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You have a great website, nicely optimized, easy to navigate and you have conducted a good solid general link building campaign. Your page rank has increased and you are happy with the flow of visitors to your site. What is next? How can you maintain your online reputation and continue to build good quality incoming links over time? You might want to consider editorial link building via an Article Marketing campaign. 

The first thing you need for a quality Article Marketing campaign is a selection of well-written, keyword-rich articles related to your niche industry. Depending on your time and budget constraints, either hire a freelance writer or have them written in-house. Each article will be published with a resource box at the bottom acknowledging the author and a link back to your web site. 

Articles are more likely to be published if they are informative rather than promotional. For example, if you are the webmaster of a ‘tour guide’ travel site, a selection of well-written travel articles covering topics such as: travel experiences, vaccination suggestions, tourist attractions, architectural and religious history, do’s and don’ts for safe travel etc, will establish your company as an authority in your market niche and create consumer confidence in your service.

Imagine a potential customer daydreaming at work about a future trip to Italy. He hasn’t decided on the particulars of his journey yet. He enters the search query “Tourist Attractions in Italy” and your article appears in the search results. He reads the article which describes the history and various tourist attractions of an ancient Roman city in Italy. The article is informative, well written and by the time he finishes reading, he has decided he would like to go there. He clicks on your company’s link in the resource box and lands on your travel site. Not only has he landed on your site as a potential customer, he has arrived with a positive expectation, as “first contact” has already been made via your article.  

Effective distribution is very important for the success of any article marketing campaign. Compiling a distribution list of niche article directories is time well spent on your campaign. For an extensive list of article directories visit: Search Engine Wiki Article Directories. Depending on whether you intend to distribute your article to dozens or hundreds of article directories, you may wish to consider using article submission software. Article submission software does not fully automate the process, but it can take the sting out of it. If you use submission software it is important to personally monitor that your article is submitted to relevant directories and published within relevant categories. In the case of hundreds of submissions, a good quality submission program can ensure the process takes a day or two, not a week or two. I can recommend Article Submitter by Submit Suite for this purpose.  

As an ongoing strategy, article marketing can produce tremendous results for your company. Remember, article circulation and referencing within the web is potentially eternal. A good article can live forever and provide hundreds of back links to your site over time. If you are interested in learning more about how to effectively harness the potential of article marketing for your company, take our Article Marketing and Distribution course here at Search Engine College.  

Popularity: 13%

Hey gang

Apologies for the blog silence over the past couple of weeks. Life has a way of intervening when you least expect it and some personal issues have kept me preoccupied this month, not to mention an enormous backlog of assignments to grade for Search Engine College. Never fear, I’ll be back in the big chair shortly.

In the meantime, a huge thanks goes out to my favorite VA and guest blogger Sarah for keeping you all entertained.

Popularity: 7%

Job Title: Marketing Manager
Job Reference #: Unknown
Position Type: full time
Name of employer: Elance.com
Location: Mountain View, California
Date Posted: 2 July 2008
Position description:

Elance (www.elance.com) is an online global workplace where businesses find and hire people “on demand” to get work done quickly and cost effectively. The Elance platform allows businesses to easily search, find, hire, manage and pay qualified professionals. In addition, individuals and firms join Elance as service providers, where they can create an online profile, immediately connect to businesses looking for their expertise, get hired and deliver their work – all on the Elance platform.

The Marketing Manager is responsible for driving product marketing activities for the Elance platform. This includes creating and executing marketing campaigns to educate customers and improve the customer experience.

The Marketing Manager also owns the buyer and provider lifecycle conversion metrics. Working with the Product Management team, the Manager will implement and leverage an A/B testing framework to inform product communication plans and create and implement new optimization strategies to maximize conversion rates.

In addition, the Marketing Manager is responsible for driving customer acquisition and improving the Elance customer experience by working with strategic Elance partners to market Elance and bring new services to enhance the Elance platform. This is a broad role that includes ownership of the strategic partner marketing and solutions relationships as well as responsibility for the day-to-day execution of partnership initiatives.

Day-to-day Responsibilities

Product marketing

• Create and implement communication plans for new and changing product features.
• Educate customers on existing product features and benefits.
• Drive product positioning and communicate key features and benefits through onsite messaging, email, webinars and other channels.
• Work with Product Management to ensure the features in monthly releases are tested with customers, and feedback is incorporated into the monthly product marketing communication plan.
• Provide product messaging and position to internal teams as needed, including CRM, Customer Support, PR and others.
• Differentiate provider membership tiers and optimize the ‘freemium’ Elance provider membership model.
• Improve conversion at key points in the buyer and provider customer lifecycle, and report metrics weekly.
• Understand the Elance buyer and provider community and their needs.

Partner marketing

• Drive and manage weekly meetings and quarterly reviews for all strategic partnerships.
• Lead project management for partner and solution business relationships.
• Track and analyze success of strategic partners.

Other duties as assigned.

Requirements

The ideal candidate has a background in partner and project management and product marketing, is detail-oriented and organized, and will leverage their traditional marketing and business relationship skills to maximize value of existing partnerships to achieve objectives.

• 3 – 5 years of product marketing experience, ideally for a web-based consumer or business product.
• 2 – 3 years partner marketing, channel marketing or marketing/business development experience.
• Team-player with demonstrated expertise working cross-functionally in a fast-paced, start-up environment.
• Detail-oriented professional who enjoys diving into the detail and getting work done.
• Experience with Power Point creating sales, corporate or customer presentations.
• Proven ability to multi-task, own a project and drive to results.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• BS or BA degree required.

Company Information:

441 Logue Ave., Mt View, California, 94043
650-316-7500

Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info about company from: [www.elance.com]
Contact: Send resumes via land mail: 441 Logue Ave., Mt View, CA 94043

For more search industry job vacancies visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.

Popularity: 14%

Google have announced a free cross-product webinar for webmasters to learn more about three of their most used products, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, and how they can work together to enhance your website.

The webinar will be held 8th July 2008, 9:00am PT (Pacific Time). To attend you need to register. Those that can’t make it will be able to access an archived version of the presentation via the same registration URL. This is the first time Google have offered a joint webinar for these products.

Popularity: 21%

Job Title: Search Engine Optimization Specialist
Job Reference #: Unknown
Position Type: full time
Name of employer: Impact Media Ltd
Location: South Hampton, UK
Date Posted: 24 June 2008
Position description:

This could be the chance you have been waiting for to join a successful Internet marketing company.

Due to rapid expansion Impact Media Ltd are seeking a Search Engine Optimisation Specialist with good knowledge of the main search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Required Skills:

• Search Engine Optimisation (Natural Search Marketing).
• Analysis and Optimisation of websites.
• Keyword / key phrase research and generation.
• Analysis and improvement of results.
• Reporting to clients with a proactive approach.
• Excellent organisational and project management skills.
• Excellent communication and literacy skills.
• Knowledge on HTML, CSS and other popular technologies.

Advantageous Skills:

• Analytics (web traffic analysis, conversion rate analysis, Return On Investment tracking).
• Offline marketing experience or qualification.
• Google Adwords Professional accreditation.
• Pay Per Click knowledge.

Software / Application Knowledge:

• Web Ceo or equivalent SEO reporting and analysis software.
• Webtrends / Google Analytics or similar traffic analysis tools.
• Dreamweaver 8 / MX or equivalent web editing/HTML skills an advantage.
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc).

Person Specification:

The ideal candidate will be pro-active with great enthusiasm and motivation. The candidate will be intuitive and creative within the internet marketing field and possess strong organisation skills. You should be confident and out-going with the ability to communicate effectively with clients to meet their needs. This is a fantastic opportunity for the right person with real potential for career progression within this rapidly developing internet marketing company.

How to apply:

If this sounds like a job for you then apply now by sending your CV and covering letter detailing what you feel you can bring to the company and your expected salary to jobs[at]impactmedialtd.co.uk

Salary range: Unknown
Closing date: Unknown
More info from: [www.impactmedialtd.co.uk]
Contact: Send resumes to jobs[at]impactmedialtd.co.uk

For more search industry job vacancies visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.

Popularity: 19%