09 and ecommerce

I'm confident 2009 will be a great year for e-business! Even with turmoil in the economy marketers are finding that changing their marketing strategy can lead to a exciting increase in their return on investment. Changing business focus from only brick and mortar to e-business is a necessity to safely get your business through the current turmoil. I'm a passionate believer that sticking to flawed and outdated methods of advertising and business will tear a hole in the bottom line. E-business will help strengthen the bottom line in 2009.

How can companies succeed during this turmoil? New strategies that help the marketing become more effective will unlock new ways for companies to succeed in e-business in 2009. Some of these valuable strategies include branding and identity. Branding should help spotlight the attention of the target audience. The identity of your e-business should both communicate who your company is as well as keep it visible to customers, potential customers, and deliver quality leads.

The quality of brand and identity positioning is very important. I'm keen on how it can generate more leads, as well as increased sales. Pay per click and e-marketing offers an easily trackable way to measure how sales and leads are being generated. It's incredible how closely performance can be tracked when conducting e-business.

The right combination of search engine optimization, e-business, pay per click, and other Internet advertising will help give your company the exciting opportunity to deliver the best possible message at the best time in e-business in 2009.

content is king

Ecommerce is entering 2009 big and is expected to grow by $11 billion in 2009. Ecommerce once again has hammered out a record growth rate. Last year it was projected that 27% of the people online in the US will purchase more over the Internet the last two months of this year then they did the year before. Wow! If you compare the projected growth of ecommerce over brick and mortar retail the numbers are amazing. The eRetail market is expected to reach $267 billion in total sales in the year after 2009. It's estimated that the primary business driver for this is improving the customer experience.

What's the biggest trend for improving the customer experience in ecommerce? Content is King. This is quickly becoming one of the biggest ecommerce trends in 2009.

The value of fresh and relevant content is one of the biggest trends changing the face of the Internet. For example in a recent survey of women online %59 of them had purchased products online while 62% of them had talked about products online. In another study %37 of the respondents had frequently talked about the brands they had loved or hated online. The trend is increasingly that people are now placing higher value on content that is personalized around their interests, which often includes talking about products. Word of mouth is becoming increasingly important. People want information, context, and community. However this trend in eCommerce is more then just talk and customers reviewing products. In a recent study by a major authority in the field, it was revealed that content distributed over social networks, blogs, video sharing sites, and even message boards was becoming increasingly active as a trend in ecommerce in 2009. Content is King wherever it is.

The big boys are putting out fresh and relevant content about themselves. Am I suggesting that all information about your company must be fresh and relevant? No. But the trend for ecommerce in 2009 continues to be that Content is King. Please see my website www.macratech.com to learn more.

greenville sc and search engine optimization

The United States had 3.6 trillion dollars in retail sales in 2008. Internet Retail sales went up in October. They went down in November by 1.8%. Regardless the number of online retail sales over the Internet in November was about 8.3 billion dollars. It's expected that online retail sales in the last two months of 2008 will increase by %12. Search engine optimization helped Internet sales on December 1st increase by over 40% compared to last year.

If Internet sales are increasing then people are buying goods from websites. And if people are buying goods from a website then it could be your website that they are buying it from. That's billions of e-commerce and that's real money.

Maybe you don't have a website. Still, about $400 billion dollars of retail sales are affected by what people read on the Web. Even if you don't have a website your sales can be affected by what is on the Web.

Maybe you don't have a website. It's common sense that even if your business is not on the web it's not doomed to fail. That's right. It's not doomed to fail. It's only not succeeding as much as it could be.

Everyone wants their business to be successful. People are still going to be using the Web regardless of your company’s web presence.

And the Web influences over $400 billion of retail sales. That's offline real world hard sale numbers. With the millions of potential customers searching the web some of them are going to be looking for your product or service. And if you don't have a website up then how are they going to learn about your product? What is going to make them want to go to your company when they want to do business and they can't find your website? A competitor’s website?! I don't think so.

If your company is going to be on the web then it needs a website. Think of it as a 24 hour business card on the global network that people are going to look at. That's where professional web design is important. However there is more then web design in making a successful website. There's also search engine optimization. Search engine optimization has been around since about 1996-97 and is now more then ever necessary to help your website be found by potential customers.

And there you have it, a website with good web design is appealing and an invitation for the consumer to do business with you. There's more then web design that reflects your corporate brand- there's also integrating it with search engines. Most importantly, work with a professional company like Macratech in Greenville South Carolina in order to have the best results with web design and search engine optimization. Our experience is your key to success.

The internet is HOTTER than ever and it's not going away

The internet is HOTTER than ever and it's not going away
By Patrick Smith, 3/1/07
As the eMarket enters it 2nd decade, there is no slow in sight. Once again, 2006 has proved to be another show stopper for eCommerce. The eRetail market hammered another double digit growth rate of 25% compared to 05. eRetailed hit another all time high of over $102 Billion in sales and another $40B in travel and hotels bookings. The CAGR or Compounded Annual Growth Rate for the next 5 years is expected to linger at 20%. Wow! How significant is this? Very! If you compare the growth to Retail or commonly known as the Brick and Mortar of sales, the growth rate is basically equal to that of inflation.
More and more companies are recognizing that success in any business must incorporate an internet strategy. It is suggested that 30% of all purchases are researched online. So what are the big boys doing? They are investing. Sears recently announce their investment in Secondlife.com, an online based community where participants live is a virtual space creating avatars of one self. Why? In this community, participants buy homes, products, clothes, and listen to music all in the name of fun. It was identified by companies like Sears and others that participants can help you with product knowledge and marketing. Imagine this: Sears designs a new piece of furniture. They place this item in secondlife in a virtual store side by side other items of similar style. Within a short period, analytics can help them determine the product efficacy and receive real-time feedback. Am I suggesting you invest into secondlife? No. But you must be aware that time are changing.
In an article written by a well respected retail analyst, the study suggests that businesses are poaching from their conventional marketing funds to support aggressive activity in web eMarketing. It was clear that many companies are seeing a greater ROI with web marketing than with conventional methods. The article also suggested that senior level executives are highly engaged in SEO and SEM.
Please review my site www.macratech.com to learn more.

Web design with an impact by macratech.com

WEB DESIGN WITH IMPACT

First impressions are everything. Your website is a 24 hour-a day salesman, customer service agent, and business hub. Putting your best foot forward online means building an attractive, creative, and functional site. We pride ourselves on our ability to create visually stunning, standards-compliant, technically advanced websites. Our design philosophy is simple: create unique, accessable websites that draw users to your brand. Whether your goal is to market, sell, or provide an interactive experience for your customers online, Macratech delivers clean, professional design.
If you are a small business and need assistance, you may find helpful information here in the Small Business Guide: "Small Business Startup" Macratech has skillfully created custom websites and visual identities for large and small companies alike. Projects have included online stores, marketing and promotional websites, online real estate and property management databases,scheduling systems, and online document exchange areas. Our programmers always have access to the latest technology, so you can be sure you're getting a cutting-edge web solution.Call us today to discuss your project. We’d be happy to arrange a visit and create a custom-tailored solution that accomplishes your specic business goals.

Paid SEO Services by macratech.com

PAID SEO ACTIVITIES:

Macratech.com explains PPC. Paid Inclusion is the ideal solution for Pages with frequently changing content - such as deal of the day / week, Dynamic web pages which search engine spiders can not find and Sites which need the tracking associated with paid inclusion.
Listing in Amazon.comAmazon.com, an online book store plays an important role in search engine indexing. Although being an online store, it is very natural for them to adopt dynamic URLs but it makes its dynamic URLs, search engine index friendly. If we search in google using “internet marketing books” keyword it takes you directly to the appropriate dynamic page at Amazon.
Listing in Ebay.comeBay is the world's online marketplace - a place for buyers and sellers to come together and trade almost anything!Here's how it works: A seller lists an item on eBay, from antiques to cars, books to sporting goods, toys to electronics. The seller chooses to accept bids for the item (an online auction) or to offer the Buy It Now option, which allows buyers to purchase the item right away.
Listing In FroogleFroogle, Google's shopping search engine, applies the power of Google's search technology to one very specific task: locating sellers that offer the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can buy itHere's how it works: Froogle collects product information in two ways. First, it uses product information submitted electronically by merchants who choose to take advantage of this free service. Second, as Google's spidering software crawls the Internet, Froogle automatically identifies WebPages that offer products for sale.
Listing In Miva Small Business SolutionsMIVA provides search engine solutions, ad content and directory services for businesses that can be tailored to fit a business's brand. MIVA is made up of three main divisions, which include: MIVA Media, Miva Small Business and MIVA Direct.MIVA Media: MIVA Media has three main programs, which are: Advertisers, Partners and Private Label.
Listing in MSN DirectoryMSN is a popular web directory. MSNBot is the MSN Search Web crawler that automatically crawls the Web to add information to our search index. MSNBot crawls the Web by looking for links within websites. So one of the best ways to ensure that MSNBot can find your website is to include valuable content that other sites will want to link to.
Listing in Yahoo Store:The biggest benefit of getting listed in yahoo stores is that it gives you a static URL for each which you can manipulate. Most e-com platforms use dynamic paging which is a lot harder to do SEO for. Yahoo! store is a pretty robust platform because of the stability of the platform, ease of use for common people and the suite of marketing & traffic analysis tools. Yahoo store customers (a.k.a Merchant Solutions customers) get 20% off PPC traffic from Yahoo! Shopping. Folks upgrading from Yahoo! Store to other more customizable platforms MERCHANT SOLUTIONS is their answer.
RSS Feeds Section the WebsiteRSS Feeds are an XML formatted file for use with RSS Readers (such as BlogExpress) or News Aggregators (such as Bloglines, or your TheFreeDictionary or MyYahoo! news page).
Participation in an Affiliate Program This is a system of revenue sharing between one site (the affiliate merchant) which features an ad or content designed to drive traffic to another site (the advertiser). The affiliate receives a fee based on the amount of traffic generated.
Lead GenerationLead generation is a win-win for both the buyer and seller. There are agencies that specialize in providing qualified leads to businesses. The process of lead generation is actually very easy. An agency develops a website or partnerships with several websites in which they promote and advertise your product or service.
Listing in BizrateBizrate is a powerful and easy to use shopping search site on the Web. With an index of approximately 30 million products from more than 60,000 stores the site help shoppers to instantly find virtually anything on sale from anyone, anywhere on the Web at the best price.
Listing in Yahoo ShoppingYahoo Shopping is the best place to compare prices on millions of products, read reviews, and find details from more than 100,000 stores
Listing in NexTagNext Tag enables shoppers to quickly compare prices and find the best deals on millions of products and services. It is an extremely efficient sales channel with its highly qualified traffic and performance-based pricing. It has been named among the nation's fastest growing companies by Inc. 500, Deloitte Technology Fast 500/Fast 50, Red Herring Top 100, San Francisco Business Times Fast 100, and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Fast 50.
Listing in Shopping.comShopping.com is the best place to compare products, prices, and stores in just seconds. With millions of products, thousands of merchants and millions of reviews from the Epinions community, Shopping.com empowers consumers to make informed choices and, as a result, drives much higher conversion to sale and value for merchants. It has the world's largest product catalog - searchable by thousands of attributes.
Listing in PricegabberPricegabber has grown dramatically since the site was launched with a single shopping comparison channel in 1999. The PriceGrabber site now includes millions of products in eight shopping channels (computers, software, electronics, video games, movies, music, books and toys). PriceGrabber hosts over 1.5 million shoppers monthly.
Pay Per Click CampaignIt is an online advertising payment where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click delivered to his or her site from a link or listing keyed to a specific search term, area of a site or even a banner. It allows choosing keywords that webmaster would like for his/her site to appear for when a search is performed. According to your budget and the amount of traffic you want, can choose to have ads listed higher or lower for a keyword
Banners AdvertisingBanners allow advertisers to use both pictures and words in highly visible locations to reach potential customers and have turned out to be the most conventional form of advertising on the World Wide Web. It is projected to redirect traffic to a website by linking them to the web site of the advertiser. Because of its explications a banner ad successfully brings a potential customer directly to the advertiser's Web site
Taking advantage of radio call-insRadio call-ins got a big boost in the 1980s when local shows gained national audiences through syndication to other local markets, and callers could take advantage of new, cheaper long distance phone rates and free 800 numbers. The concept is still highly popular, so never leave the opportunity
Frequent Publicity in the mediaWith publicity, you pay only the minimal costs of getting your message out to the media by phone, mail or fax. The media then may choose to disseminate your message, at their expense and at whatever time, setting and length they choose. The will be happy to use your story to fill up their airtime or column space if you know how to answer Why would your readers/listeners/viewers be interested in learning about you now

macratech.com and search engine optimization

THIS IS A SCIENCE:
Macratech is one of the leading SEO companies offering outstanding paid SEO Services, PPC, Search Engine Optimization services, SEO Consultant Services, Website Promotion, Link Exchange Services and Search Engine Placement.You can get a website anywhere, but Macratech can make your website rank on top of Search engines. We aim at delivering innovative and competent Website Designing and Development solutions to clients we offer different web design services like designing templates, simple websites and simple dynamic websites, e-commerce websites etc. Search engine optimization is the process of making ones website content more search engine friendly to attract traffic by ranking higher. Macratech has the most experienced hand in the field of search engine optimization. Our Search Engine Optimization will help you in multiple ways:
Save money on marketing - compare PPC Improve your rankings during key phrase searches Increase your search engine traffic Strengthen your ability to attract your best audience Optimize your site for up to 100's of keywords Why is SEO Compulsory for your website? Well, let’s name the basic reasons:
More then 80% of the web site visitors come from the search engines. Thousands of web sites are registered every day. Promote Online Image and business card of your enterprise. Advertising campaign on the Internet is relatively cheap in comparison with others. 9 visitors in each ten come to the site from the search engines. Our services include:
Review of your current Search Engine ranking A successful Engine Optimization requires extensive skill and thorough understanding of systems, webpage designs, links, link management, do's and don't etc. Don't be fooled by mis-leading quick fix do it all advertisers. We do it right and we do it agrresively to fit your business profile.Keyword Research Analysis The selection of the correct keywords is one of the most important techniques for achieving high rank in the search engines. The reason is that most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywordsSpam Review We do not use spam or any other unethical techniques. Our strategies include only logical solutions to obtaining higher search engine rankingsTheme Analysis Not only does your site have a theme on which it is centered, but the individual pages within your site also have specific themes. For example, you may have a site, which offers various products or services. Each product or service has its own "theme" and thereby will have specific keywords users will type into search engines to find these products or services. Web Design & Hosting Analysis Selecting a hosting provider who offers 99% uptime guarantee ensures that your site will be reachable to spiders all times. Also make sure that you’re your web hosting server supports the ‘If-Modified-Since-HTTP header’.In-depth analysis of your site with emphasis on structure Search Engines are one of the greatest marketing bargains available today. An In-depth analysis of your site with emphasis on structure and content help increase your online visibility, and drive more traffic to your business website.Content Development Suggestions Search Engines prefer static content. The objective of search engines is to deliver relevant results. If the content of the site keeps changing, the results drawn from the search engine's index might not match with the present content on the site. This would defeat the search engines' objective. Search engines therefore do not index dynamic contentCompetition Gap Analysis We will derive a Competition Gap Analysis that we can use to report on the rankings of your competitors. After examining their Page Rank, their Link-Backs, and their SEO levels, we recommend and implement solutions that will give you a stalwart presence on the web.Initial Search Engine Ranking Reports Our Initial search engine ranking reports before start of SEO allow us to check the website ranking positions for your keywords across Google; as well as all the other major search engines. It also consistently and comprehensively monitors the success of your Search Engine Optimisation campaign.Code re-structuring / optimization Search engine crawlers like “clean” code. They are able to scan accurate code much faster and easier without stumbling over erroneous tags and other errors. It can be extremely beneficial to validate your website code before publishing—it will produce better indexing results. The W3C has excellent code validation toolsOn-site content generation / deployment Home page should contain links to the site's sections, and possibly directly to articles you want visitors to get right into. Make sure the first thing your home page displays is a reason for visitors to stick around. Ideally, there should be 400-500 words on the home page. Home page should contain links to the site's sections, and possibly directly to articles you want visitors to get right into. Make sure the first thing your home page displays is a reason for visitors to stick around. Ideally, there should be 400-500 words on the home pageProfessionally Optimized Titles & Descriptions You can increase click popularity by having a good title and a good description of your website in your Meta tags. We would be providing titles, description etc for the important pagesMeta Tag Optimization One important step in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is meta tag optimization. Meta tags – pieces of HTML code embedded in each web page – act as pointers for the search engines, giving keyword descriptions of what the page is about. Originally it was one of the only methods for search engines to identify your content. Because of some of the urban myths surrounding the importance of meta tag optimization, Macratech can give you the edge over your competition. Strategic Keyword Placement It’s very important that you get your keywords into the text of the link (anchor text). We deploy internal anchor text optimization within the site. You can also apply it to links that you solicit from other websites to get excellent ranking results for your important keywords.Crawler Accessibility Conformity We will be making sitemap.xml file in order to ensure that each and every page of your website is crawled by the Search Engine spiders.Navigation of links on your site plays a big role in determining the stickiness of your site. A clean layout, neat navigation and using a lot of white space for your site enhances its looks. The navigation should be flexible enough to accommodate any amount of additional links in case you will be adding pages periodicallySearch Engine & Directory Submission Once the website is optimized it will be submitted to all the google related servers.With thousands of websites coming up daily this is the only way to inform Search Engines about a new site Industry specific Directory submissions A lot of new search engines apart from Google, MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Gigablast, Teoma and WiseNet etc are gaining popularity. We need to submit your website to all these Search EnginesWeb Site Visibility Advertising Visibility of a site - the ease with which potential customers can find it amongst the myriad competitors - is a crucial factor in making a success of a business websitePaid directory submissions Once the website is optimized it will be submitted to at bcentral.com also known as Microsoft Small business center this is required for listing of your site at MSN Search engine.Content / article generation and distribution Search Engine spiders love a lot of content rather than HTML Elements which are present in your website, a website having a lot of content/information will be ranked high on search engines. Also we would like if you consider addition of 3-4 static HTML pages every month describing more about your business. Generally webmasters implement this with addition of sections like articles/testimonials etc. to be effective, your static pages must be included in your site map and linked in your navigationFinal Search Engine Ranking Reports Our Final search engine ranking reports after SEO Campaign allows you to check the website ranking positions for your keywords across Google; as well as all the other major search engines. It also consistently and comprehensively monitors the success of your Search Engine Optimisation campaign.