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	<title>Mercier &#38; Stephens Business Blog</title>
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	<description>Topics for Small &#38; Medium Sized Companies</description>
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		<title>All Inclusive Marketing Strategies</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/all-inclusive-marketing-strategies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=all-inclusive-marketing-strategies</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/all-inclusive-marketing-strategies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:28:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email campaign]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google+]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marketing strategies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pay per click]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PPC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=648</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Crucial elements that help to preserve the health of a business online are strong marketing and SEO strategies that harness the attention of potential buyers and convert them into loyal customers. Considering the fact “it’s a jungle out there!” in terms of a vast number of companies and competition present online and selling products online, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Crucial elements that help to preserve the health of a business online are strong marketing and SEO strategies that harness the attention of potential buyers and convert them into loyal customers. Considering the fact “it’s a jungle out there!” in terms of a vast number of companies and competition present online and selling products online, making ‘lead generation&#8217; a complex challenge. It’s a given, every company is doing everything they can, or everything they can afford, to drive more traffic on to their web-sites. What makes a unique and &#8220;stand out&#8221; company are well-rounded customized marketing campaigns.</p>
<p><strong><em>Superior SEO</em></strong>: We offer well balanced SEO refinement that improve web-site page ranking. We have expertise in number of techniques including optimizing the Meta data, redesigning and restructuring web-site, HTML source code manipulation and much more.</p>
<p><strong><em>Article Marketing</em></strong>: Article marketing is a vital component of online marketing and a significant part of SEO. Creating articles that are keywords rich and putting in links related to your business product and/ or services will draw in the vital attention of the relevant lead readers. These articles are then submitted to top directories websites that improve visibility. This enables every customer to make an informed purchase decision.</p>
<p><strong><em>Pay per click adverts</em></strong>: <a title="PPC- Pay Per Click Advertising" href="http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/ppc-pay-per-click/" target="_blank">Pay Per Click</a> is most frequently used and effective method. Unique custom made phrases related to your business get you to pay the search engine every time that advert is clicked. This cost-effective strategy of online marketing is quite popular since many potential customers are drawn in without necessarily clicking on the advert. We couple this with <a title="Email Marketing" href="http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/email-marketing/">email marketing</a> as in our experience it works better. (Email marketing is where you send potential customers product information via email)</p>
<p><strong><em>Social Media Marketing Platforms</em></strong>:<a href="http://www.facebook.com/MercierandStephens" target="_blank"> Facebook</a>, <a href="https://plus.google.com/118186881908983551055/posts" target="_blank">Google plus</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/rrix40" target="_blank">twitter </a>are the forerunners and clear winners as far as social media marketing platforms are concerned. (Although there are many others like LinkedIn, Bing ) These versatile platforms have opened up many free channels where businesses can be advertised as per individual requirements. Generally for most businesses, we identify an area of specialty followed by starting bookmarking advertisements with creative and superb quality content that promotes the products.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>The Power Of Email Marketing: Reach Out To Your Customers</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/power-of-email-marketing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=power-of-email-marketing</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/power-of-email-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:35:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Developers Corner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email campaign]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=641</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since I wrote the email blog earlier this month, I have had a lot of calls and comments about getting a little more detail about what to do and not do in an email marketing campaign. So I wrote this to hopefully add to the discussion. Do not upset your customers by sending out massive [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Since I wrote the email blog earlier this month, I have had a lot of calls and comments about getting a little more detail about what to do and not do in an email marketing campaign. So I wrote this to hopefully add to the discussion. </p>
<p>Do not upset your customers by sending out massive amounts of unwanted emails. Your message for every email should be clear and call attention to products as appropriate. Keep your messages interesting, and your customers will continue to read your emails. This article teaches you the best way to build relevant marketing.</p>
<p>Make sure you use Alt tags to your benefit when you add images to emails. If a certain image doesn&#8217;t load properly, the tag will take its place. Make sure that the tag description is relevant to the image it is replacing so your readers have a good idea as to the image&#8217;s purpose. Add them to your hyperlinks as well.</p>
<p>You email marketing program will be more effective if you offer your customers many options. It is a good idea to allow subscribers to select the quantity of emails they will receive, along with the frequency at which these emails are sent. Any information provided by the subscriber should also be at their discretion. The more control they have over the process, the more comfortable they will be.</p>
<p>You usually don&#8217;t want to send emails around major holidays. People do not have time to check their emails as much since they are away from work and have limited access to their computers. There are times, however, when this may not be true. Black Friday, for example, is one occasion where a date relevant campaign is warranted.</p>
<p>If your opt-in gives you birthday data, always send celebratory messages. Use programming to automatically send the birthday message to recipients on that particular date. Throw in discounts, coupons or special offers when possible so that subscribers feel and have appreciation for your business.</p>
<p>Your email marketing messages need to grab readers&#8217; attention. It may take a few tries to get it exactly right. If something is not working for you, try a different approach. Even if a particular technique does seem successful, continue trying new strategies to constantly improve your campaign.</p>
<p>Keep your customers happy by providing them with emails that are personalized. This can let you notify them of upcoming sales and promotions. The key is to tailor those sales and discounts to products similar to what they have bought in the past. Once you gain a customer&#8217;s trust through that first sale, he or she will be more inclined to purchase more of your products.</p>
<p>Always remember that as each day goes by, your subscribers will likely be viewing your messages on a mobile device or through a smartphone. Remember that these devices have a smaller screen and will not be able to display an entire website. Test your emails out so that you know they&#8217;re legible on mobile screens.</p>
<p>The tips above emphasized that unless your email marketing campaign is full of interesting messages, it&#8217;s not going to convert many customers. If your messages solely exist as a sales pitch, your customers will lose no time in either marking you as spam, or simply opting out. Utilize the tips provided in this article in order to generate compelling content that will appeal to your customer base.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Why You Need A Blog In Business Today</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/why-you-need-a-blog-in-business-today/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-you-need-a-blog-in-business-today</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/why-you-need-a-blog-in-business-today/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:17:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General Business]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=634</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A business may look at the more recent media like Facebook and Twitter, and wonder whether there&#8217;s even a use for company blogs any longer. But previous experience has shown that there is still a place for such a tool. In the past, many companies recognized that their websites were not very friendly to customers, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A business may look at the more recent media like <a href="http://www.affiliatexfiles.com/six-effective-facebook-business-tips/">Facebook</a> and Twitter, and wonder whether there&#8217;s even a use for company blogs any longer. But previous experience has shown that there is still a place for such a tool. In the past, many companies recognized that their websites were not very friendly to customers, as they looked more like pages from their Annual Reports than anything else. When they changed their sites, often including a blog, customers began to respond enthusiastically and a new interaction was born.</p>
<p>Dell computers has aways been seen as the leader in the blogging community, being one of the first companies to make such a change. Even as successful a business as Dell was, a barrier still existed between the company and its consumers, many of whom had quite frustrating complaints that were not being attended to. When Dell set up to receive blog entries, the transition with customers was remarkable. General Motors, too, had a comparable experience.</p>
<p>Blogs can even work in tandem with email newsletters. Many customers of a business will check the website regularly for the latest business info, and appreciate not having their inbox back logged with email. Others might still prefer the emails, so the company will need to use all the different ways of reaching out that are available. But the material on a blog will be less ephemeral than short Twitter updates that quickly vanish from a webpage. And customer replies will remain equally visible.</p>
<p>Businesses do need to be cautious about raising customers&#8217; expectations, however. Even though an almost one-on-one relationship might be possible between a small business and its consumers, bigger companies may not be have the ability to respond to all queries or issues, and this could damage its good reputation if the company is not careful.</p>
<p>But another use for blogging, and one that businesses might not even take into account at first, is for internal communication. Even though employees can keep in touch by means of email, meetings or conference calls, an internal blog can center on one department or a single project, providing a core place for a group to receive frequent updates or make an informal entry of their progress. This will keep these employees up to date without their own email inbox piling up to an unmanageable level.</p>
<p>Blogs are the elder sibling in the social networking world, and are still better at providing information and feedback in a more permanent form. Once blogging software such as WordPress made it possible for a business and its customers to interact in this way, the lines of communication opened widely. The company can provide up-to-date information about products and services, and customers can respond, thus both sides of the relationship benefit.</p>
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		<title>Online Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/online-marketing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=online-marketing</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/online-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 05:56:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=632</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Write down one thing basic to say and then say it straight way. You&#8217;ll like the response right after you make a lot of these videos. Now, videos are not simple to make and are tough to get attention for, but if you invest a small time understanding this new ability you can not only [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Write down one thing basic to say and then say it straight way. You&#8217;ll like the response right after you make a lot of these videos. Now, videos are not simple to make and are tough to get attention for, but if you invest a small time understanding this new ability you can not only use it as a catalyst for your personal marketing and advertising purposes, you can sell it as a skill to other individuals.</p>
<p>Social Networking &#8211; Don&#8217;t neglect to jump on board the most up-to-date craze. There are millions of men and women spending all their days and some nights on these web sites. They can&#8217;t get enough of them, and they literally devote a lot of time just seeking at photographs, reading updates, posting photographs and so considerably more. Finding into these internet sites is straightforward and obtaining interest will be difficult, but if you can blend in for a short time, and make close friends here and there, you&#8217;ll locate that it&#8217;s a useful tool for your future.</p>
<p>Article Advertising and marketing &#8211; One more way to grab interest for whatever it is you&#8217;re undertaking is to function on report advertising choices. These choices demand you to write on topics that you are interested in and are prepared to speak about, giving you a leg up against your competition. The important right here is to submit your articles to directories and web sites that are interested in the subject you&#8217;re an professional at. When you have several hundred distinct articles you&#8217;ll begin to get main interest to your site or projects, and with time, you&#8217;ll garner attention as a writer as well as a marketing agent.</p>
<p>On the web marketing and advertising is not as basic as 1-2-three. You want to devote a little time learning every single small corner of the World wide web to genuinely be effective.</p>
<p>In today&#8217;s organization planet, businesses ought to concentrate on 1 factor, and that is to market place their product or service. It ought to pull out all the stops to make this a reality. Organizations of yesteryear used to advertise their goods or service by way of the nearby newspaper. This was effective since there was a large market place that reading newspapers, and this was an helpful way of obtaining noticed. Even so, times have changed and so has the mode of advertising and marketing. As you keep in mind, giving out flyers in street utilized to be rampant, but now it has dwindled. There is yet another effective mode to attract consumers, and that is online marketing.</p>
<p>On-line advertising is becoming a hit since of all the positive aspects that it brings in the table, and because it lacks the hassle of generating the company develop. Almost absolutely everyone can see your product if you are making use of online marketing, because the entire globe is the market place. This sort of marketing does not make geographical boundaries an obstacle.</p>
<p>In order to make your product get noticed, you should have a personalized web site. It should be eye-catching to the targeted market and must be complete of info about the item or service that you are offering. Sample Link</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Email Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/email-marketing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=email-marketing</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/email-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:57:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email campaign]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=626</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Internet has changed the way world viewed communication. Email is regarded the biggest and revolutionary communication technique. Email has become the most popular tool for business in this Internet Age. With the ground-breaking entry of social networking, many believed that emailing will go into oblivion. It is the simplicity and ease of use that has [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong></strong>Internet has changed the way world viewed communication. Email is regarded the biggest and revolutionary communication technique. Email has become the most popular tool for business in this Internet Age. With the ground-breaking entry of social networking, many believed that emailing will go into oblivion. It is the simplicity and ease of use that has helped emailing survive this threat.</p>
<p>Companies use Email marketing as their de-facto internet marketing standard these days. They use email marketing to spread their reach to a bigger target audience around the world in a systematic and efficient manner. Email marketing is a simple and affordable marketing technique to attract traffic to one’s website from around the world. There are various mass emailing software available which can help you send email containing the newsletters and ads to thousands of recipients across the world. As it is dearer to find new customers than retaining the existing ones, it is very vital to remain in constant touch with the existing clients and users of your products for the survival of your enterprise.</p>
<p>By relying on email marketing campaigns, a company’s advertising team can do a terrific job to publicize the company’s products and services. Email marketing greatly helps in improving one’s brand recognition, sales and web-traffic to its websites. One can reach thousands of recipients across the globe instantly. Email marketing is getting complicated day-by-day. There are several email marketing tools available in the internet. Mass emailing has proved to be an effective marketing technique but the unscrupulous use of this technique has led to spamming which is a very disturbing trend that discourages the use of emailing. There are online tools that can help you avoid spamming and send your emails to attract potential targets.</p>
<p>Every email marketer needs an email list and auto-responder to maintain a successful emailing campaign. There are several services online providing these tools. One must choose email marketing services which are well-known for their dedication and has genuine anti-spam policies so that, your business may maintain its status among the citizens. You must choose the email marketing tool such that, its functionalists meet all the needs and requirements of your campaign. The interface must be easy to learn and use so that even laymen with basic computer knowledge can learn and use these tools. A good emailing service not only helps in advertising your products and services, but also in targeting prospective customers to your company’s website. While making the mailing list, software will help you refer the buying behavior of the recipients, as well as their demographics and thereby send emails to only those who are likely to be interested in your services.</p>
<p>Email marketing is indeed one of the best ways to achieve a successful business. The Email marketing process begins with the simple process of sending Emails by Email Marketing Tools directly to the people attracted to your products or services. Email marketing does not even require a website to send. All you need to have is an email account and the effective emailing tools. Email marketing is indeed a very cost-effective means of business marketing.</p>
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		<title>Quality Policy</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/quality-policy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=quality-policy</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/quality-policy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:07:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality Management System]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality System]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quality Systems]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=431</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Quality is popularly defined as the measure of fitness for purpose. Quality policy of a company is a statement which describes the overall intention and direction within the organization towards quality and customer satisfaction. Quality policy in writing is just the tip of the iceberg. The genuine quality policy is reflected in the awareness and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong></strong>Quality is popularly defined as the measure of fitness for purpose. Quality policy of a company is a statement which describes the overall intention and direction within the organization towards quality and customer satisfaction. Quality policy in writing is just the tip of the iceberg. The genuine quality policy is reflected in the awareness and action taken by the employees and management in order to ensure quality of their products and services.</p>
<p>Quality policy can be a useful managerial tool while handling practical business operations. This documentation can enlighten the employees about how their job affects the quality of the products and services of the company and therefore, the overall success of the organization. Quality policy is the only true document that defines the overall intention of the company in the direction of quality. A documented quality policy is developed and signed jointly by the top management and quality experts after a lot of discussions and surveys so as to express the quality objectives of an organization.</p>
<p>A quality policy statement should be simple and relevant to the organization and should act as a motivation for continuous improvement to the people in the organization. A well-documented quality policy will ensure that the company and its staff will continually improve customer satisfaction with improved products and services.</p>
<p>Upon developing a quality policy for a company, one should keep in mind the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>You must ensure that the quality policy is appropriate to the organization.</li>
<li>You should be committed to requirements and continual improvement of the products and services.</li>
<li>You should ensure that the quality policy provides the basis for the quality objectives.</li>
<li>You should also make sure that the policy reaches every corner of the company.</li>
<li>You must periodically review the suitability of the quality policy.</li>
</ul>
<p>One should review the performance of the organization regularly to ensure that the quality policy is being followed effectively and meets the strategic objectives and needs of the organization. One should also identify the key performance indicators to assess the efficiency of your organization. If the management does not provide a documented quality policy, the employees will not be aware as of how their efforts affect the quality of the products and services they generate. A quality policy expresses the willingness of the management to improve product quality and their commitment to customer satisfaction. However, it is up to the management to put the words into actions so that the quality policy is indeed followed by all people in the organization.</p>
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		<title>How to build a successful ecommerce website</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/how-to-build-a-successful-ecommerce-website/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-to-build-a-successful-ecommerce-website</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Developers Corner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ecommerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Web Development]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=424</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Internet has revolutionized the way people viewed business. In today’s world where almost every aspect of human life is being virtualized on the World Wide Web, consumers can reach out to a wide variety of products ranging from books, clothes, gadgets, accessories, groceries and more online. Internet has reduced the effort of visiting a marketplace [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Internet has revolutionized the way people viewed business. In today’s world where almost every aspect of human life is being virtualized on the World Wide Web, consumers can reach out to a wide variety of products ranging from books, clothes, gadgets, accessories, groceries and more online. Internet has reduced the effort of visiting a marketplace to just a few mouse-clicks. Here, comes the role of ecommerce websites. The ultimate aim of an ecommerce website is to attract an online visitor to buy products and services from the site. So, when you plan to design an ecommerce website for your enterprise, you should incorporate a lot of online selling strategies into the web development plan.</p>
<p>The 5 basic steps to build a successful ecommerce website are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Choose a domain</strong>
<p>As the first step in the creation of an ecommerce website, one should choose an attractive domain name. Domain name plays an important role in the portrayal of your ecommerce business to the online world. Suppose your business has a long name like, “The Snowfall Mountain Pub and Restaurant”, you may consider a domain name like “snowfallmountainpubandrestaurant.com”; but you will find that such a long domain name is too long to expect the users to type in. So, always choose attractive and short domain names that are easy to remember and type. In the above case, something like “snowfallmountain.com” would be acceptable.
</li>
<li><strong>Choose an Ecommerce Platform</strong>
<p>There is a wide range of ecommerce platforms available in the internet. There are completely hosted ecommerce website platforms. These are the simplest and quickest way to get an ecommerce website up and running. The hosting company will handle hosting of your website and provides ecommerce software from their servers. All you need to do is to sign up, select a preset template and present your products. An example of such a site is shopify.com.</p>
<p>Another way is to go for a semi-hosted ecommerce website platform. In this type of platform, a user can put up one’s own website and content and transfer it to a third party website to handle the processing of orders. The popular examples of this type of solution are ShoppingCart and Google Checkout.</p>
<p>The most flexible and the most complex method of creating an ecommerce website is to use standalone ecommerce website software. The software provides an administrative section where one may manage the products. The site owner can apply one’s own templates and code to design the website. This is the most flexible option, but it requires some programming knowledge or hiring someone that does.</li>
<li><strong>Design the Website</strong>
<p>Always ensure that you have a professional-looking website. If you do it by yourself, the chances are there that it may look less attractive. So always depend upon a professional web designer to build your websites. You may use many attractive predesigned templates and make the necessary modifications to make it unique. You should use clear, crisp and high-quality product images in as many angles required on your website in order to give the visitors a clear idea of what you offer.</li>
<li><strong>SEO- Search Engine Optimization</strong>
<p>When you sell something on your ecommerce website, it is very important that people find your website. People look for products and services in the internet through popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. So it is important to get your ecommerce website search engine optimized. This will improve the visibility of your website in the search results thus making it easy for the potential customers to visit your website.</li>
<li><strong>Marketing and Advertising</strong>
<p>Marketing and advertising your ecommerce website is a very important and vital part of your online business. You must be ready with a marketing strategy for your website. You may use mailings and Google Adwords to help promote your ecommerce website. You may use online and offline tactics like utilizing social media, email marketing, business cards, press release advertising, flyers, link building and other SEO marketing techniques.</li>
</ol>
<p>Once your website is put up, it’s time to start making some money. Careful planning and preparation is indeed the key to a successful start. When your website is up, only a very few people are going to know about it. You should be patient for it will definitely take several months for a website to generate any significant traffic. Finally, as in every business, you must always keep watch for what your competitors are doing. You must adjust your strategies according to the change of axis in the competition.</p>
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		<title>Affiliate Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=affiliate-marketing</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:19:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=416</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a business pays one or more than one affiliates for every visitor or potential customer brought in by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing is comprised of four major players: the merchant, the network, the publisher, and the customer. Nowadays, as this marketing technique has grown [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a business pays one or more than one affiliates for every visitor or potential customer brought in by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing is comprised of four major players: the merchant, the network, the publisher, and the customer. Nowadays, as this marketing technique has grown more complex, there arose another tier of players which includes, affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.</p>
<p>In simple words, affiliate marketing is a way of marketing online whereby, you as a publisher are paid for promoting a product or service of a company online. Affiliates are website owners who can generate traffic via links to a company’s website. Sales generated from this traffic will earn them an agreed sum of money. This reward model is usually known as Cost Per Action (CPA).</p>
<p><strong>How affiliate marketing works</strong></p>
<p>The process of affiliate marketing is as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>A potential customer visits an affiliate’s website.</li>
<li>The visitor then finds a product of interest and clicks the link that takes the visitor to the merchant’s website to review and purchase the product.</li>
<li>As the customer completes the sale online, the tracking software records the purchase data and reports this to the affiliate window.</li>
<li>The merchant after a period of grace, consider the sale complete and pays the due commission to the affiliate for the sales generated.</li>
</ol>
<p>Traditionally, affiliate marketing follows the pay per sale model. In this model, you refer a product or service of a company to a potential customer and get paid when they buy. Pay per sale is also known as revenue sharing. There is also another affiliate marketing model called the Cost Per Action or CPA.</p>
<p><strong>Cost Per Action</strong></p>
<p>Cost per action model focuses on potential customers who are online. As a CPA marketer, your role is to acquire customer leads for the company you represent. In this model, the affiliate marketer will be paid regardless of whether the leads convert into paying customers. An affiliate marketer should send quality leads to the company to participate in the cost per action program. This is also known as the pay per lead agreement. Under this scheme, the company only pays for the leads that comply with the terms of agreement. In this model, a visitor will be prompted to fill out a form or opt-in for a service or program in order to determine the quality of the lead.</p>
<p><strong>Revenue Sharing or Pay Per Sale</strong></p>
<p>In this model, an affiliate marketer receives the commission when the leads they brought in, actually goes to purchase a product. If the affiliate’s referrals don’t convert into legitimate, paying customers, then the seller doesn’t lose anything.</p>
<p>Usually a seller favors a pay per sale affiliate agreement as this model is a safe and non-abusable agreement. These websites have the potential to generate future income from a customer and share the revenue with the affiliates.</p>
<p><strong>Advantages of Affiliate Marketing</strong></p>
<p>Affiliate marketing is an easy way to stay at home and earn money collaterally.</p>
<ul>
<li>Every time when a lead purchases a product or service or a client proceeds to the owner’s website through a click, the affiliate marketer acquires a marketing commission.</li>
<li>Affiliate marketing program works for itself. The owner is responsible for advertising, content, description and more.</li>
<li>Information about affiliate marketing is all over the internet.</li>
<li>The financial transactions are easy be it electronic or real money.</li>
<li>Affiliate marketing is a low-risk program as it costs very little to get started and you are not burdened with much responsibility.</li>
<li>There are huge opportunities in the Affiliate marketing arena. There are thousands of markets and products you may promote.</li>
</ul>
<p>Succeeding as an Affiliate marketer takes time, as one need to move through an inevitable learning curve. But the rewards are worth the effort.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Why you need SEO (Search Engine Optimization)</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/why-we-need-seo/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-we-need-seo</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/why-we-need-seo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:49:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=403</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The online business is all about traffic to one’s website. The traffic which you will be receiving from search engines is a free organic traffic. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a quality methodology which increases a site’s reputation and ranking in popular search engine results page. SEO is very vital for the success of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The online business is all about traffic to one’s website. The traffic which you will be receiving from search engines is a free organic traffic. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a quality methodology which increases a site’s reputation and ranking in popular search engine results page. SEO is very vital for the success of a website campaign. The benefit of SEO is that, even a small player can make its brand popular and visible on search engine results. It is extremely important to rank high in search results as more than 70% of online consumers start their quest for a product or service using a search engine. It was found in a recent survey that about 46% of visitors come through Google, whereas 22% come through Yahoo and 18% through MSN. Now one may easily calculate that 86% of unique visitors made their search through these three Search engines. These netizens go directly to these search engines immediately upon being online to find what they are looking for. Therefore one cannot afford to be missed from their search engine rankings.</p>
<p>There are over 1200 million websites on the World Wide Web. Nowadays every small business should get SEO services to highlight their site into the search engines. The idea is to use popular keywords from several search engines so as to advertise the website among prospective clients at a very low cost.</p>
<p>One must look at the following 10 tips to ensure a successful website campaign-</p>
<p>1.Always hire a Search Engine Marketing Professional before designing your website, so that you get adequate help to choose the apt domain name and to guide you in the writing process.</p>
<p>2.  It is a smart idea to take out a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign while your website is coming up on the organic searches.</p>
<p>3.Always take that extra effort to include lots of original articles in your website, so that the search engines find your website relevant.</p>
<p>4.You should always make sure that your search engine marketer adheres to Google’s guidelines.</p>
<p>5.Choose a permanent hosting company. The SEO may crash if you change your hosting company, because the IP address will no longer be the same.</p>
<p>6. If there is heavy competition in your field, go for video marketing.  Video marketing will help your rank high on the top page of Google within just a few days.</p>
<p>7.Always choose the right keywords for your website. You must research on the possible keywords which the online users use to search for your products and services.</p>
<p>8. One must always keep track of the competitor’s progress. You should be aware of the changes your competitor makes in the websites for his/her website campaign.</p>
<p>9.Build a lightweight and search engine friendly structured website so that when the users search for products and services, the search engine may be lured to choose your website.</p>
<p>10.Build quality backlinks from sites related to yours. This helps you rank higher in the search engine results.</p>
<p>Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing is the most effective way to publish one&#8217;s products or services not only in local market place but also in the global arena in an inexpensive and reliable way. An excellent SEO strategy gives your website the edge over your competitors by getting top placements in search engine rankings at a low cost. By relying on a renowned SEO service provider you can receive great benefits:</p>
<p>• Enhance your business through the internet with the SEO campaign services.</p>
<p>• A popular SEO service focuses on your SEO campaign and related activities while you focus on your core business activities.</p>
<p>•Get superb SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) within a short time.</p>
<p>•Logical and sensible keywords to receive vast unique visitors.</p>
<p>• Receive smart promotional strategies for your keywords.</p>
<p>• Getting thousands of prospective customers at your website.</p>
<p>•Advertising globally with the best SEO optimization techniques.</p>
<p>•Uplift your local business into global internet marketing arena.</p>
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		<title>Google Tools</title>
		<link>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/google-tools/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=google-tools</link>
		<comments>http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/google-tools/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:48:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rick Stephens</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General Business Topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mercierandstephens.com/blog/?p=400</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Among the plethora of tools offered by the search engine giant Google; there are a variety of tools that help in optimizing one’s website for high ranking in search results. It is clear that Google is not really against SEO. Most of the SEO tools are good for keyword research and on-page SEO. The following [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Among the plethora of tools offered by the search engine giant Google; there are a variety of tools that help in optimizing one’s website for high ranking in search results. It is clear that Google is not really against SEO. Most of the SEO tools are good for keyword research and on-page SEO. The following is a list of free Google SEO tools that everybody should use –</p>
<p><strong>1.         Google Webmaster Tools</strong></p>
<p>Google Webmaster tools acts as your mechanic for your website. It helps you identify broken links, malware and other issues as well as find out what search queries can lead to your pages even with click-through statistics. It even examines your website speed and tells you why it’s too slow.</p>
<ol>
<li>Sitemap submission
<ol>
<li>Look for bad links with sitemap warnings</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Change address</li>
<li>View Crawler statistics</li>
<li>Change crawl rate</li>
<li>Manage Sitelinks</li>
<li>View Search Statistics</li>
<li>View links to your site</li>
<li>View keywords that Google thinks about your content</li>
<li>View Target pages via internal links</li>
<li>View Crawl errors</li>
<li>View HTML suggestions</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>2.         Google Analytics.</strong></p>
<p>Google Analytics is a top-class web analytics tool that gives you excellent insights into your web traffic and marketing efficiency. Some SEOs don’t use it due to the fear of being controlled by Google. You have to decide by yourself what’s more important -  a very useful analytics tools or the fact that Google can monitor your progress.</p>
<p><strong>3.         Google Website Optimizer</strong></p>
<p>This is a free website testing and optimization tool that allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic at a cheaper cost. With Google Website Optimizer you will be able to test different versions of your pages. This way you can settle on the best converting ones. It’s called A/B split testing or multivariate testing and is the latest trend in the SEO circles and beyond.</p>
<p><strong>4.         Google Zeitgeist</strong></p>
<p>“Zeitgeist” means, “the spirit of the times,” and this spirit can be seen through the aggregation of millions of search queries Google receives every day. Google Zeitgeist is not a tool in the strictest sense but you can use it for keyword research nonetheless. In fact it shows the most popular queries so it’s a good starting point in your SEO campaign. Take the Zeitgeist popular keywords and then test some key phrases containing them with the other tools that will follow in this list.</p>
<p><strong>5.         Google Trends</strong></p>
<p>With Google Trends one can compare traffic for popular search terms and websites. This way, you can determine whether a topic is rising in popularity or not. Google Trends works great when combined with Google Zeitgeist and Google Insight for Search.</p>
<p><strong>6.         Google Insights for Search</strong></p>
<p>With Google Insights for Search, one can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. You can look up most keywords here, even those that aren’t popular at all. Compare up to five keywords and their resulting traffic.</p>
<p><strong>7.         Google Traffic Estimator</strong></p>
<p>The Traffic Estimator is a tool designed to give you keyword search traffic and cost estimates at a glance. This is a classic tool. It says “Adwords” but you can use it to find out the probably number visitors a keyword can bring to your site.</p>
<p><strong>8.         Google Keyword Tool</strong></p>
<p>The Keyword Tool is similar to the Traffic Estimator but from a different angle. All you need to do is to type in the word or phrase. Google will provide you with a list of keyword ideas plus data showing how often words are searched and their ad bid competition. You’ll want to check both the traffic estimator and the keyword tool to make sure you’re on the right track with your keywords.</p>
<p><strong>9.         Google Search Based Keyword Tool</strong></p>
<p>This is a very useful tool will allow you to find out related keywords to a site or existing keyword or rather both. It’s connected to Google Insights for Search is a very useful service.</p>
<p><strong>10.       Google Ad Planner</strong></p>
<p>Google Ad Planner is like Alexa and SpyFu in one. One can use it to screen popular sites or your competitors for keyword intelligence or both.</p>
<p><strong>11.       Google Chrome SEO Extension</strong></p>
<p>This is a wonderful SEO extension that plugs into the Google Chrome browser that can give you very valuable information like pages indexed, where a website is hosted, and how old the domain is.</p>
<p><strong>12.       Google Alerts</strong></p>
<p>Google alerts are very useful and can be set for anything a user may want. But one may monitor the trends in an industry or a brand and understand what is pulling traffic now. Also, Google Alerts can help you stimulate your blog writing skills and update you with new information.</p>
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