Is International Marketing On The Web Different?

July 4, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Lindsay Niles

In the offline world, international marketing goes through a distinct sequence.

5 Stages Of International Marketing

This sequence happens because different countries do business differently. Different countries have:

  • Different habits
  • Different legislations
  • Different markets
  • Different uses for your products
  • Different client profiles

The 5 different stages of international marketing allow businesses to adapt to these differences. The 5 different stages are:

  1. Domestic Marketing
  2. Export Marketing
  3. International Marketing
  4. Multinational Marketing
  5. Global Marketing

Read more about these different stages in: 5 Traditional Marketing Steps To Become An International Business

International Web Marketing

Most international web marketers jump straight into the deep end: Global marketing.

There is one similarity between Domestic Marketing and Global Marketing: Read more

Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business

June 27, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Benjamin Earwicker

Internet marketing is a great tool for international business expansion. It can help you get more international clients…if you use it right.

Part of the equation for a successful international internet business is using the correct marketing online for your international audience.

Internet Marketing Today

Internet marketing has become fairly sophisticated with regards to Search Engine Optimization. The search engines have become so sophisticated and they change so rapidly that online businesses are no longer trying to master them. It has just become too expensive to do so, and the rapid changes in search engine algorithms mean they might be wasting their money.

This is good news for the internet users. Online businesses are coming back to stronger marketing to their internet readers.

Good internet marketing has more to do today with creating meaningful relationships with readers than ever before.

Marketing To The Right Cultural Target

The dilemma is that you cannot really contain your website to one location. If your website is in English for example, your readers will come from all sorts of countries. Online businesses need to adjust their marketing to the different cultures of their audiences.

So does what does this mean for online businesses? Read more

Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business

June 6, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Aleksandar Momirovic

Internet marketing is a great tool for international business expansion. It can help you get more international clients…if you use it right.

Part of the equation for a successful international internet business is using the correct marketing online for your international audience.

Internet Marketing Today

Internet marketing has become fairly sophisticated with regards to Search Engine Optimization. The search engines have become so sophisticated Read more

Why Video Marketing Needs To Be Part Of Your Cross Cultural Marketing Strategy

June 5, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Lynn Davis

This article is part of Video Marketing 101. You will find the links to the other articles in this series at the bottom of this post. Stay tuned for future ones.

Video marketing is fast becoming a necessity throughout the online business world. And the trend is not going to stop. The short 2 minute videos are here to stay. And this is the format of choice for businesses to market themselves through videos. The short marketing video is also a great channel to reach many of your international clients when combined with cross cultural marketing. Read more

Go Viral With Video Marketing – Special Sound And Motion Effects

June 4, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Fito

This article is part of Video Marketing 101. You will find the links to the other articles in this series at the bottom of this post. Stay tuned for future ones.

The one main reason why video marketing is a necessity for all online businesses. It’s viral. It is a key component to web marketing today. What makes short form marketing videos viral? They become viral for the same reasons as short movie trailers. Good viral videos always have special sound and motion effects.

Yes, special sounds and motions are what make videos viral. You need to add these special effects to your good video marketing practices.

Good video marketing practices also apply to international video marketing. We will look into implementing good cross cultural marketing to your marketing videos later in this series. Today we are just going to look at why special sound and motion effects are so important. Read more

When Do You Need Video Marketing?

June 3, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Fito

This article is part of Video Marketing 101. You will find the links to the other articles in this series at the bottom of this post. Stay tuned for future ones.

There are several reasons why businesses should consider video marketing to reach their international markets.

Video marketing is fast becoming a necessity throughout the online business world. It is used heavily for online B2C marketing. It is also used effectively in online B2B online lead generation.

The best practices for online marketing and online business in domestic markets can almost always be adapted to international markets.

To get good results internationally you do need to integrate your best internet marketing practice with good cross cultural communication practices. Read more

Where Is Video Marketing Effective?

June 2, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Giovanni Brienza

This article is part of Video Marketing 101. You will find the links to the other articles in this series at the bottom of this post. Stay tuned for future ones.

Video marketing is fast becoming a necessity for businesses online. The main reason is because video marketing, when well done, pulls better responses. So more and more businesses are using video marketing to promote their services.

Videos are being used on websites much more productively than in the past. They are cheaper to produce, faster to make, and easier to put online.

Video marketing can also be a very important part of your international internet marketing plan.

Remember, all of the standard good practices in cross cultural communication and international marketing still apply here as well.

Video marketing is just another marketing channel.

We will look into cross cultural communication used in video marketing in the near future here at Get International Clients. First let’s run through the basics of video marketing.

Today let’s review where you can use video marketing online. Read more

Insights Into Cost Effective Video Marketing For International Markets

May 30, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: BenjaminEarwicker

This article is part of Video Marketing 101. You will find the links to the other articles in this series at the bottom of this post. Stay tuned for future ones.

Video marketing is fast becoming a necessity for businesses online. The trend is not going to stop.

The main reason is because video marketing, when well done, pulls better responses. So more and more businesses are using video marketing to promote their services.

Videos are being used on websites much more productively than in the past. They are cheaper to produce, faster to make, and easier to put online.

Video marketing can also be a very important part of your international internet marketing plan.

Remember, all of the standard good practices in cross cultural communication and international marketing still apply here as well.

Video marketing is just another marketing channel.

We will look into cross cultural communication used in video marketing in the near future here at Get International Clients. First let’s run through the basics of video marketing. Read more

Why You Need To Choose Different Internet Marketing Channels For International Business Expansion

May 9, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Irum Shahid

As I’ve said before, both your domestic and you international clients benefit from good internet marketing practices.

In internet marketing, as in traditional marketing practices, you need to spend some time identifying how your target prospects prefer to hear from you.

The different channels of communication using the internet include: emails, websites, ezines, podcasts, blogs, and forums.

Internet marketing targeted to a domestic market you know well makes it easier to evaluate the best marketing channels to use.

But when it comes to using internet marketing for international markets you need to spend a little more time researching and testing the best channels for the message you want to transmit. Read more

Don’t Get Trapped Into Thinking All The SEO You Need Is The Non-Tech Easy Organic SEO Based On Valuable Content

April 23, 2008 by User Imagecindy  

International Web Marketing Photo: Afonso Lima

Internet can be daunting for brick and mortar businesses. Small companies feel they don’t have the time to learn all of this technical stuff. They may even feel pressured into getting a website for international business. All they want to do is provide the technical geeks with the content for the website and let the business roll in.

Many small businesses end up paying a web expert to set up their website. The website usually stagnates, until the information on the website becomes obsolete, or the small business becomes frustrated with the lack of sales and wants to get more out of it.

Organic SEO

Only then do small businesses usually hear about Organic SEO. They understand web content must be written for both their human prospects and the invisible search engines.

They normally understand that content is good for both their human readers and the search engine “readers” or spiders. These spiders pick up their website and list it when their prospects are searching for their products.

But then most small businesses often come to the conclusion that the mysterious technical SEO is an expense and all they want to do is add the one ingredient they can:

  • their content.

After all Organic SEO is said to be good. Very good in fact.

Best Type Of Website For Organic SEO

A small business just creating a website today should seriously consider creating the company website on a blog platform. Why?

  • There are many free website templates or blog themes available that can easily look like a standard brochure website.
  • The technical aspect of putting your information on the “blog” platform is easy to grasp. There are also little tools certain website hosting companies offer that make it very easy to grasp – “Fantastico” is one.

And with a blog platform you have the added advantage of putting up content regularly in a blog format with all the added business benefits of having a blog:

  • Creating a community with your prospects
  • Actively promoting your products and services
  • Getting valuable feedback from your prospects and clients
  • Establishing your company as a leading authority
  • Boosting your SEO value even further

Organic SEO for your website becomes more powerful, with the more valuable targeted content you put on it. Using a blog platform gives you the option of looking like an ordinary brochure style website in the beginning and adding a blog when you are ready.

You can then add even more content – fantastic Organic SEO power.

Content Needs A Minimum Of SEO

This is where most small businesses still drop the ball. Content targeted at your prospects is great. They will pick up the value. But you still need a tiny bit of that technical SEO.

It’s simple. Your content has titles, sub-heads, categories and it makes sense to your readers.

WordPress is the most effective blog software to use for organic SEO. There are a few very technical reasons for this. But even WordPress software needs a little tweaking.

Well, you need to change the automatically generated titles for your content or blog posts for the search engines to list your company under the correct words searched by your prospects.

It really is not that difficult to go in and adjust this technical language in WordPress. And what a difference it will make on your search engine rankings.

Of course you will get better results: you just gave the search engines the headlines, sub-heads, categories and other valuable explanations it needs to place your website correctly and align its technical language with normal English.

Simple Permalink Adjustment

In technical language, to enhance the Organic SEO value of your blog post titles on a WordPress blog, you need to change the “permalink” codes it generates automatically for each of your entries:

The default way each blog post or entry is named after your .com/ has a question mark followed by p= and a number.

Your 128th post will default to

  • .com/?p=128 – the 128th page.

Logical. Clear. Translates into any language that recognizes numbers.
Absolutely no use for readers, nor for search engines unless I happen to be searching for ?p=128.

Just for info Google list 1.3 million ?p=128 results and Yahoo over 2 million. That is how many times people have not taken the time to change this.

Customize Your Permalink Structure

Which of these two links tells you something about the topic of the post that is presented on the website?

  • http://cindyking.biz/?p=128
  • http://cindyking.biz/information-products-can-save-your-business-in-a-slow-economy/

Both get you to your destination, but the top option - the default - does nothing to help a reader understand what this content is about.

The second option puts a new set of keywords into your SEO basket. If someone does a Google search for “information products” or “slow economy”, you are actually giving Google the tools to help them find your site.

This setting can be changed in WordPress 2.5 by going to Settings and selecting Permalinks and in earlier versions of WordPress by going to Options and selecting Permalinks.

Types Of Permalinks

The WordPress Codex is the online information manual for WordPress. It defines Permalink types as follows:
There are three basic types of WordPress permalinks:

  1. Default: “Ugly” http://example.com/? p=128
  2. mod_rewrite: “Pretty Permalinks” .com/category/post-name or .com/year/month/day/post-name
  3. PATHINFO: “Almost Pretty”.com/index.php/yyyy/mm/dd/post-name/

The available tags in your Permalinks can be:

  • %year% - the year
  • %monthnum% - the number of the month
  • %day% - the day of the month (not Tuesday)
  • %hour% - the hour using a 24 hour clock
  • %minute% - the minutes
  • %second% - the seconds
  • %category% - the category under which your content is posted
  • %author% - the designated author which is useful if multiple writers are providing content
  • %postname% - the name of the content
  • %post_id% - the unique ID for each content entry or bog post

The unique ID # of the content referenced in this article, for example is 128

For most organic SEO purposes, it is best to change the WordPress code for each blog post entry. Don’t keep the standard setting and keep the “?p=number” code.

You Have Options

The blog title or %postname% is often chosen as the best option. This will give you organic SEO for the words in the title of your blog post. So if you chose your content titles wisely, you can have Google working for you on each of those words.

But you can also choose to categorize some or all of your content under a category called “Weekly Favorites” for example. Then you either include a date in your title or add in %year% %monthnum% %postname% so people can ID what week is in question.

This can be an option for a monthly content series for example. Each monthly content post would have the permalink code with the year, the month and the title on your blog post.

It is difficult to imagine using the permalink code to specify minutes.

Having the unique ID number for each post and the content title (%post_id% and %postname% ) would give this using the previous example would appear as

  • biz/?p=128/information-products-can-save-your-business-in-a-slow-economy/

It looks a little too odd for humans and the search engines do not need to use the ID number here.

WordPress Suggests

The WordPress codex suggests using the following to identify each of your blog posts:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/. – year, month, day, post title.

The Good, The Bad…

The good news is that when you go into your WordPress software you set it up once and it works for all of your blog posts.

The bad news is:

  • If you keep changing your settings you will lose the visitors to your pages who are getting to you through old links.
  • And if you already have a WordPress blog all of your old post links will become invalid. Everything is changed on your website – the old blog posts and the future blog posts. So if you have many people who have bookmarked individual blog posts, they will lose that direct link.

Established WordPress blogs will want an experienced person to make this change. It is possible. It only needs to be done once. But if you don’t want to cut your links off it is a bit more complicated.

Your boat, you go float in it.

…And The Great

You can decide which words you would like your prospects or readers to find you with.

  • You can only give them the option of finding you with the name of your website.
  • You can also give them numerous other options: they can find your website through the different titles you give to of each of your blog posts.

This gives you more key words to rank high on the search engines.

The businesses that opt for a WordPress platform have a huge Organic SEO advantage over any other type of website.

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