Focus

Connect with the world's leading business experts.

Get instant access to their expertise via world–class Q&A, Research, and Events.

Zaki Usman

Follow Following Unfollow

CEO, shoutEx

218 points

Online marketing professional thats packaged and marketed leading nordic SaaS solutions. For more info visit www.targetinfolabs.com/about

Zaki Usman is now following Michaela Melcher and 5 other people

March 23, 2011

Zaki Usman and 3 other people answered this question

March 23, 2011

Where do you start with Google Adwords?

You are right, Adwords can be a good marketing tool for any size company. Before starting off on Adwords, consider:
Analyze the market
Use Keywordspy.com to get a sense of keywords and ad copies being run by your competitors. Look at their landing pages and see if ... more

Online Marketing

Search Marketing

Zaki Usman and 3 other people answered this question

March 23, 2011

What are some SEO tips for marketing to niche markets?

- Find out keywords that are easy to SEO for. Use various tools (WebCEO, SEO Spyglass, etc) to figure that out.
- Apply on-page SEO tactics (Add keywords to page title, h1/h2 tags, and improve text copy with keywords, etc.)
- Try to build up back-links to ... more

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

Zaki Usman and 3 other people answered this question

March 10, 2011

Would it make more sense to create a blog that is part of your site's domain or a separate blog?

I think this a good discussion but its tilting towards online communities - such as Focus.com. As you realize that kind of effort requires considerable manpower and resources.
Also suggesting using multiple blogs is all well intentioned, but in practicality its very hard work. Especially ... more

Zaki Usman and 2 other people answered this question

March 4, 2011

What is Link Baiting?

Linkbaiting is when you publish content with the primary intention of grabbing back links to your site.
Before, link baiting was viewed as a negative SEO practice. Probably because it was used by shady SEO firms that had doorway pages, etc (all those things from 2003.)
These ... more

Information Technology

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Jeremy Pepper

Feb. 12, 2011

What is the best way to promote your blog and gain readership?

Write for yourself and for a few friends. Don't write to gain an audience, but write for passion. Audience will come. more

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Brian Provost

Feb. 12, 2011

What are the options to manage Search Engine Marketing if its scope outgrows Adwords interface?

It depends on your budget. If you have a monthly spend above a certain point, there are high-powered services that become cost effective. I would take a look at Marin Software http://www.marinsoftware.com . The Marin app brings some serious processing power to the table and ... more

Paid Search Advertising

Search Engine Optimzation

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Brian Provost

Jan. 21, 2011

Any value in purchasing a SEO program to optimize our website or can we do effectively for free?

How big is the site?
How bad is the site?
What kind of in-house resources do you have?
Learning SEO elements and improving your platform is remarkably easy for most and knocks out the low hanging fruit. Most companies can do this if they have the time.
If ... more

Zaki Usman published a brief

Nov. 23, 2010

Which of the 3 Open Source CMS is the Best for You?

Information Technology

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Manoj Aravindakshan

Nov. 9, 2010

Is SEO lost if I redesign my site or content?

In all likelihood, yes. It really depends on the nature and extent of changes you make to the site, but I reckon it is a safe bet to assume at least a short-term impact on your organic search engine traffic following a significant revamp of ... more

Information Technology

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

Zaki Usman answered this question

Nov. 9, 2010

How to put your keyword to work?

Good question. Keyword research is important and best way to figure out is to look at your existing site analytics. Look at what traffic results in
i) higher traffic
ii) best conversions.
What you want to do is use this historical data, compare it to ... more

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Yogesh Soni

Nov. 9, 2010

Wordpress Comment Spam: How do you deal with it?

Hi
Akismet Plug in for Wordpress does good job blocking incoming spams.
Also keep updating your Wordpress to recent version to avoid any script attacks
If you are getting many comments, and would like to manage comment thread then you can install comment plug-in from intensedebate.com, which ... more

Wordpress Plugins

Zaki Usman published a brief

Oct. 27, 2010

What Works in Print Advertising

Creative Marketing

Zaki Usman and 3 other people answered this question

Oct. 27, 2010

How important is engaging customer service in social media?

I agree with Paul about customer engagement through Twitter. I think Twitter is practical in Customer Support operations because its cheap, easy to use and has ubiquitous presence. Thats why it makes sense to engage your customers on Twitter regardless if you are a startup ... more

Customer Service

Customer Relations

Zaki Usman and 4 other people answered this question

Oct. 26, 2010

Do you use Facebook for your advertisements?

Facebook is a cheap way to reach out to the mainstream audience - which you can segment significantly well to match your demographics (age, gender, location) as well as keyword interests (gamer, project manager, hobbyist).
The only problem with Facebook visitors is that they are ... more

Zaki Usman answered this question

Oct. 26, 2010

What is your opinion on online marketing?

Kim,
It really depends on your client-tel. Think about what motivates clients to come to your deli and buy? For example, is your location next to a college, business offices, government building, shopping mall, airport etc.
See if you can reach out to this traffic using ... more

Marketing Strategies

Online Marketing

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Ileane Smith

Oct. 23, 2010

How do you manage the time involved in searching in Twitter?

I use "social mentions" to track mentions of the company and some others at the organization use Google Alerts.
I also use HootSuite and monitor searches on our company name and Twitter accounts in different columns and tabs. If you have any questions about using HootSuite ... more

Focus Interactive Summit

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Ardath Albee

Oct. 23, 2010

Is the funnel still a relevant metaphor for the b2b sales and marketing process?

I think the funnel is misleading. The shape implies that you pour a bunch of leads into the top and then some of them come out the bottom as customers. To me, that's like implying that even if you do nothing, customers will still come ... more

Marketing Process

Zaki Usman recommends this answer by Nik Kellingley

Oct. 21, 2010

Where can you find a good SEO specialist?

SEO is an over-hyped deal, most SEO you can do yourself - easily, quickly and cheaply. Thanks to google adwords providing a tool to show not just the rankings of your preferred search terms, but also the associated terms - you can quickly keyword optimise ... more

SEO Credentials

Zaki Usman and 8 other people answered this question

Oct. 20, 2010

How do I learn more about Search Engine Optimization?

I would say first try to look up the links yourself and see if they make sense. SEO is not rocket science and there is so much obscurity in this field that you get some shady SEO firms. So first do your own HW and ... more

Following 3 Topics

Search Engine Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Following 3 People

Followed by 7 People

Knowledgeable in 23 Topics

#115 of 2755

#36 of 1411

Email Marketing

#15 of 266

Marketing Automation

#43 of 497

#2 of 100

Email Marketing Campaign

#3 of 50

Email Marketing Strategies

#3 of 48

#220 of 1211

#75 of 211

#118 of 391

#6 of 25

#45 of 117

Information Technology

#900 of 2263

#71 of 188

Social Media Sites

#35 of 93

#87 of 168

#122 of 243

#92 of 107

Search Engine Optimization

#88 of 133

#13 of 21

Search Engine Marketing

#36 of 45

Search Marketing

#83 of 109

Website Analytics

#16 of 24