Contrary to the common perception that the most common keywords make for the largest inflow of traffic, these keywords contribute to a meager 20% of the total search traffic for a particular industry niche. The search traffic is far dominated by the long tail keywords, which are basically longer, and a lot more specific than their shorter counterparts.
For instance, while a common keyword could be “apartments for rent in Dallas”, a long tail keyword for the same search could read “three-bedroom apartments for rent in Dallas”. These keywords, which are often 4-6 words long, make for a whopping 70% of search traffic, which is reason enough for everyone marketing their business online, to pay keen attention to them.

Here’s a look at how you can benefit from these keywords:

• The competition for these keywords is a lot less than that for more common keywords, which improves your chances of attaining a high rank in SERPs when you target these keywords.

• The leads coming from such keywords are likely to be users who know just what they are looking for. This results in a greater conversion rate for long tail keywords.

• The “head terms” in long tail keywords remain largely similar to the other keywords that you are targeting, which mean that your SEO efforts towards these keywords will overlap those for more common keywords for your business.

• Even though long tail keywords have a low competition, this is balanced out by the significantly high click-through rate, making them highly profitable for businesses.

While the benefits of long tail keywords for your online marketing strategy are obvious, it is important to understand that you cannot afford to ignore your generic, short tail keywords at the expense of long tail keywords. These keywords are equally important for your business, as they play a key role in creating interest and building brand awareness for your business in the initial stages of your SEO campaign.

The process of targeting long tail keywords is undoubtedly hectic and time-consuming. After all, we are talking about structuring thousands of keywords into hundreds of similar groups, and landing pages for each of these groups. However, the personalized and relevant service that these keywords offer your customers makes you stand out as a provider who really cares to address the individual needs of his customers, giving you a much-needed head start from your competitors.

Simply put, cloud computing refers to computing based on the internet. This eliminates the need to run programs or applications downloaded on a personal computer, since the same applications can be accessed through the internet. Not only does this help in the optimal utilization of computing resources, but it also enhances management by converging the software and hardware needs. Small businesses are predicted to spend over $100 billion on cloud computing by 2014, and with good reason, considering all the benefits it has to offer. Here are the top benefits of cloud computing:

• Flexibility: With the vast capacity available on the remote servers of the cloud computing service, it is possible for the service to instantly meet the company’s demand for more resources than usual.

• Quick disaster recovery: Cloud computing eliminates the need for complex disaster recovery plans. According to a survey by the Aberdeen Group, businesses that used cloud-based systems were able to resolve issues 4 times faster as compared to those that didn’t.

• Decreased costs: The “replacement” capital expenditure incurred updating obsolete resources is eliminated with the use of cloud computing services. Costs are further reduced through the centralization of power, bandwidth, and real estate.

• Location independence: Cloud computing makes it possible for SMEs to set up multiple redundant sites to establish business continuity during disaster recovery.

• Quick deployment: A cloud computing system typically takes lesser time to go live, as compared to an on-premise application. In addition to this, the IT resources required for a cloud computing service are also minimal.

• Automatic software updates: Cloud computing suppliers provide security updates and server maintenance, which helps to save time as well as resources.

• Pay as you go: Businesses need absolutely no capital expenditure to invest in a cloud-computing service. The start-up costs are also minimal, since these services are typically pay-as-you-go. In addition to this, the ongoing expenses are predictable, which is beneficial from the business point of view.

• Increased collaboration: Cloud computing encourages collaboration among employees by allowing them to sync up and work simultaneously on documents, despite their location. Colleagues can also share apps, follow records, and receive critical real-time updates. This form of collaborative technology results in a significant boost to the return on investment of companies.

The landing page of your website is your chance to strike the right first impression on prospective clients and customers. Most users decide whether they want to stay on a website or leave it, within the first few seconds of landing on it. An ideal landing page is one that not just manages to convince users to stay on your website, but also encourages them to convert and share socially. The major problems in landing pages from an SEO standpoint are: mismatch with keyword searched for by user, inability to grasp attention, and poor conversion patterns. The following tips guide you on how to create landing pages that actually work:

• The most important step to landing page improvement from a search perspective is setting relevant keywords to landing pages. Not only do you need to rank high for the right keywords in search engines, but you also need to ensure that you are ranking the right landing pages.

• The integration of Rank Tracker with Google Analytics allows you to analyze the amount of traffic coming to your target landing page, as well as bounce rates. It is important to track the landing pages that rank for different keywords, since quite often, the landing page that you try to rank might be different from the one that search engines prefer for the same keywords.

• The next step is to ensure that your landing pages have what it takes to keep users engaged. You can work on this by leveling up the content of your landing pages. You can determine if users find your landing page engaging. It is also helpful to analyze user comments, shares, and feedbacks.

• Pay attention to the design and layout of your landing page. The layout should be user-friendly and intuitive, preferably with visuals, short videos, pictograms, and screenshots to make navigation easy.

• Building funnels for bundles of landing pages can help to identify unexpected flaws. It is advisable to analyze various landing page-registration page combinations through this method.

• Finally, remember to diversify your landing page content based on the level of awareness of your users. The landing page should have content to grasp users who have no previous knowledge as well as avid users.

Just remember that landing page optimization is a continuous process. There is always a scope for improvement when it comes to landing pages- the key remains to keep working on your landing pages consistently and proactively.

Widely popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have immense potential when it comes to generating new business. Even though almost all employees nowadays are familiar with these networks, it is unfortunate that the average business does not make the most out of these platforms, despite them being free to use. Social networking for your business is a great way to reach out to potential customers and maintain communication with existing ones.

• By engaging users in social networking activities for your business, you send out an impression of being on the cutting edge, giving you a competitive edge in the industry. Despite the dedication and constant work that social networking demands, it has several advantages to offer your business.

• Being active on social networks gives customers a chance to check-in when they visit your business, serving as an efficient way to spread the word about your business.

• A social network gives you a wide audience to reach out to, by making your business accessible to friends of friends. This means that if an existing customer who is active on your social networking page likes/ shares an update, this makes you visible to their entire network of friends.

• Social networking for your business also gives you a chance to establish your professional credibility and expertise through blogs.

• Social networking sites like Pinterest are a good choice for businesses that rely on the impact of images to generate interest among existing and prospective customers.

• One of the biggest advantages offered by social networking platforms to business owners is free marketing. Businesses can use these channels to offer deals to engage current followers and attract new customers.

• These platforms also make it possible for businesses to have direct access to their customers, being able to instantly address any doubts or queries, express gratitude, provide suggestions, spread information, and showcase their brand by way of conversation.

• Conveying the right tone and ensuring consistency in the brand image projected on social networks gives your business a personality and a voice, increasing the impact of your marketing efforts.

• LinkedIn serves as an excellent platform for networking with business professionals in a particular industry, which can go a long way in spreading the wings of your business.

The key to successful usage of social networking for your business lies in thinking out of the box. It is important to constantly evaluate your strategies to ensure that you are making the most out of social media.

A computer network is bound to have network connectivity related issues, which is why every network user should be familiar with at least a basic level of network troubleshooting. Sometimes the issue can be resolved by simply tweaking a wire or typing a command, saving you hundreds on calling in an IT expert each time something goes wrong. The following simple guidelines take you through a step-by-step tutorial on how to diagnose and solve common networking problems:

• The first thing to do should be to make sure the physical condition of the network, i.e. the network cable is intact.

• Next, execute a command prompt with IPCONFIG /all. Make sure that the IP address, default gateway, and subnet mask are correct. If there is any error at this stage, modifying it should bring the network back online.

• If that doesn’t work, the next step should be to use the PING command to ping the servers by IP address. This is one of the simplest commands to diagnose networking problems and is present in almost all operating systems. DNS issues should be ruled out by pinging the server’s name.

• If these commands do not work, the issue usually lies in the internal DNS. Pinging a website like www.yahoo.com tests external DNS resolution.

• If the DNS resolution is fine, you need to run NetStat ‘’’’a to rule out a Trojan or virus having infested the machine.

• If no viruses are detected, a pathping or tracert run between the machine and the internet can help to identify any pending network problems. For instance, you might notice another computer using the same IP address and host name as your network. The solution for this is using Angry Ipscanner.exe to identify the host name or query the IP address. If you are working on a Linux or MacOS machine, you can use a similar tool known as traceroute.

• If none of these techniques diagnose a network issue, this usually indicates that there is no problem in the machine, but the issue lies in the network itself. For this, try firing up Wireshark to listen to all the traffic and responses for your network. If you are not familiar with how to decode the data at this stage, you can make use of one of the many useful online resources available to get help with that.

Centex Technologies is a leading IT support and networking company providing complete computer network installation and repair services. We serve Dallas, Killeen and other surrounding areas in Central Texas. For more information, call us at - (972) 375-9654

With one out of two adults in the United States owning a handheld device with internet access, it is becoming more important than ever for businesses to tap into the advertising potential of smartphone apps, a major part of which includes games. Smartphones have led to a boom in the online gaming industry, with an estimated 126 million Americans playing a game on their smart phone every month, making chances of you reaching prospective customers through gaming app marketing increasingly high.

The marketing strategies through smartphone games are countless, ranging from pop-up ads to marketers placing themselves in gaming apps. This marketing strategy is especially useful for businesses targeting the middle-aged demographic, which as per a recent survey by Flurry, are the leading users of game apps. Marketing through gaming apps helps you enter into the personal space of a user, with most users treating their smartphones as extensions of themselves. This makes it a lot easier to establish a deep connection with the user, which would previously be possible only through personal interaction.

However, when advertising in the gaming market, you need to have a thorough understanding of the math of the app business, where installation is not the end of the game. The real question that needs to be asked is not how many people are installing the gaming app that you are advertising on, but how many are actually retaining it. While advertising through gaming apps, you can choose between the following two options- advertising on someone else’s app, and creating your own app.

The first option makes sense for small businesses that have found a gaming app that targets their market. An example of this form of marketing is gaming companies that allow you to send coupons to smartphone users of their apps. Creating a marketing app for your business, on the other hand, is more challenging in terms of choosing the right nature of an app. “Gamification” of apps is being viewed as a great way to engage users and increase retention of the app. Your goal should be to find a way to merge your market with the kind of gaming app you choose.

A key marketing lesson to imbibe while creating a gaming app to market your business is to understand the power of free. Keeping your app free will entice more people to play your game by eliminating the risk involved in making a purchasing decision.

Centex Technologies provide Mobile Application Development Services to its clients. We also assist clients in planning and executing mobile ads and SEO.

Having a well-structured member management system can be highly beneficial to organizations, serving as an efficient means to record and manage membership data. This is especially important for organizations with sparse resources, such as non-profit organizations, where lagging behind on registrations and payments can cost the company heavily. With a modern membership management system in place, you can track payments, registrations, contact details, membership renewals, and more, in a single click. This is also a great way to distribute information among members, saving on time and other resources.

Here is a look at some of major features that make a member management system an indispensable component of every member-based organization:

• The easy-to-search member database makes it possible to retrieve information regarding any member instantly.
• The built-in email function helps to contact entire membership in a single go. This tool is great for sending invites, event confirmations, renewal reminders, etc. in bulk.
• The members also have access to the member management system, which makes it possible to access information of groups joined by them, purchase products, and update contact information.
• The member management system can also be used for event management. You can set up an event with information such as date, venue, capacity, etc. You can also control the number of registrations, send reminder emails, send invites, accept registration payments, etc.
• New members can submit membership applications and make payments online on the system.
• Such a system is scalable, hence making it easy to remove and add new members into the system.
• The system can also be used to manage attendance and enable real-time tracking of the number of members attending a particular event, meeting, activity, etc.
• A member management system is particularly useful for non-profit organizations, where these can be used to report extensively, hence meeting all the statutory needs of such an organization.
• One-click view of current members eliminates duplication.
• The fully-automated system makes it easy to activate new member accounts as well as deactivate old ones.
• Along with managing membership data, the member management system can also be used for visitor management, maintaining details of every visitor on your premise.
• The system also doubles up as an attendance management system, through which you can record attendance of members by member name, member number, units, etc. The attendance can be updated and tracked instantly through this system.

We at Centex Technologies, Dallas TX provide customized Member Management Software System to our clients. For more information call us at - (972) 375-9654

Cloud computing is a technique that is rapidly gaining popularity with SMEs, with an estimated $100 billion predicted to be spent on cloud computing services by 2014. Put simply, cloud applications are software apps that are based on the internet, as opposed to conventional applications that users would access through software downloaded or installed on to their computers. Cloud applications extend from software like Google Apps, Salesforce, etc., which are basically service providers, to everyday applications of common use, like Microsoft Office or accounting software.

Here’s a look at some of the major benefits offered by the use of cloud applications:

• Cloud services are very easy to manage for businesses providing applications to number of users across different locations.

• Another advantage offered by cloud computing is the simplified disaster recovery that it offers. While the average disaster recovery time for businesses that did not use the cloud was 8 hours, this was reduced to 2 hours through the use of cloud applications.

• A significant amount of time and resources spent on managing on-line security can be saved through the use of cloud computing. This is because cloud hosting companies carry out automatic security updates and server maintenance.

• The start-up costs involved in cloud computing are minimal, since this is essentially a pay-as-you-go service. Switching to cloud applications is a quick process with predictable ongoing expenditure, making these ideal for SME projects.

• These applications offer an increased amount of collaboration and coordination among employees. It is possible for workers to sync the data they are working on, and work on apps of documents simultaneously. This form of collaboration technology is found to boost productivity at the workplace by a whopping 400%.

• Through the use of cloud-based applications, employees can work from anywhere where they have internet connectivity. This helps businesses to offer flexibility in work schedules, and work-from-home options, which are desirable to achieve a work-life balance and hence have higher productivity.

• Cloud applications make it possible for people in different time zones and locations to work on the same document simultaneously. It eliminates the need to send the document back and forth through email, with a different name each time. Instead, the document is stored at one central location, helping in a higher level of collaboration.

• All the data remains stored in the cloud, which means that businesses do not have to worry about losing important data if the device on which it was stored gets stolen.

Centex Technologies develop cutting edge software applications for its clients. For more information, call us at - (972) 375-9654

In an interesting feature introduced by Google, business owners can now merge their Google Plus business page with their Google Places listing. While this may sound a little confusing because of the similar names, it is actually as simple as merging any of your social network profiles with your Google Places listings. This means that whenever anyone views your listing on Google Places, you can further market your business through your Google Plus business page. Interestingly, Google allows you to merge only if you have a physical address where you service your customers. Here is a step-by-step guideline on how to carry out this merge:

• The first step is to of course, create a new Google Plus page if you don’t already have one. Start by clicking on the Google+ link at the far left of your Google account. Next, click on the Pages icon, and then on “Create New Page”.

• It is important to select the “Local Business or Place” in the next page that pops up, since you shall not be able to merge unless you choose this option.

• Pay special attention while entering your phone number. You want to make sure that it is a local phone number, and the same one as is listed on your Google Places profile.

• Upon entering the same phone number as that in your listing, you will see a pop-up from Google saying that it has found a matching phone number. This should be your Google Places listing.

• Next, click on this listing and enter your actual business name and website, and then click on continue.

• The final step is to click on the “Verify Now” button, and finally on the blue “Request postcard” button. This is the only option for Google Places-Google Plus merges.

• The postcard usually takes around 7-10 days to arrive. Once you receive it, you need to click the “Enter PIN” button to complete the verification. You can request another PIN if you do not receive the postcard in 14 days.

• Once your Google Places listing is merged with your Google Plus business page, you can make the most of this merge by uploading a cover image, writing a longer business description, and including links. Add to this your reviews and social updates all being listed on one page, and you have the much-needed competitive edge for your business.

Centex Technologies provide SEO, Google Places Optimization and Internet Marketing Services to its clients across Dallas and Killeen areas in Texas. Call Centex Technologies today at (972) 375-9654.

With local search queries dominating Google, optimizing your website or local business on Google Place listings is a strategy that you cannot overlook. Ever noticed how local maps sit right at the top of search results on Google? With the relatively scarce competition in local search, it is a realistic aim to have your business showing in those very maps when users perform a local search for your business on Google. Take a look at these simple tips to optimize your business on Google Places listings-

• Upon creating your listing, you shall need to furnish information regarding your business in various fields. Make sure that you fill all those fields with accurate and detailed information. Do not leave any section unfilled- right from business hours to additional services provided- it’s all important when it comes to Google Places listings.

• It is a good idea to provide a keyword-rich description for your business. Subtly include the keywords that you want to be found for in the description, without distorting its sense.

• It is also important to ensure that you are consistent in the information provided. This means that you should provide the same information regarding your business on all your social media profiles, as well as your website.

• Regularly including special offers or discounts in your Google Places description could help in encouraging users to actually click on your listing when it appears in search engine results. Remember to regularly update these offers and offer users what you promised when they actually land on your website.

• Including pictures in your Google Places listing is a good way to attract users, and to stand out in Google’s search results. This is especially true for businesses in which customers need to see a product before buying it, or where the name of the product being sold is not common enough for users to directly search for it.

• Google Review is one of the most useful tools for webmasters seeking to optimize their Google Places listings. Encourage your loyal customers to write reviews of your company and include these reviews on your listing. You could also consider uploading video testimonials, or asking clients to upload pictures of them at your establishment. User generated content and positive reviews are amongst the most powerful tools when it comes to local search engine optimization.

• Google itself also encourages its users to post reviews, by giving star ratings on map listings.