to shout at your visitors). All capitalized letters give the appearance of shouting at your visitors.

Keep the alignment of your main text to the left, not centered. Center-aligned text is best used in headlines. You want your visitors to be comfortable with what they are reading, and most text (in the West) is left aligned.

Read details on how to make your web site and web graphic images easy to read.

Your web site should be easy to navigate

All of your hyperlinks should be clear to your visitors. Graphic images, such as buttons or tabs, should be clearly labeled and easy to read. Your web graphic designer should select the colors, backgrounds, textures, and special effects on your web graphics very carefully. It is more important that your navigational buttons and tabs be easy to read and understand than to have “flashy” effects.

Link colors in your text should be familiar to your visitor (blue text usually indicates an unvisited link and purple or maroon text usually indicates a visited link), if possible. If you elect not to use the default colors, your text links should be emphasized in some other way (boldfaced, a larger font size, set between small vertical lines, or a combination of these). Text links should be unique — they should not look the same as any other text in your web pages. You do not want people clicking on your headings because they think the headings are links.

Your visitors should be able to find what they are looking for in your site within three clicks. If not, they are very likely to click off your site as quickly as they clicked on.

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Advertising is not a joke!

Exposure + Stickiness + Consistency

Exposure: Be available to be recalled.
A consumer will only consider purchasing from you if you are present in their thoughts during the decision process. While you may think about your business all the time, your customers don’t. And customers who have never done business with you before have no reason to think about you…unless they have been exposed to you. So you must expose your business name and service as much as you can. Don’t limit your thinking by looking for the best way to get exposure, rather look for the best ways (multiple) to get your brand name and product/service offerings exposed.

Stickiness: Be memorable.
I see a lot of businesses sponsoring events or local causes to get their name out there. They receive the obligatory name on the t-shirt and logo in the program. This just doesn’t cut it. If you’re going to put your name out there, make your exposure memorable. One way to do this is to create a rich context of extra information around your business name. This is called message elaboration.

For example, Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS is giving away 20 pine tree air fresheners…in a Chevy Cruze carrying case. Chevrolet and Conan could have just announced something forgettable like the “Cruze Away in a Chevy Sweepstakes,” but instead made it more elaborate, and memorable, by adding the pine tree air fresheners. You don’t have to give away 20 cars to be memorable, but make your business exposure more elaborate. Follow this advice for your advertising as well. Create a rich context around your advertising message for impact.

Consistency: Be Active and Frequent
People don’t remember things very well. In fact, we forget most information we encounter within the first hour. If you’re going to be remembered when you get your name out there, you need to be consistent. This is the power of frequency: repeated exposure to your business will help people remember you. Don’t just sponsor one event a year. Don’t just send out one press release a year. One advertising campaign, one month out of the year? No. Be active and frequent in promoting your business. This doesn’t mean you need to advertise every where, but where you do advertise, be consistent.

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