Ask any entrepreneur who has any success with social media marketing, and you’ll find out the truth about it: This form of marketing is pretty labor intensive. You won’t be effective if you approach it in a hit or miss fashion. If you’re not careful, it can consume all of your time. You have to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Limit Time on Social Media Marketing

Some entrepreneurs find social media marketing addictive. When you work alone especially, social media marketing can become an outlet and a means of socializing and interacting with humans using technology. The problem is, you may not make any money the same day you’re messing around on Twitter, talking about the latest in news and events. It’s easy to excuse the behavior and call it “community building,” when you’re really wasting time. Allocate 30 or 60 minutes to social media marketing tops each day. Larger businesses pay staff and outside consultants to spend a lot of time on social media channels, while they deliver products and services, and make money. It’s on you to do it all, and you don’t have precious time to spend for the sake of social media marketing.

One Part SMM, Two Part SEO

For every minute you spend on social media marketing, spend two minutes on search engine optimization (SEO). The two should overlap, which is fine, but you should do strictly SEO activities when you’re on social media channels. For example, it’s fine to post a tweet on Twitter that includes a keyword that you took the time to research, and that will give you more web traffic. Focus on general SEO and not just social media optimization work (SMO) so that you don’t put all your eggs in the social media basket.

If you’re spending too much time on social media marketing, and not seeing a return on your investment, it’s time to reevaluate your marketing strategy.

It is no big secret that blogging can provide a significant income stream. This knowledge is so well known that the blogosphere went from being a relatively small part of internet content to its current point where almost everyone has a blog. Ranging from internet marketing experts through teenagers, everyone is attempting to cash in on a blog in some fashion. However, while many blogs exist, only a small percentage of them actually yield significant dividends.

While there are many ways in which a blog can be monetized, the most common is through using Google AdSense. There is no doubt that when used effectively AdSense will indeed create income, but many people don’t understand what it takes to effectively blog for AdSense results. By learning the tips and tricks that yield effective blogging results, almost any blog using advertising as a form of revenue can succeed.

Rule number 1: A Blog must have Content
Many people start a blog thinking that they only need to write a few posts and the money will start coming in. However, this never is how it really works. For blogs to be effective, they must have both enough content to draw traffic as well as up to date and useful information. Not only does this mean writing a lot of blog posts, but it means constantly staying up to date as well.

Rule number 2: The Content must be Targeted
While it is important that a blog have a limited focus such as technology or a popular television show, each post needs to be targeted to yield the right ads. AdSense scans each blog for content and then posts advertisements that fit the information. In order to maximize this, it is extremely important to target specific products or services in the post itself. This will not only lead to more accurate ads, but should also lead to a higher percentage of clicks, which of course leads to more money.

Rule number 3: Post Quality must be Outstanding
No matter what subject a blog covers, chances are there are more than a few blogs that post about the same exact material. When it comes to effectively blogging for AdSense results, it is imperative that the blog not only grab people’s attention, but also be worth coming back too time and time again. The sticky reader is vital in a blogs success.

Believe it or not, these three simple rules will make a huge difference in any blog which follows them.

There is a new feature soon to be released for Google AdWords Pay Per Click Advertising allowing advertisers to place a phone number below their ad. This will be an additional line, to the already overcrowded space. This means ads will have a headline, 2 descriptions, and a display URL. Optionally there will be Google checkout, Google checkout save $__, image results, and now a phone number.

What does all this mean to advertisers on the Google AdWords PPC accounts? There will be less space for the first page results, thus driving up cost per click.

With the beta feature there can only be 5 PPC campaigns per account set up with Google beta generated phone numbers. These numbers will be different for each campaign to better track results. Hopefully soon this will expand to individual ad groups within campaigns, keywords, and ad text. This is all something that will need to be implemented soon after the beta phases.

The phone numbers generated by Google will redirect to a company chosen phone number. This will track conversions, but how? That is a good question. Is Google only going to track conversions that lead to a phone call? If so this is inaccurate as a phone call does not always lead to a sale or conversion. I will be waiting for a response from Google to this question.

Currently there are two phases of the phone number tracking conversions being releases. Phase 1 has your phone number listed under your ad. People can call the number by reading your ad, but cannot call by clicking into your website. Phase 2 is where a user clicks your ad and is lead to a landing page with the specific Google generated phone number.

So if your company already has phone numbers set up for tracking PPC conversions then you should go with phase 1 (if you are privileged to take place in this beta testing)

Many of you may be wondering why Google AdWords is showing up an additional match type for you keywords, called session-based matches. This session based matches occur through Broad keywords in your Google Pay Per Click campaign. What this means is that when users searching for a keyword term and then reevaluate their search to another keyword, your ad will show up both times. This is Google’s new personalized search results.

After much research and studies it has been noted that this has many flaws and is not perfect in anyway. The largest disadvantage is that you cannot opt out of this, which has cost some advertisers thousands of dollars in wasted clicks daily. Many AdWords PPC advertisers are weaning off the broad match keyword for now, until Google perfects this new advertising match type.

One study had results that showed an increased click through rate, an increased cost per click, but a lower conversion rate and a higher cost per conversion. What this tells us is that Google is looking to spend our advertising budget in any way possible, even if this means pissing off a few advertisers. Google knows that their AdWords campaigns are invaluable to internet marketers, so they can do as they please.

Here is the study courtesy of SEOptimise Blog:

Hopefully, within the next few weeks this problem will be solved and advertisers will become happier.

Many of you have been searching on Google for a specific product when you look at the right column where the sponsored results are only to see a new method for advertising. Rather than show strictly text ads, the first three sponsored results have been transformed into picture advertisements. The only text is below the image, and it states the products price and the website it is sold on.

This feature of AdWords, called Product Listing Ads, is still in its Beta form and is currently available to a select few advertisers. The requirements to qualify for this Google beta platform is to have a Google affiliate merchant account network. This costs $1,000 and there is a $500 monthly fee to keep your advertisements showing. The websites also receive a commission of your sales. Does it seem like Google is taking over affiliate marketing? YES IT DOES!

This is a horrific thing for affiliate advertisers. How can you compete with Google? That makes tons of affiliate marketers rethink their strategy of generating revenue via the World Wide Web.

Another new change to Google is the localized searches have begun to implement AdWords. There is a blue pushpin signalizing that this is a paid localized search result. This does help make it convenient to differentiate those rankings that are organic and those that are paid. Hopefully, this feature will not removed, but knowing Google it likely will be in the near future when testing has been completed. This means people can outbid your natural search rankings for geographically targeted search terms. This just shows that Google is looking for new ways and opportunities to remove the organic listings and start reaping the benefits of paid or sponsored results advertising.

There are thousands of ways to increase website traffic. Most of these variables cost money, but there are many other methods that are free. Below is a list of over 100 free ways to increase traffic to your website.

1) Yahoo Answers
2) Myspace.com
3) Yahoo Groups
4) Stumbleupon.com
5) Post in Forums
6) Craigslist.org
7) Submit Site maps
Give out E-Books
9) Website Layout and Design
10) Directory Submissions
11) Tell a Friend (word of mouth)
12) Search Engine Optimization
13) Search Engine Marketing
14) Social bookmarking sites
15) Article Writing and Submission
16) Site Explorer
17) Epinion.com
18) Alexa.com
19) Newsletter Box
20) Scribd
21) Back Links from Relevant Sites
22) Add New Pages to your Site
22) Write and Submit Press Releases
23) Place Ads on Online Classified Ad Sites
24) Use SEO for Firefox Toolbar Plugin
25) Add a Forum to Your Site
26) Add a Blog to Your Site
27) Optimize Your Blog for The Search Engines
28) Comment on Other Blogs
29) MySpace News
30) Digg
31) Banner Exchanges
32) Traffic Exchanges
33) Squidoo.com
34) Technorati and ping it when your blog content changes
35) Use a ping service like pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators
36) Submit Blog to RSS Feed Directories
37) Link to other blogs in your posts
38) Use Stumbleupon to stumble your posts
39) Ask your readers to submit your posts to social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, etc.)
40) Start a group blog
41) Join SpicyPage and promote your blog
42) Join a webring
43) Sign up for BlogWoods and promote your blog
44) Exchange Ads (not blogroll links) with complementary blogs
45) Trade blog roll links with related blogs
46) Use Twitter
47) Publish Keyword Rich Videos on YouTube with your URL
48) Search and Add Wikis Related to your Site
49) Join Hub pages and post links to your blog from articles you write.
50) Web 2.0 Marketing
51) Create a MySpace Page. Put your blog on it, and get some friends.
52) Tell people you will link back to them if they review your blog
53) Most brands are not well established online, you review related content and it will rank well.
54) Review relevant products on Amazon.com.
55) Create product lists on Amazon.com
56) Review related sites on Alexa
57) Review products and services on shopping search engines.
58) Swap some links.
59) Try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages.
60) Sell items on eBay.
61) Target niche social news sites like DZone, Sphinn or Hugg
62) Whenever you send an email to someone, always add your website url as a signature.
63) Do email signature swaps
64) Tag blog posts at social bookmarking sites
65) Add photos to your blog with appropriate keywords – Google Images generates traffic too.
66) Tag blog photos at Flicker
67) Make a custom 404-error page for your website. You can provide a link back to your main website or even try to monetize it by offering a related affiliate program within your niche.
68) Outsource grunt work.
69) After someone orders from you offer a one-time offer that compliments your product.
70) Participate in Blog Carnivals
71) create a network of blogs in different niches, and then link them together
72) Give away stock images with a wee watermark of your URL
73) Find and discuss memes
74) Create a Yahoo Group in the niche your site sits.
75) Bookmark your site on Del.icio.us and if you’re really keen, add a Del.icio.us button to your homepage.
76) Place a free ad for your company on Gumtree.
77) Syndicate your site’s content by using an RSS feeds.
78) Submit your RSS feeds to aggregator sites.
79) Don’t worry about PageRank – worrying about PageRank is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.*
80) Get a custom t-shirt made with your website URL on it, and wear it often.
81) Get a custom t-shirt made with your website URL on it, and wear it often.
82) Send out a newsletter!
83) Giving away an eBook is an excellent way to generate word-of-mouth about your site.
84) Ask bloggers and other Web site owners to review your site and/or products.
85) Add a “Tell a Friend” function to your site, so people can easily recommend you to their mates.
86) Share your banners on banner exchange sites.
87) Create a “lens” for your site on Squidoo
88) Do you have really hot content on your site that geeks would love? If so Slashdot will bring you a mass of traffic.
89) upload a favicon.gif file so that your users have a nice icon when they bookmark your site.
90) Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search
91) Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
92) Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
93) Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts.
94) Increase the list you ping
95) Use Facebook
96) Social Networking
97) Micro
98) Email Marketing
99) RSS Feeds
100) Get outside links to internal pages
101) Use free hosting and build sites and link them back to your main site.

Everyone wants to have top rankings on the for big search engines; Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. This is obtainable, but requires a lot of work and effort to ensure that every aspect of all the different algorithms are met. Since the algorithms are kept top secret, this makes for a difficult process.

One of the most frequently asked questions readers and clients ask, revolves around how websites can be best optimized to meet the algorithmic needs of each of the major 4 search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask jeeves. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Though there have been wide sweeping changes in the organic search engine landscape over the past six months, the fundamental ways search engines operate remains the same.

UPDATE: Big three sounds more like it! In 2009 the major search engines are Yahoo, Google, and soon to be Bing. Each has similar algorithms and ranking systems, with slight variations. For example Google looks at content and links, whereas Bing looks more at the links not the content. Having a set strategy for ranking in each search engine is the best way to go about your internet marketing endeavors.