International Links

Here are the international and cross-cultural links found last week.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• Baidu Integrates Real-Time Translation into its Browser - Putting the Google/China story aside, this is proof the tools for International Marketing are getting much more interesting.
• Asia’s Expensive Restaurants - Part of the fun when travelling is trying the local food. I wonder what extra these restaurants have to offer.
• For Japanese Women, The Past Is The Latest Fad – Here’s an interesting read on Japanese culture today.
• Globish, Technology, and the Plight of the Japanese Language - A very interesting read on how Globish impacts other languages. Grab a coffee, there are lots of videos too.

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• The India Way Of Doing Business - This is a fascinating read even if you are interested in doing business in a culture other than India. It highlights the cultural differences in doing business.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• Cross-cultural Communication Strategy – the 4 Building Blocks - Read Amadou M. Sall’s article on how to build a cross-cultural marketing strategy with a Global Mindset, Global Knowledge, Global Cross-Cultural Skills & Global Business Skills.
• One Piece Localization or Censorship? - Click through and watch this 4 minute video to see an example of a Japanese anime cartoon localized for the American market. What do you think of this?

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• A special report on America’s economy: Export or die - Do you think American businesses will need to rely less on selling to Americans and more on selling abroad?
• History of American Sales Culture - Here’s an interesting look at the American sales culture by Alen Majer. If you have insights about other sales cultures please let me know.
• SarahLacy.com: My Favorite Books about Emerging Markets - What are your favorite books on emergying marketing?

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• In Canada, .ca is replacing .com - Here in France most French websites use .fr What’s the trend in your country?
• Multilingual SEO: Things to Remember - This is a good read on Search Engine Journal to get you started with multilingual SEO. Do you have any other tips to add?
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Working with multi-regional websites - Read this for guidelines on how to structure multilingual blogs and websites to reach different markets.
• How To Add Languages That You Speak To Google Chrome - Here’s a useful tip for multilingual Chrome users.
• What translation means for SEO – Blogs & Content - Here’s a look at the difference of translation for SEO and for advertising or marketing. What do you think of the translation solely for SEO purposes? We don’t usually do it in English. But it seems some websites need it to reach global audiences fast.
• Cause for concern – The Personal videos Campaign - Here’s a video case study of how an Israeli TV show used free social media as its only source of publicity. The results: 4.7% rating for the season debut and 1,800 mentions in blogs, social networks & newspapers in Israel.
  Do you have any other video social media case studies to share?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What about you? Did you find any interesting links recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 15 2010

International Web Marketing

I just read Tamar Weinberg’s internet marketing advice and noticed the different internet marketing specialties she listed:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Link Building
• Affiliate Marketing
• Pay Per Click Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing

I agree with Tamar when she says you can’t be an expert in every one of these. Most web marketers have one area they are really good at.

This got me thinking about the specialties I use to reach international audiences for my own business.  The first thing I noticed is that I don’t use Link Building, Affiliate Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing.  And this is probably because I tend to jump right into new markets to learn everything I can about them first.

• I don’t see myself getting into link building as it’s done by most people today.  I tend to approach link building through social networking, more about that in a minute. But I do see link building changing in the future and I’ll probably be right there when it does because it will involve more meaningful networking.
• And I don’t see myself ever getting big into pay per click marketing. But having said that, I’m closely following the results others get with Facebook advertising and may use something similar in small doses in the future.
• Although I’m not really interested in the traditional affiliate marketing practices, I do a lot of networking and do use similar practices to build business networks. I can see myself joining in when this morphs into the business networking world a bit more.

After looking at the web marketing I do not specialize in, here is how I see my own international web marketing specialties.

International Social Networking

It all starts here for me.  This is how I learn what to do next, the other tactics I need to use and whether my web marketing is on target or not.  I rely on the feedback and constantly analyze results to learn more about my new international markets.

Social networking is a mindset and a way of being. It’s what you need for successful international web marketing.

Although Tamar doesn’t have social networking on her list, it is a part of good link building, affiliate marketing and social media marketing.  And I think it is essential in international web marketing and needs to be in a category all by itself.

I would definitely say this is my strongest international web marketing specialty.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing goes hand in hand with international social networking because much of the social networking starts on social media.

Social media marketing is not always a big component of international web marketing. It really depends on where you’re based and which markets you want to reach.  And you need to keep your finger on the social media pulse of the countries you’re interested in reaching, because things change rapidly.

I’m based in France and target an English speaking audience.  So I use social media extensively to develop my international business network and everyone in a similar situation should do so too.

Social media marketing works very well for me.  I’ve written before about how surprised I was when I realized my social media marketing was always 100% on target.  And I’ve come to realize this is because of the similarities between my international business skills and the cross-cultural people skills.

• My strong international business development skills make it easy for me to adapt business objectives into new environments.
• And my strong cross-cultural skills come in very handy in this social environment. I know myself well enough to navigate between the social and the business focus, skills you pick up when doing business with people from different cultures.

I would say this is my second strongest web marketing specialty.

Content Marketing

I love the results you get from content marketing.  There are organic search results of course.  But you also get lots of feedback through content marketing, and this feedback is important when you are trying to develop new markets in different countries.

And once you get feedback there’s so much more you can do to try to develop the relationships you create.  First there’s listening and paying attention to the whole conversation.  And then even if the content is static once it’s published online, you can still bounce back with more content and use different formats to see what the reactions this brings about.  It’s a game about finding out more about your audience.

I really find this fun and I’m good at it on subjects where I have enough knowledge to see the whole game.

Search Engine Optimization

Many businesses that want to develop international markets worry about the cultural differences in SEO and there are a few other search engines besides Google out there.  But the reality is that the Google algorithm does makes the vast majority of the world’s search engines tick.

So it makes sense to get great at SEO in the Google world first. And then once you’ve mastered this you can work on improving SEO results in other countries. And the truth is that if you understand your international clients, if you know the words they use when they need help online, and you have a good understanding of SEO, then you’ll know how to get good search engine results throughout most of the world.

SEO is important for everyone online and I spend a fair bit of time improving my skills and learning enough to follow the well-known SEO geeks and understand what they are talking about.

Email Marketing

This is my weakest skill because I don’t do enough of it myself and also because I barely read a handful of email marketing messages sent my way on a regular basis.

Instead of building an email list for all of my blog readers when I first started, I jumped in at the deep end and focused on building segmented marketing lists:

• Professionals interested in developing their cultural skills
• Businesses needing how to advice on getting international clients
• French people interested in copywriting
• French people interested in article marketing

This is not something I necessarily recommend you do, after all the funnel does start off with a wide end and then goes narrow.  But I like testing and playing around with marketing to learn more about my markets, that’s why I did things this way.

But I do follow a few people who use culturally targeted email marketing to develop international markets. I’m not sure how much this works in other cultures, but it’s definitely something I’ll probably spend some time looking into in the future.

International Web Marketing

Of course, after doing this exercise reviewing my own personal specialties, this has me thinking about international web marketing in general:

• What are the different specialties in international web marketing?
• How are the specialties in web marketing different for international marketing?
• How is international web marketing evolving and how does this impact what we do?

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please start the conversation below.

More on International Web Marketing:

• What Is Your Definition Of International Web Marketing
• How Too Many Contributions Spoil International Communications
• My Own Case Study – Small Business Flexibility In An Online World
• International Article Marketing
• International Email Marketing
• International SEO For Quick Results
• Mindset Differences Between Offline Marketers And Online Marketers
• The Difference Between An eMarketer And A Geek Marketer

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Web Marketing Specialties

Book & Product Reviews

Opportunities for quiet reading seem to have vanished the last couple of months.  But yesterday I took a couple of hours and read a book on SEO Copywriting.

• Content Rich – Writing Your Way To Wealth On The Web by Jon Wuebben

Jon states that his book is:

• The complete SEO Copywriting Guide for Search Engine Rankings and Sales Conversion

What You Get Out Of This Book

At first, it was hard to situate this book.  I already have some SEO copywriting skills.  What else could this book offer?

As I flipped through it, a few of the chapter titles are similar to what you would expect for Search Engine Optimization:

• Keyword Research
• Optimizing Your Site Content

But most of the book is about writing content for good Search Engine Optimization.  It is a copywriting book.

Jon caught my attention right from the beginning, my back straightened up. This book offers more than copywriting.

In the first couple of chapters I found:

• Some really useful strategies for content creation.

Now, I have spent a lot of time working on my own strategies for content creation.  And Jon actually taught me two very useful things:

• How to analyze your web copy
• How to prioritize which type of content you need to get what you want out of being online

This might seem easy for you.  But I have not run across these clear tactics before.  And these tactics are:

• Easy
• Relevant
• Measurable

If you are in any way involved in writing for the web, the first few chapters alone are worth the price of the book.

The cover of the book promises copywriting for sales conversion, and Jon shows you how.

These first chapters are good examples of what happens as you read the whole book.  There are little nuggets throughout the book.  Nuggets to help you get maximum value out of your online content.  Nuggets that come from experience.

At first, I thought I would skim through the chapters on subjects that are familiar to me.

But the book was well worth a full read.  It is obvious that Jon has the experience and knows what he is talking about.  He knows how to improve your web copy for better SEO for both humans and search engines.

Who Is This Book For?

Well, the book is definitely about copywriting.  SEO copywriting.  There are chapters for different types of online copywriting:

• Web copy
• Articles
• Press releases
• Viral copy for blogs, RSS, and Wikis
• Pay per click, landing pages and banner ads
• Emails and newsletters

Jon also explains the differences in copywriting between small companies and large corporations.  There are case studies.  And there is also a wealth of information on how to become a SEO Copywriter.

This book is great for anyone  involved in web content:

• Marketers, writers, and even technical web users.

What I most appreciated was how it is easy to see the strategies that go with the “how-to’s”.  It’s not often you find this mix in a book.  This makes it easier to see the whole picture of writing the content and using your content to get the results you want.

Read more Book Reviews:

Communication For International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with communication for international sales:

• A Writer’s Guide To Powerful Paragraphs By Victor C. Pellegrino
• Content Rich By Jon Wuebben
• Get Content Get Customers by Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett
• Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish
• Stories That Sell By Casey Hibbard
• The Culturally Customized Web Site By Nitish Singh And Arun Pereira
• The Magic Of Pre-Writing By Steven Osborne
• The Secret To Writing A Successful And Outstanding Blog By Liz Strauss

International Sales

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international sales:

• All of the Little Sales Books by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Asinine Advertising By Herschell Gordon Lewis
• Influencer: The Power To Change Anything by Kerry Patterson – Joseph Grenny – David Maxfield – Ron McMillian & Al Switzler
• Sales Strategy From The Inside Out By Duane Sparks

International Web Marketing

Here are reviews of the books I have read recently to help me with international web marketing:

• Bit Literacy Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload By Mark Hurst
• Dotcomology The Science Of Making Money Online By Stone Evans
• How The Internet Works By Preston Gralla
• How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders By Catherine Seda
• Landing Page Optimization By Tim Ash
• Mastering Online Marketing By Mitch Meyerson
• Multichannel Marketing By Akin Arikan
• Online Competitive Intelligence By Helen P. Burwell
• ProBlogger by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
• Stats Faceslap By Ed Rivis
• The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy By Ed Rivis
• Website Optimization by Andrew B. King

Here are some Product Reviews:

• Ed Rivis’ Stats Faceslap
• Success Chef’s Marketing E.S.P.
• The Management Tools I Use For Content Created To Be Re-Packaged
• The Ultimate Desktop Copy Coach By Tony Flores
  
• Web Video University And International Marketing
  

All of the book and product reviews here are totally unsolicited… spontaneous …and without affiliate links. These are books I have read recently and only the ones that I share with friends. So all of the reviews you find here are on books and products that I highly recommend.

Also, as these are books and products that I have recently read since, this is not a list of my all-time favorite books. Hopefully I will get around to reviewing my favorite culture and international business books sometime soon.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Content Rich By Jon Wuebben

International Web Marketing

Several readers have asked how to go about international SEO recently.

Now… I am not going to go into any details here.  You probably would not get much out of it even if I tried. You see, I learn technical things on my own, as I need them and make up my own vocabulary in my head as I go.

But…

Good SEO Practices Are Needed Everywhere

Good SEO practices are the same everywhere.  Of course, there are:

• Different places you go to register your country specific URLs
• Different search engines

But the fun is actually in:

• Different cultural quirks with languages and grammar

There are even:

• Different cultural quirks in how people search, use abbreviations, and possibly even different approaches to the internet as a whole.

And this is why you need someone who has an intimate knowledge of your foreign market.  And preferably with a marketing or communication background.  And if you are targeting a foreign market that is not very reached a certain internet maturity, you may also need a local web marketer to help you with key words.

Less Competition For Foreign Keywords

All this may seem daunting.   But it is not that difficult to jump in and get started. In fact, that is probably the best thing to do.

You see…

There is one very good bit of news.

Many companies marketing online in a foreign language seem surprised at the quick web marketing results they get.

These fast results are mainly due to less competition.  There are usually fewer foreign language websites.  And this also translates into less overall competition for good search engine results.

Read more on Get International Clients.

What this means to you, is that you can usually start off with some very basic keywords, or simple translations of your keywords, and still get results.

Fast Results For A Little Effort

The main thing to take away, is that international SEO is not that different from your current SEO best practices.

Yes, you will probably take more time identifying the best foreign keywords.

But, good search engines results usually come much faster than in English.  So you can afford to take your time to start with basic keywords and tweak them as you get more feedback.

More On International Web Marketing

• Define International Marketing
• How Too Many Contributions Spoil International Communications
• International Article Marketing
• International Email Marketing
• International SEO For Quick Results
• Marketing Segmentation
• Mindset Differences Between Offline Marketers And Online Marketers
• More Segmentation = More International Sales
• My Own Case Study – Small Business Flexibility In An Online World
• The Difference Between An eMarketer And A Geek Marketer
• Ways To Enter International Marketing
• What Is Marketing?
• What Is Your Definition Of International Web Marketing
• Your International Marketing Choice

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International SEO For Quick Results

International Web Marketing Mix

Internet marketing is sophisticated with regards to Search Engine Optimization. The search engines change their methods so often that some businesses are deciding not to invest heavily in SEO.

Internet businesses focus their marketing to connecting with people. Good web marketing has more to do with creating meaningful relationships with readers than ever before.  This is why we talk about customer-centric marketing.

Are you marketing to the right cultural target?

The dilemma is that you cannot really contain your website to one location.  This means that your web marketing reaches people from diverse cultural backgrounds. If your website is in English for example, your readers will come from all over the world.  Some will be native English speakers, but many will be non-native English speakers.

The question is whether you want to target your web marketing to one specific country, or whether you want to target a wide international market.

How do you market to such a diverse audience?

If you want to market to your international audience you have two choices:

1. Culture-specific marketing which often includes “localization” and country-specific websites.  This is the best way to go if you know which countries you want to target.  This type of marketing creates the strongest connection with your international audience.  It gives you the best sales results.  But it has a major drawback.  It demands a heavy investment… and not everyone can afford this initially.
2. Multicultural marketing, or one marketing for a diverse cultural audience, takes into account the wide variety of cultural audiences.  This means one website, with one content, where you market to a broad international audience.  This can be a solution for businesses that want to “test” the international appeal of their products.  You will probably need further testing before expanding into cross-cultural marketing or culture-specific marketing to specific countries to increase sales further.  But multicultural marketing for a broad international audience can help you identify possible sales regions, trends, local contacts with minimal investment and low risk.

What are the options for small businesses?

A small business interested in getting international clients can opt for a website in English, written specifically for a wide multicultural audience.  As feedback comes in, some country-specific web marketing tactics can be used to develop the international marketing further.

This type of website is slightly different from a website specifically targeting an all-American audience, or an all-British audience, or an all-Australian audience.  The main differences are in eliminating the marketing that pushes international clients away and a focus on international trust-building marketing.

Word of caution: There is one scenario where you need to be careful of implementing multicultural web marketing.

• Businesses with a culturally specific brand. These culturally targeted brands would probably lose their competitive advantage when adapted for a multicultural audience.

What about all of the other businesses out there?

Internet marketing is a great tool for international business expansion.

An initial international expansion phase which includes  multicultural marketing to your web marketing plan gives businesses feedback on their international business development potential.  You can progressively try country-specific web marketing campaigns to test a few individual markets, before proceeding with culture-specific marketing or cross-cultural marketing and localization.

The interesting thing about internet marketing is the international market potential you uncover can surprise you. You can uncover market segments and cultural markets never before imagined.

International marketing can be fun.  Do you have any interesting stories or problems to share?  Have you moved from SEO marketing to people marketing?  And did you notice anything in particular with your multicultural audiences?  Please share your stories here below.

More On International Web Marketing Mix:

• 3 Ways To Improve Your International Marketing Plan
• Choice Of Internet Marketing Methods
• Company Websites Still Brochures In Some Countries
• How To Give Turbo Power To Your Multicultural Internet Marketing To Actually Get International Clients
• Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business
• Using Foreign Language E-Communication Tools
• Web Marketing For International Sales
• What Set Of Marketing Methods Do You Need For International Success

Business Guides On Get International Clients

• Multichannel Marketing
• Build Your International Marketing Strategy

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business

International Web Marketing Mix

Relying heavily on internet marketing to develop new foreign markets can reduce your international development costs. It is also quicker and generally involves less risk compared to opening a foreign office or a foreign sales team, for example.

What are the choices in internet marketing strategies when opening your business into a new foreign market?

What are companies doing now? Many companies are still using a traditional marketing mindset. Let’s look at the options a company has when solely using internet marketing to start out with. There are three main options for first implementing an e-marketing campaign to open a foreign market.

One Social Media

Relying solely on one social media, such as a blog. You can create one company blog in French and target it to the French market for example. This is what Abercrombie & Fitch is doing, without having a physical presence in France.

Remember the foreign market you are targeting may not be a foreign language market. It could be in English targeting the Australian market for example. In both cases, you will need to find a native person with blogging skills to write your blog for you.

Many internet and business experts agree that all companies need to have a blog in 2008. Some go so far as to say that any company without an interactive presence or a blog will lose its market share if they do not start an interactive internet communication campaign soon.

Several Communication Tools

You can develop an online communication strategy based on several internet communication tools in the foreign language: a monthly newsletter, email marketing, a blog, online videos, articles.

This is the ideal solution. The synergy that can be created using several tools will bring you more prospects and clients faster. It can also easily be adapted to traditional marketing or offline marketing and become even more effective.

Implementing one foreign language campaign using several internet communication media does not have to be much more expensive than using one communication medium. If well thought out, foreign language content can be re-purposed to keep monthly costs to a minimum and implemented in a integrated marketing campaign designed for foreign market interaction.

This may take a few months to adjust and some extra strategy planning, but you will create a powerful foreign lead generation system. The valuable knowledge you will get from your foreign market potential will be an added bonus.

Localized Company Website

Some companies start here. And this is where you will aim for. A localized website will provide a base for all of your communication, marketing and campaigns in that country.

But website localization can be the most demanding, time consuming and expensive option to use at this stage when just starting out. It involves localizing your website and incorporating various e-marketing and Search Engine Optimization efforts to create a foreign country specific website.

A localized website involves more than translation of your content and requires solid market research and a certain amount of time to achieve.

Remember to internationalize your website before thinking of creating a localized website. This will make your website localization go quicker and smoother.

Start Small And Grow With Your International Clientèle

If you do not have adequate knowledge of your foreign market to start with a localized foreign website, it would be best to hire a third party to do it. You can also ideally start off with an option requiring less investment.

As you can see, your e-marketing strategy can begin using with one communication tool in a foreign language and targeted to one country. You will then naturally develop your international communication with your international expansion.

If you follow these tips your web site will be friendlier for all of your international visitors.

More On International Web Marketing Mix:

• 3 Ways To Improve Your International Marketing Plan
• Choice Of Internet Marketing Methods
• Company Websites Still Brochures In Some Countries
• How To Give Turbo Power To Your Multicultural Internet Marketing To Actually Get International Clients
• Use A Multicultural Internet Marketing Strategy To Develop Your International Business
• Using Foreign Language E-Communication Tools
• Web Marketing For International Sales
• What Set Of Marketing Methods Do You Need For International Success

Business Guides On Get International Clients

• Multichannel Marketing
• Build Your International Marketing Strategy

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Choice Of Internet Marketing Methods

International Case Studies

Organic SEO To Give French Companies With An English Language Website The Visibility In American Markets To Compete With Anyone

As a French company targeting international markets you probably have a website in English.

Once you have had your business website up for a few months, you will be able to evaluate your results.

What can you do if you are not getting the prospects and leads you want from your website? How can a small French business gain any visibility in the huge American market? Do what the North American companies are doing.

Implement the right Search Engine Optimization campaign to get targeted visitors to your website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often divided into two categories.
- Organic SEO
- Paid SEO

Paid SEO is essentially paid advertisements calling and leading people to your website.

What does organic SEO involve?

Organic SEO is different from paid Search Engine Optimization. It encompasses a variety of tools to drive traffic to your website

Organic Search Engine Optimization is how you can get traffic to your website using tools based on distributing your content wisely in key positions throughout the internet.

Why organic SEO is important to French companies

Each category of SEO has its own value. There are a number of parameters that will influence the quality and quantity of leads to your website.

However, one of these parameters is absolutely critical to companies targeting foreign markets. Your results will depend on how well you know how to adapt your products and services to your market. If you do not know how to market your products to your foreign prospects any of your actions will be unproductive.

A well thought out organic SEO campaign combined with an integrated marketing campaign will bring you three things:

1. Potential clients to your website
2. Feedback directly from your foreign prospects and clients; and
3. Tracking tools to give you the information you need to refine your business strategy and position your products and services for more international sales.

Do you know the exact need your market has for your product?
Does your market recognize their need for your market?

If you cannot answer the two questions above, you will probably benefit greatly from organic SEO.

You could have a third party carry out extensive market research and move quickly into the traditional avenues for opening your business abroad. International business development strategies will allow you to acquire foreign market knowledge first hand here in France without the added expense and risk.

An organic SEO program is a good choice to give your website international visibility and give you time to get to know your market and to better adjust the positioning of your products and services to your international markets.

Here are the key elements you need to use in your organic SEO campaign to get your website more visibility.

Website

Your website must operate on several levels. First you have to understand that you have to begin by making your site friendly to both the people and the search engines.

One tip to be people friendly:

Adapt the amount of graphics on your main page to foreign internet capacities. For example, if you are targeting the typical North American on their home computers, the standard level of graphics or flash animation acceptable here is France will severely limit your market penetration.

One search engine friendly tip:

Have a link to your site map in the upper left hand corner of your site. Your first page is the most important for the search engines and internet users alike. Search engines will follow the site map link and people will find it useful.

Blog

One people friendly tip:

This is a current trend. More and more North American businesses are using blogs. A blog simply makes your SEO actions more effective. Blogs are also thought leadership tools that can complement your company website.

One search engine friendly tip:

The more the search engines come to visit your website the higher you will show up on their search engine results when someone enters a related search.

How can you get search engines come to visit you often? Use the “ping” function available in most blogs, and consider searching for a complete list of sites that can do a “ping” for you.

What is a “ping”? A ping list sends a notice to the web sites in your ping list each time you update your blog. This is how search engines see you most recent entries to your blog.

Article

One people friendly tip:

Articles are another thought leadership tool. They can also be used to answer any objections, gain more trust and visibility for the solutions and benefits your company provides.

One search engine friendly tip:

Articles are a key organic SEO tool. If you write educational and informative content for your foreign audience you will see an increase in visibility and traffic to your website. Send your articles to online article directories.

A good list of online article directories can be found at http://richardontheweb.com and you can choose which you would like to use, my preference is the first on the list.

If you already publish articles and want to target a specific audience, make sure you are using the article directory most used by your target market. There is no value in writing an article if you are going to post it in a place where you audience does not go.

Article Bio

One tip to be people friendly:

At the end of each of your online articles, don’t forget to put in an author’s resource box or author’s bio. Write information in this box that the reader will benefit from. Do not bore him. Only include minimal details about you at the very end of the box.

Give the readers a call to action they cannot resist. Offer a downloadable gift they will want immediately after reading your article or invite them to a fun quiz.

You need to equate your readers’ specific needs, with the momentum in your article and by offering something so compelling the readers feel an immediate need to follow your directions.

Again it boils down to how well you know your audience and how well you address their needs. The more accurately you do this the higher your click through rates will be.

One tip to be search engine friendly:

The author’s resource box or bio is the main reason why you write the articles in the first place. It is not a tool to tell of all your company’s merits. The article is a tool for you to persuade your readers to go where you want them to. As the article may be read online or printed out, spell your url’s out in full.

Depending on the maturity of the market for your product and your readers readiness to buy your product, you could have your links to your company website or sales landing page. However, for optimum organic SEO link your articles to your blogs or social media pages.

Social Media : Squidoo and HubPages.

One tip to be people friendly:

There are all sorts of social media websites. Squidoo and HubPages are just two of them. Social media posts are similar to both articles and blogs. They are probably the best of both worlds.

The social media sites allow you to write on a specific topic. You can increase the length of your post, include pictures and video clips as well as advertising.

One person can write on a dozen unrelated subjects. Each subject stands alone and does not reference another subject unless you chose to make the link. This is different from blogs and articles. A blog does not allow you to disconnect like this and articles do not allow you to connect like this.

One tip to be search engine friendly:

There is a huge benefit from posting on social media websites: their high visibility. The different kinds of social media websites, some may be more appropriate to your business than others. Again treat this like a blog. All of your posts on social media sites should link directly back to your company website or sales landing page.

Keywords

Before writing anything, research your best keywords. You will need them when you sit down to write. Using keywords correctly will give you more visibility.

What are keywords? These are the words internet users will enter into their internet browsers when looking for the information you can provide.

If you want them to you’re your company easily you should have these keywords positioned throughout your online content and also in the online text that is hidden to readers eyes.

Use your keywords in:

• The titles of your articles, blog posts and social media entries
• The first paragraphs of each of the things your write.
• And again in the rest of your content.

There are various tools to determine the best keywords you should use. If you are just developing your international business online, do not let this hold you up. This is something you will need to refine as your knowledge of your foreign market expands.

If your online content is informative and interesting to your target audience you will be using your keywords. Simply remember you are writing for the web and not offline. Search engines need to see key words up front, often but not so often they think you are a machine writing for them.

Basic Internet Marketing Strategy Using Organic SEO.

With the example of this organic SEO campaign, these are the steps your visitor will take:

1. Use articles published in online directories to link back to either your blog or social media page.
2. Use each blog entry to link directly to your company web site or sales landing page.
3. Use entries on the social media websites to link directly to your company web site or sales landing page.
4. Your company website, or sales landing page. Give extra thought as to where you want your visitor to arrive. Does it say to him what he needs to hear? If not, adjust your url and send him to the appropriate page on your website.

Pay attention to the “conversation” you will have with your visitors all along this path. You need to have a coherent conversation. The same story should follow through. You might want them to “land” somewhere specific on your website.

If you have potential clients in different industries, make a separate path for each industry linking them through a story line that is relevant to their needs, questions, objections, using their industry specific vocabulary.

Ask yourself the following questions at each step in the path:

• Why do we want this traffic in the first place?
• What do we want the visitor to do?
• What is he thinking right now?
• Are we answering the questions he is asking himself right at this minute?

Integrated Marketing Plan

Your internet marketing strategy using organic SEO is a powerful lead generation tool. It will bring you optimum results by using an integrated marketing both online and offline.

Implement a multi-channel integrated marketing plan to work together with your basic internet marketing strategy. Use newsletters, ezines, audio, case studies, surveys, teleconferences, videos and other communication tools to guide your visitors and get to create a relationship with them.

More On International Case Studies:

• Case Study For Getting Your Website Visible In Japan
• Internet Strategies For French PME
• Internet Success For An Isolated Brick and Mortar Store
• Should Successful Internet Marketers Get Into International Marketing?

More In These Get International Clients International Sales Road Map:

• Discover Your International Business
• Plan Your International Sales Road Map
• International Market Research
• International Web Visibility
• Connect With Your International Markets

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Internet Strategies For French PME

Foreign Search Engine Submissions

Below you will find explicit how-to instructions to submit your website to several German search engines.

If you have a country that you would like included in this tutorial, leave a comment requesting your country, language or search engine of preference and it will be included.

But first, you might be interested in reading a more detailed post entitled: Website Localization – Which Directories are You Relying on?
This article goes through the reasons why you should be looking at referencing your website in local search directories. In most countries Google, Yahoo and MSN are also the leading search directories. But some countries have other local search directories you should know about if you are targeting those countries. This post will show you how to…

Submit Your Website To German Directories

is a search engine that allows you to register your site in one step.

Abacho was founded in Neuss, Germany in 1996 as a full-service advertising agency that merged with Spider.de, Aladin.de and Eule.de in March 2000 to form the new Internet search engine tool www.Abacho.de. the company rapidly became an expert in the field of Internet search engine operations. Abacho’s search tool, the company’s trademark, is available to users both as a search-only function at and as an efficient tool integrated into Internet portals.

Abacho’s search engine tool is one of the top products on the German-speaking market and is also present in Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey with country-specific Abacho versions.

Go to http://www.abacho.de/abacho_dienst/anmelden.html and on the site you will see a full page that includes the image shown below.

Simply enter your full URL, if possible using a page that had previously been translated into German (Google Translate – English to German), and hit the URL anmelden (Register URL) button and your site is queued to be spidered and registered. The page does say that it can take up to four weeks for the spider to visit your site and that they exclude discriminatory, racist, sexist and adult sites.

As stated above, Abacho also has nine other sites that you can use, each identified by a country flag. On each country site there is a link just like the one have highlighted below, that allows you to add your URL to that country search engine.

Below is a screen shot of the Turkish site. All of the country sites are essentially the same, and all have the ability to register your site.

Remember, it will only take Google about 15 seconds to translate one page into the available languages. It is probably worth the effort.

Allesklar

The second German site covered has two professional offerings and one free service. You are more than welcome to register using the paid services, contact me if you would like assistance properly using either of these services. The free Allesklar service is reached by clicking on the auswählen (select) link in the gratis (free) column, as seen below.

Entering site Details

Entering your site here is a bit more complex than the previous site. In addition to your URL, you must include contact information. The first requirement is to enter a country and city. It is easy to leave Deutschland as the country, and you can use the name of any German city in the field showing Stadt in the image below. Tauberbischofsheimis the longest German city name that comes to mind, Aub the shortest. After entering these details hit the weiter (Continue) button.

More Required Details

The next page requires a dozen bits of information. Use the city that you referenced in the last step and take special care on the address line. The highlighted box is your street address, a number must be supplied. Although this may seem strange, adding an address and a city does not mean you have to give a real address, you can use your home address and associate it with the City you choose.

This list is a translation of the long screen below. All information with a * is required:

More Required Details (part 2)

This image is the reference for the details listed above. Make sure you fill out all required lines PLUS the street number in the highlighted box. Once complete, click on the Registrieren (register) button and you will be 3 mouse clicks away from being done.

Terms and Conditions of Service

After completing the fields on the page above and clicking the Registrieren (register) button you will come to your final page with something to complete. You are required to click the 2 boxes below to accept the terms and conditions of the service. Your last click will be to hit the bestellung senden (Send order) button after having checked the two boxes, and you will be sent to the completion page.

Completed Registration

After that last click you will get a screen showing that die registrierung war erfolgreigh (The registration was successful) .

More On Foreign Search Engine Submissions

• Chinese Search Engine Submissions
• German Search Engine Submissions
• Russian Search Engine Submissions

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

German Search Engine Submissions