What is Google Sidewiki?

Google Sidewiki is the latest Google offering that can be developed into a potential touch point between marketers and customers. This Google toolbar application enables you to put in helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. Anyone who uses the FREE Google toolbar with Sidewiki enabled can use this application. You can also download this application from the following URL:

http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/install.html

How Can Marketers Leverage it?

By writing Sidewiki entries that are informative and relevant, marketers can leverage the space for interacting with their customers and prospects. Moreover, since Sidewiki allows visitors to submit their comments, it becomes an excellent platform for promoting a service or products and gaining feedback at the same time! In addition, the Sidewiki space can also be used for guiding visitors about your website, upcoming events/offers, industry trends and much more. Another advantage is that the comments or information that you share vie Sidewiki can be directly promoted through Twitter and Facebook. The way you use Sidewiki would vary with the type of website or blog you have, however, the application certainly presents a unique opportunity for interacting with your audiences directly from your websites.

How Add Google Sidewiki to a Website?

Here are a few simple steps that would guide you through the process of adding Google Sidewiki to your website:

Install the latest Google Toolbar with Google Sidewiki. The tool bar would look something like this:Visit your website or the web page where you want to run Google Sidewiki.

Ensure that Google Sidewiki is turned on in the Google Toolbar. You then need to log in to your Google account to be able to see the Google Wiki sidebar on the left side of your web browser.After signing in, you will see the name of your site, as well as the field to “Edit your name”. You can modify your display settings or add relevant keywords etc. here if you wish to.

Next, you make an entry about what ever information you wish to share with your audiences and click the Publish button.

The entry can now be seen on your website.

From instigating discussions, to prompting offers, marketers can utilize the Google Sidewiki space in multiple forms to spur interaction with their audiences directly from the website. The application promises not only increased web traffic, but also ensures multi pronged benefits for marketers.

Choosing a right theme for your blog or website is imperative to accentuate its visual appeal.  In vogue are stylish, yet clean themes that perfectly synchronize the design and text elements. Here is a collection of some popular free WordPress themes that blend elegance with simplicity.

Blumin: For its sheer simplicity and neat layout, Blumin is a highly recommend theme for those who like elegance simplified.

Simple Balance 2.0: With increased control over it’s  layout and color options, advertising space, and multiple font options, this is a theme that can be tweaked to create impressive custom styles.

Zoxengen: With the flexibility to modify font and headline style in multiple ways, Zoxengen, 3 column widgetize theme is  a perfect choice for those who like to update theme styles frequently.

Rainbow Circles: A three column fixed-width theme, with a double right hand sidebar, enabled for widgets.

WPImagination: Featuring a separate homepage for the latest posts and space for “asides” or quick notes, WPImagination is a good choice for creative blogs.

WhiteSpace: Attractive and simple, this  theme is a good choice if your are looking for  soft and simple wordpress themes.

Brilliance: With a  provision for an adsense block in the third column, Brilliance is a 3-column, widget ready theme with soothing colors and design.

Modern: The uniqueness of this theme lies in the horizontal layout of page links that creates a clear distinction between permanent and updated content.

Prima: With eye catching color combinations, Prima is another simple and  attrattractive theme.

Elements of SEO: Designed keeping SEO in mind, this classic theme has multiple tweaks and is completely widget ready.

Nishita: Simple, sleek and with real quick installation, this is a perfect choice for photo blogs.

Sports2: A mix of bright shades and clean layout, this theme is a perfect choice for sports blogs.

Fonts are an expression of a designer’s ingenuity. However, hunting around for appropriate fonts is a tedious task. Here is a selection of some of the most popular free website fonts that you can use to adorn your websites.

Resonance Bold

Nilland

Nadia Serif

Mayberry Pro SemiBold

Layer Cake

Junction

HVD Comic Serif

CartoGothic Std

Birra Stout

Whiteboard Modern

Professional, responsible and sophisticated- are the key factors that define corporate blogs. Different from generic blogs, corporate blog designs are more classy and uncomplicated.

Here is a collection of ten most popular corporate blog designs that are a perfect blend of style, simplicity and branding:

Yahoo

Google

Nike

Dell

Cisco

Walmart

Design Matters

Johnson & Johnson

McDonalds

GM

Blogging is a raging web trend and with more and more people trying hands at it, sailing through the cut throat competition gets tougher by the day. The key to survival lies in implying technical innovations that pull the blog through a down phase.

When you see your blog traffic slipping, don’t panic. Instead, imply this five point strategy to perk up your blog during a slowdown:

Socialize your posts

Link, Digg, Tweet or Stumble some of your posts to create a buzz. Share your posts through your network on social media sites and attract viewers to your blog.

Revitalize the dead headings

Even the most engaging articles may fail to attract eyes if they suffer a poor heading. Slowdown is the best time to analyze posts that were not well received and give them a facelift with a new heading or introduction. Be a SEO pro and use keywords in your headings and intros that rank your blog high during relevant searches.

Follow suite

Check out what is selling the best and follow the trend. Simply following what readers are liking and blogging about it can be a very effective traffic booster. Whether it is an outfit, person, place or concept, if it’s a hit, it should be on your blog too.

Blockbusters that weren’t

You perceived some of your posts as stalwarts, but your readers thought otherwise. May be it was a case of wrong timing, may be you did not use the right key words, or may be you simply chose a wrong subject. Dig your blog archive for such posts and refurbish them. Give them a contemporary touch and calibrate them with the SEO tools. Edits may give some boost to these posts, as well as to your blog.

Set the timing right

Survey and analyze the time that people tend to spend over reading blogs. It could be weekends or working days. See what the trend for your genre is and set the frequency of your posts accordingly. Coming up with a new post every weekend is a good idea. This would not only cover the weekend visitors, but also help in developing a long term habit in your readers for checking your blog every Monday for something new.

With the whole world flocking to the social media sites like Twitter, Digg and LinkedIn, making your business visible on them has become extremely challenging. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is your only chance to remain afloat in a swarming pool of competitors. SMO is novel marketing strategy that has rapidly gained popularity in recent times. The concept is simple, get your website refurbished so that it is easily linkable to social media sites, is found on all popular blogs and podcasts and is extensively bookmarked.

Why Social Media?

A marketing study conducted by WhitePaperSource.com reveals that marketers are increasingly drawn towards social media marketing because it yields better results with lower investment. According to the report, the primary benefits of promoting your business through social media are:

• enormous attention from prospects
• increased number of qualified leads
• fruitful business partnerships
• reduced marketing expenses

Who doesn’t want to see their business grow by leaps and bounds in minimum cost? Social media is a fabulous opportunity for doing this and you should just not miss it!

However, only knowing about it and creating accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn will not get you the desired results. Marketing through social media needs extensive planning and effective SMO to ensure that your business is visible wherever your clients may look for it.

How do I make my SMO activities effective?

The answer is simple- proper planning and a well executed SMO strategy. Optimizing your website to ensure that it qualifies all parameters of social media marketing, coupled with effective management and maintenance of the same is what will get you maximum eye balls.

Here are some tips for a perfect SMO that will get you maximum attention on the Internet:

1.    Increase your linkability – Mobilize your website. Update it regularly and imbibe blogs and whitepapers to enhance its linkability.

2.    Make tagging and bookmarking easy – Tag and bookmark your pages with all popular websites.

3.    Help your content travel – SMO goes beyond modifying structure and content of your website. If you have content that is in portable formats like PDF, audio-video files, PPTs etc, the same can be submitted to sites like YouTube, SlideShare, etc..

4.    Make web friends – Go ahead and exchange content and videos with other websites. Experiment with RSS and facilitate others in driving more traffic towards your web content.

Give your website the SMO power and see its presence grow in every corner of the World Wide Web!

Information is key to making a big sale and database marketing allows every marketer the opportunity to gather as much information they can about the prospect, customer or partner. In the current economic scenario with budgets being frozen and sales cycles extending, it pays to know your customer better.

So what exactly is database marketing? Database marketing is the activity of gathering data about your prospects and customers and then use this data to market your products and services more efficiently and effectively to them. Every business, from a small mom-and-pop shop to the big publically traded companies have databases of some kind – used in a multitude of ways in order to generate a need for the services offered by the company.

How to build up your database?

When we talk about a B2B marketing database, it may require more information that a normal consumer database in the form of annual revenues, SIC codes, organization structure, etc. The most effective database creation tools are:

• Buy a list: Considering the customization that is required for a B2B list, purchasing the list is the best option for increasing the number of leads in the database. Custom lists can be created depending on your specifications of demographics, industries or even specific companies.
• Append your list: You may have an existing list of prospects but without the complete information, it may be useless as it may not allow any opportunity for your company to market to that list. Appending the list with the requisite data will make an existing list that much more fruitful and at the fraction of the cost of a new purchase.
• Registrants of web events: With the popularity of webinars, companies can now use their registrants and attendee lists of various events as sales leads and tailor their offerings to these prospects based on surveys, polls etc.
• Leads from the web, events, etc.: To create a wealth of Opt-in database, the website is prime real estate that can help you generate hot leads for the sales follow up. Also, collecting contact information in trade shows and conferences is an age-old technique that is still viable.

How to market to the database?

With a robust database, the company can utilize the information available to them in many ways. Marketing to a complete database allows marketers to pitch the right product at the right time to the correct contact. Email marketing still remains a powerful tool available to B2B marketers as it practically costs less and delivers high on ROI. Telemarketing still holds onto its allure while direct mailings can deliver results if approached in a targeted segmented manner.

How to keep your database current?

The major hurdle in database marketing is the dynamism of the B2B industry. With constant movement of contacts between companies and also, within the same organization, your database can become redundant if not refreshed time and again. Technologies to overcome this are now available to marketers in ways of lead nurturing programs. Lead scoring and lead nurturing helps marketers to keep track of leads and their buying stages while also concentrating on generating new business from old customers.

Lead verification is also a technique whereby older databases can be checked for relevant contacts and enhancement of the old database can help generate a fresher, more current database to market to.

The latest issue of the Marketing Insider focuses on bringing you some of the latest developments at the intersection of business marketing and social media for effective lead generation. The newsletter provides interesting links to some of the best practices being followed by marketers in the lead generation and social media industries.

Catch the latest buzz, read what the Gurus of the industry are saying, take the poll to see how you match against your peers in terms of your social media expectations of 2009.

Read the latest issue here: Marketing Insider